Friday, July 31, 2015

Celebrate fifty years of Medicare.

“No longer will older Americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine. No longer will illness crush and destroy the savings that they have so carefully put away over a lifetime so that they might enjoy dignity in their later years. No longer will young families see their own incomes, and their own hopes, eaten away simply because they are carrying out their deep moral obligations to their parents, and to their uncles, and their aunts.”

 Voucherizing Medicare is more than Republican political rhetoric, it is an actual agenda item. If it weren't for President Obama in the White House the legislative majority would already have turned Medicare into a disaster.

...Like in past years,(click here) the House Republican Budget would essentially turn Medicare into a voucher program. The proposed structure would undermine traditional fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare and eventually render the program unsustainable. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that under the House Republican Budget approach, FFS premiums will be 50 percent higher than current projections for the traditional Medicare Part B premium. This is because, as the voucher fails to keep up with the pace of inflation, a higher share of costs would shift to beneficiaries over time. 

Under current law, Medicare premium rates are consistent across the country, but the House Republican Budget would expose beneficiaries to wide variation in out-of-pocket costs. For traditional FFS Medicare, seniors in a high-cost region in Alaska could pay more than twice what seniors in a low-cost region in Minnesota pay – an estimated $3,300 versus $1,500 for the same plan. Without the affordable Medicare FFS option that the majority of seniors currently choose to enroll in, many beneficiaries would be left with substandard private plans. Insurers offering these plans would be incentivized to compete on price and would do so by limiting benefits and access in order to maintain profit margins....
 
This is not a hot topic. It is settled. Americans want Medicare to remain the same. Don't be afraid of it.

The lame excuse for killing an endangered species is, "I didn't know."

No one knew animals in Africa are considered threatened and endangered from poaching? No one knew that?

I especially love the part where Cecil was tracked for 40 some hours and eventually killed because he was still alive with an hunting arrow lodged in him. I suppose upon finding a collar around his neck which could be picked up to track for many reason, the idea reporting the death to authorities wasn't important. 

The hunting party never acted lawfully.
 
July 31, 2015
By Anthony Castellano

...“A lot of people are angry, (click here) but I think at this stage, let's allow justice to take its course,” Muvhiringi added.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has opened its own investigation, but has so far been unable to reach Walter Palmer. Officials are asking Palmer to contact them immediately.
The outrage over Cecil's death is now being heard loud and clear in Washington. A WhiteHouse. gov petition urging U.S. authorities to extradite Palmer has more than 100,000 signatures, which means the Obama administration will have to respond.
Meanwhile in Zimbabwe, Oppah Muchinguri, the country’s environment, water and climate minister, said he is seeking to extradite Palmer, the Associated Press reported.
"Unfortunately it was too late to apprehend the foreign poacher as he had already absconded to his country of origin," Muchinguri said at a news conference. "We are appealing to the responsible authorities for his extradition to Zimbabwe so that he be made accountable."

Bombing of Gaza has started in the past when three Israeli teenagers' reputation has to be defended.

July 31, 2015
By Ali Sawfta

Suspected Jewish attackers (click here) torched a Palestinian home in the occupied West Bank on Friday, killing an 18-month-old child and seriously injuring his parents and older brother, an act that Israel's prime minister described as terrorism. 

The house in Duma, a village near the city of Nablus, had its windows smashed and fire bombs thrown inside shortly before dawn as the family slept, the military and witnesses said. Graffiti in Hebrew reading "revenge" was scrawled outside, below a Star of David. 

The child's parents and four-year-old brother were flown by helicopter to an Israeli hospital where they were said to be in serious condition, officials said. A second house in the village was also set ablaze, but no one was at home.


It was the worst attack by Israeli assailants since a Palestinian teenager was burned to death in Jerusalem a year ago. That followed the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers by Palestinian militants in the West Bank...


I'm sure FOX will ignore the fact an 18 month old child is dead until Hamas starts sending rockets over the border to Israel's Iron Dome. At that point I am sure there is something the Palestinian family did to warrant the attack.



July 30, 2015
By Keith Wagstaff

Officials (click here) want to know who flew drones near several wildfires in California's San Bernardino mountains, causing firefighters to temporarily ground their flame-battling planes. 

The reward for someone who identifies the drone operators? $75,000.

 "In the most recent fire, the North Fire, we saw cars and trucks burning on the freeway, we saw homes burn, and we saw families running for their lives," Jorge Ramos, chairman of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors, said in a statement. 

"We want to know who was flying drones, and we want them punished," he said. "Someone knows who they are, and there is $75,000 waiting for them." 

San Bernardino District Attorney Mike Ramos said that the drone operators could be prosecuted for murder if the drones caused delays that led to deaths of any firefighters or civilians....

The Right Wing politics wants to equiate human beings to animals.

Really?

Okay, let's do that. 

The argument is that people are very upset about Cecil but not about abortion. 

Cecil was self supporting. Did you know that? It was no requirement that he needed childcare or the type of economic burden a child brings to life. He didn't need food stamps or health care. And he and his species also received protections so that they couldn't be hunted. There is a far different sense of responsibility than a human being.

When FOX tries to equate animals to human beings I'd be very careful. I suppose FOX provides incredible funds to animal rescues so they weren't euthanized. Right? They should put those donations to support animals within the USA out to the American public to prove they actually do support socialism.

FOX supports money as people so there is a real issue here for them. Human beings have far less importance in FOX WORLD. Inanimate objects are more important than Americans. So the anti-abortion rant about human beings really isn't all that, is it? FOX regularly states health care is an option and not a requirement. They believe the USA should be bailing out Wall Street and let's face it, money to million billionaires in the tax structure is far more important than a fair tax structure to Moms and Dads the backbone of the Working Poor.

See, the idea war is better than peace is also a human rights issue. So, when comparing animals to human beings Cecil has the same rights as Iranians in FOX's paradigm.

The veil of FOX's idea that abortions do not receive the same compassion as Cecil really is far more complicated than simply saying Americans on the left love animals more than children. That isn't at all true. What the left likes is an equal playing field, not one laced with police that kill or a country that dismisses it's economic priority to provide equal treatment of all citizens trying to move up the socio-economic ladder. Cecil never had an equality problem or had trouble finding his next meal. The attachment to animals is not about abortion vs child care, it is about protecting a species endangered and prey to the will of wealthy Americans. 

The only consistency about FOX's judgmental paradigm is that it favors wealth over poverty to the point where public education is a parasite and contraception a distant second to providing no insurance coverage to Americans unable to provide it.

Cecil is a moral issue. He is the place where compassion lives cost free. He helps build a society that values life. He is the world of abstraction where love and hate exist and a society decides the life of an endangered species is more important than the hunt. Cecil is a very important commodity to the world. He says 'Stop don't kill me." which isn't provided for African Americas stopped for minor traffic infringements. So, when FOX wants to begin some kind of judgement about people with compassion, they need to stop and realize why they have none.

Thursday, July 30, 2015

For those following polls, here is one from St. Petersburg, Florida

This is Pinellas County and not Miami-Dade County. The population of St. Petersburg is about one quarter of a million people (250,000).

The communities (click here) of the St. Petersburg/Clearwater area cover a peninsula in the Tampa Bay area, from Tarpon Springs at the far north to Tierra Verde in the south. Much of the area’s reknown comes from our awesome, award-winning beach towns. Clearwater Beach was voted “Best Beach Town in Florida” in 2013; St. Pete was voted No. 1 in the U.S. and No. 5 in the world by TripAdvisor in 2012; and Tierra Verde’s famous Fort de Soto Park has more awards than we can even list here.

This is the downtown of St. Petersburg. If that shelf cloud decided to make an impression on the city, it would not be pretty.

Besides the tourism industry there is a few other businesses such as Raymond James with 3000 employees, several hospitals employing several thousand people and HSN (Home Shopping Network) employs about 2500 people. There is also an insurance company or two with a thousand or so people employed. No manufacturing to speak of, mostly tourism. Tourism is a year round business.

The communities of the St. Petersburg/Clearwater area cover a peninsula in the Tampa Bay area, from Tarpon Springs at the far north to Tierra Verde in the south. Much of the area’s reknown comes from our awesome, award-winning beach towns. Clearwater Beach was voted “Best Beach Town in Florida” in 2013; St. Pete was voted No. 1 in the U.S. and No. 5 in the world by TripAdvisor in 2012; and Tierra Verde’s famous Fort de Soto Park has more awards than we can even list here. - See more at: http://www.visitstpeteclearwater.com/communities#sthash.heCAQiRx.dpuf
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The communities of the St. Petersburg/Clearwater area cover a peninsula in the Tampa Bay area, from Tarpon Springs at the far north to Tierra Verde in the south. Much of the area’s reknown comes from our awesome, award-winning beach towns. Clearwater Beach was voted “Best Beach Town in Florida” in 2013; St. Pete was voted No. 1 in the U.S. and No. 5 in the world by TripAdvisor in 2012; and Tierra Verde’s famous Fort de Soto Park has more awards than we can even list here. - See more at: http://www.visitstpeteclearwater.com/communities#sthash.heCAQiRx.dpuf
The communities of the St. Petersburg/Clearwater area cover a peninsula in the Tampa Bay area, from Tarpon Springs at the far north to Tierra Verde in the south. Much of the area’s reknown comes from our awesome, award-winning beach towns. Clearwater Beach was voted “Best Beach Town in Florida” in 2013; St. Pete was voted No. 1 in the U.S. and No. 5 in the world by TripAdvisor in 2012; and Tierra Verde’s famous Fort de Soto Park has more awards than we can even list here. - See more at: http://www.visitstpeteclearwater.com/communities#sthash.heCAQiRx.dpu
St.PetePolls.org
A Division of Fextel, Inc.

July 28, 2015

Scientific Summary of Scientific Results: (click here)

Republican presidential primary election were held today who would you chose?

Ted Cruz: - 4.2%
Rand Paul: 3.3%
Marco Rubio: 9.7%
Ben Carson: 4.5%
Jeb Bush: 20.0%
Donald Trump: 26.1%
Scott Walker: 12.2%
John Kasich: 4.1%
Unsure or Someone else: 15.9 %        


I'd like to remind folks that Donald Trump has achieved this level of approval by Republicans without raising a single ad. I have not seen the iconic "TRUMP !" logo. I don't think he has a logo, right? So, while everyone is engaging the debate machine, Donald Trump is cruising along without a care. He has a solid 32% (the Republican Base) against any Democratic candidate. He hasn't done anything about ads or campaigning in any traditional method. 

I'm just sayin'. I never took him lightly. Call me crazy.

While northern California was fighting fires, thie manifests over St. Petersburg, Florida on July 27, 2015.

It is a shelf cloud. There is a rain shadow immediately behind the system's edge.




LOWER LAKE, Calif. (AP) — Triple-digit temperatures (click here) and gusty winds thrust Northern California into full-fledged wildfire season Thursday with several new blazes flaring up, forcing hundreds of people from their homes.

California's 14 large fires, mostly in the scorched northern half of the state, are pushing 7,000 firefighters to their limits as they battle flames amid drought, said Daniel Berlant, a spokesman for the California Department of Fire and Forestry Protection.

Dozens of fires started Wednesday, but Berlant said crews quickly corralled all but five of them.

"They only need a little wind to allow them to burn at an explosive rate," Berlant said.

People are to blame for most wildfires, but Berlant said California's drought provides the fuel to get the flames burning rapidly.

The California National Guard said Thursday that it is sending in a fleet of nine helicopters — Blackhawks, Chinooks and Lakotas — to back up Cal Fire crews. They'll douse flames with water, evacuate the injured, and move around firefighters and their equipment....






This is the size of the Rocky Fire. Look at the size of the trees compared to the inferno.

Rocky Fire (click here)

Last Updated: July 30, 2015 4:15 pm  
Date/Time Started: July 29, 2015 3:29 pm  
Administrative Unit: CAL FIRE Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit 
County: Lake County  
Location: near Morgan Valley Road and Rocky Creek Road, east of Lower Lake  
Acres Burned - Containment: 8,500 acres - 5% contained  
Structures Destroyed:3 Structures destroyed, Multiple outbuildings destroyed/damaged.  
Evacuations: Mandatory evacuations are in place for Morgan Valley Rd, both sides of the road to Knoxville Rd, Dam Rd, Mustang Court, Boham Rd, Ouarterhorse, Sleepy Hollow, Jerusalem Grade Road, Spruce Grove Rd (north), Noble Ranch Rd and Cantwell Ranch Rd. An evacuation center is opened at the Highland Senior Center, 3245 Bowers Road, Clearlake.
An animal evacuation center is opened at the Lower Lake Social Services parking lot, 15975 Anderson Ranch Parkway, Lower Lake.  
Road Closures :All mandatory evacuated (listed above) roads and Morgan Valley Road at Hwy 53.  
The Trump Organization and their problems in Scotland is not going to phase one Republicans voter.

Webpage (click here)

Set amidst The Great Dunes of Scotland, (click here) Trump International Golf Links embraces mile after mile of spectacular Aberdeenshire coastline and guarantees the experience of a lifetime. Against a dramatic North Sea backdrop, our award-winning championship course, designed by renowned links golf architect, Dr. Martin Hawtree, offers breathtaking scenery and an unparalleled test of golf. Woven through the majestic dunes, the course rises to find panoramic views of the sea and plunges into secluded valleys with each hole boasting distinct characteristics and unique features. Experience the unrivalled beauty, atmosphere and Scottish hospitality of Trump International – the ultimate golfing destination.

Republican voters will applaud his success in providing Scotland with a world class facility. Republicans want to eliminate the EPA from any president's cabinet. Does anyone think they care about this? 

Michael Forbes has his own page on Wikipedia. (click here) 

12 November 2007

EVEN after suffering defeat in his first battle, (click here) Michael Forbes is adamant he will never allow himself to be Trumped.

The day after Donald Trump's vast 1 billion golf resort overcame its first obstacle, receiving planning permission from the local planning committee, Mr Forbes was unrepentant.
"Nothing's changed," he insisted. "I've said from the start that I'd never sell, and Mr Trump knows that."

The truculence exhibited by the 55-year-old smallholder and salmon fisherman is winning him supporters. Mail from around the world arrives daily to his battered home in Balmedie, Aberdeenshire.

There, generations of his family have resided quietly on the unkempt 23-acre site. Though unsightly in the eyes of some, the place attracts little attention. But because it lies between the two championship golf courses planned by Mr Trump, his humble home has become a cause clbre.... 

The environmentalists received an honorable mention, but, what Bloomberg noticed was the backing of local politicians. Wall Street is interested in profit. He may have even received notice from potential investors. That is one expensive golf course.

November 27, 2007
By Peter Woodfield

Nov. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump's (click here) plan to build a 1 billion-pound ($2.1 billion) Scottish golf resort may move a step closer to reality today when local politicians consider the project that's opposed by environmental groups and some residents. 

The proposal, northern Scotland's biggest planned development in more than 25 years, will probably be ``rubber-stamped'' by a committee of the Aberdeenshire Council, said Paul Gallagher, a spokesman for the Scottish Wildlife Trust, a leading opponent of the project. Scotland's national government will have the final say because the course would encroach on a legally protected nature reserve and the area has not been zoned for housing.... 

Didn't Scotland want to leave the UK? I think there was a vote.
The difference between a socialist and a Democrat is private property ownership and laws that protect personal liberties. 

Democrats believe in the American Dream as the central strength of our democracy. It is about upward movement and hope for each generation. There is a big difference between socialism and democracy as practiced by Democrats.

It is grossly unfair to call Senator Sanders a socialist. He wants people to have a chance to improve their lives. That is not socialism.  

Republicans are more socialists than Democrats. They nationalized the banks in order to save them. Business bailouts is not democracy, it is socialism. A free market system would not be bailing out any business.

Republicans absolutely loved Quantitative Easing. That is socialism, not democracy or the free market. 

Major financial structures was raking in millions and billions from The Fed. They were getting the money for nothing. They simply had to present the ownership of treasury bonds. That is easy money. That is not the free market system.

This is the first time I've seen an accounting of the dead of the Afganistan War.

July 30, 2015
By Jon Lee Anderson

...The international conflict (click here) that Mullah Omar helped to start in 2001 is still going on, having cost, thus far, the lives of an estimated ninety-one thousand Afghans, twenty-six thousand of them civilians. Three thousand three hundred and ninety-three soldiers from twenty-nine different countries died, too, the majority of them—two thousand three hundred and sixteen—Americans. The financial cost to U.S. taxpayers alone has been around a trillion dollars, with billions more to come, in the years ahead, in medical bills and other long-term costs for Afghan-war veterans....

The Afghan war has been invisible. Mullah Omar has been dead for two years and no one seemed to have known anything about it until some of his words turned up in some reports overseas. That is a lot of dead people.

...Along the way, the Taliban spun off a lethal franchise in neighboring Pakistan. Among their targets: the schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, who survived a bullet in the head in 2012....

I really think the Taliban had taken over Pakistan. They may have taken over Karachi even before the Afghan invasion. It was no time before Daniel Pearl fell victim to them. That was very early on. 

The ISI has always had this precarious position in Pakistan. They were always between the official government and the street government. I think it was the Taliban. 

After the US invasion into Afghanistan the Taliban ran into Pakistan in large measure. They populated the country expecting to take over the government. There was a National Geographics edition that explored the presence of the Taliban in Lahore. That is the second largest city only smaller to Karachi. My heart fell to my feet when I read that article. BUT. The people of Pakistan never agreed with the Taliban's brutal regime. The people never had to do anything except live their lives on their own terms and the Taliban left and went back to Afghanistan.

But, let's face it, bin Laden was among friends all the years he lived near a  military academy at Musharraf's back door. Bin Laden was fine while the Taliban tried to kill then President-General Musharraf. 

A very odd part of the world. They have all winter to plan for war and deaths at the first blush of spring. It used to be a magnificent place. It was once a beautiful country.
Cecil is a member of an endangered species. He is protected by law. 

Questions? 

Anyone playing devil's advocate is a putz. Amazing the talent cable takes on as legitimate. 

Where does anyone ever get the idea a life other than their own is up for debate? Where does that arrogance find footing in the face of laws? Everything is up for discussion in a warped sense of a greater understanding to dismiss the idea slaughtering animals protected by laws, some international, is okay? 

That has to be an American speaking. An arrogant and irreverent Americans who believes the world is theirs for the taking. 

America's media carries out arrogant discussions all the time. Arrogance and the right wing is what passed laws such as "Stand Your Ground." That same paradigm is at work when a minority falls to the guns of law enforcement for no reason at all. That arrogance is carried out in the legislative majority under the Capital Dome. 

Life has no meaning except what is their 'monetary value,' is that it? That is not arrogance entirely, it is a danger that can come to visit the arrogant as well. 

American arrogance is present in corruption. The majority Republicans practice corruption day after day and it is all okay. Corruption brought the USA to the brink of it's bond rating. But, who cares about that, the world after all could not exist without the USA. Arrogance took away protections. Voter rights protections by a oddly activist court and the legislators did dearly little to return those rights and protections to AMERICANS. 

So, here we are again, at the brink of arrogance to trash the idea of high esteem for protections for endangered species that live in countries outside USA borders. Ah, but, the slayer is an American. Just fact, not hubris.
July 30, 2015
By Jorge Braanco

A magnitude 5.3 earthquake (click here) that struck off the coast of Fraser Island will go down as one of the largest in Queensland history.

Tremors were felt from Bundaberg, where CBD buildings were evacuated, to Tweed Heads in northern New South Wales....

There may be more to come.

September 26, 2008

Fault Lines Located in Australia Map data source courtesy : Geoscience Australia

..Australia (click here) is not as geologically stable as many think. Despite popular belief, Australia is a geologically active continent with moving fault-lines, regular seismic activity, and a long history of mountain making, said internationally respected geologist, Associate Professor Malcolm Wallace from the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne....

More poaching in Africa.

July 30, 2015
By Kevin Sieff

A family of elephants walks after cooling themselves in a pond during a census at the Amboseli National Park, 290km south-east of Kenya's capital Nairobi, in 2013. Photo: Reuters

Nairobi: (click here) While the world mourned Cecil, the 13-year-old lion that was allegedly shot by a American hunter, dentist Walter Palmer, in Zimbabwe, another devastating poaching incident was quietly carried out in Kenya.

Poachers killed five elephants in Tsavo West National Park on Monday night. The carcasses were recovered by rangers on Tuesday morning — what appeared to be an adult female and her four offspring, their tusks hacked off....


Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Mark Meadows wanted to get attention for an extremist agenda.

North Carolina politically is in really bad condition. The extremists hold the majority of seats in the state. This is more or less the attitude of the NC Republicans. They have their own agenda approved of by Acting Governor Pope. It isn't like McCrory is out of action or on vacation, it is just that he is a figure head to Pope's ambitions. This is Meadows way of being a better man than any other Republican in the US House.

July 29, 2015

North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows (click here) had heard from leading conservatives that trying to oust Speaker John Boehner right now was a bad idea.

Reps. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), fierce and frequent critics of leadership, thought the move was ill-advised. Some of Meadows’ friends didn’t even see it coming. But just before 6 p.m. Tuesday — a day before the House was set to leave town for its five-week summer recess — Meadows offered a motion to vacate the chair, an extraordinarily rare procedural move that represents the most serious expression of opposition to Boehner’s speakership. If the motion were to pass — most Republicans say it will be hard to cobble together the votes — Boehner would be stripped of the speaker’s gavel, potentially plunging the House of Representatives into chaos.

GOP leaders were taken completely by surprise. Meadows, a second-term Republican, hadn’t even asked for a meeting with Boehner or other top Republicans to air his gripes, Politico news website reported on Tuesday. 

Until now, the North Carolina Republican had taken small steps to undermine Boehner....

Meadows is annoyed President Obama can actually veto any measure the House passes forcing the US House to be reasonable rather than extreme. I can imagine what he wants. He doesn't like the President and rather Freedom Fries over French Fries. France has become a very close ally to the USA during the Obama years. There is plenty an extremist Republican doesn't like in Washington these days. 

Let's see if I get this right, Jeb Bush said the Republican primaries doesn't mean a win nationally.

Jeb Bush is putting up with what he has to say and do in order to achieve a national election where he can finally be the man that can declare war and crash the economy to benefit wall street. The average person calling themselves Republicans haven't had people that actually care about them and their priorities. The Republican electorate is used for the purpose of ambition.

Opposed to Jeb Bush, Donald Trump said, "The Tea Party are all good people." There was doubt how he was going to represent them. They aren't his stepping stone.  

Donald Trump probably ran out of the room because it completely was confrontational and was uncomfortable with the idea and subject. The fact is when the issue involved the breast he ran the other way. That told me all I needed to know. The lawyer had plenty of latitude to carry out the food source of her child. Not everyone is a lawyer with private board rooms.

Because a man sitting at a table who wants to end depositions was caught off guard with the idea of a woman pumping her breasts is not surprising. He left didn't he? He let her have all the time in the world to provide her child with a food source. 

I breast fed two children. I didn't put it in everyone's face. That was my comfort zone. I was a stay at home mom from the day my first child was born until my youngest was eighteen months of age.

Because the attacks against Donald Trump are to benefit Jeb Bush. So, lets get some things straight.

Why elect a politician that will act like Ronald Reagan when a real one already exists? Why a puppet and not a real Republican billionaire? At least Trump actually cares about people and not simply crony corporations that are people too.

Donald Trump will not spend recklessly trying to protect an important ecosystem. He might even charge the polluters for causing huge problems for the federal budget.

That is really what everyone is worried about, huh? The Wall Street media is scared they don't have control over a man that owns his own life, heart and priorities. Well, then be scared. Be plenty scared. 

July 15, 2015
By Russ Choma

When Jeb Bush's campaign (click here) filed its first financial disclosure, some people focused on how a mere 3 percent of his donations—just $368,000 of the $11.4 million he collected in his first 15 days of campaigning—came from donors who gave $200 or less. That's a very small amount. By contrast, Bernie Sanders raised 68 percent of his $15.4 million from small donors. Even for a Republican presidential candidate, the paltry amount raised from small donors is striking. In 2012, for example, Mitt Romney's campaign got 18 percent of its money from donors giving $200 or less....

When Wall Street Media wants to get real about Republicans, let me know. Is breast pumping an issue? I don't think so.

During 2012, (click here) EPA and the state of Florida reached consensus on new water quality restoration strategies for improving water quality in the Everglades.  Discharge permits and consent orders issued by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection require:


  • a science-based stringent discharge limit for phosphorus that will result in meeting the water quality standard
  • an additional 6500 acres added to one of the wetlands dedicated to phosphorus treatment (called Stormwater Treatment Areas, or STAs)
  • dedication of about 110,000 acre-feet of water storage areas (flow equalization basins) that will slowly release water to the STAs in order to maximize their performance
  • an enforceable compliance schedule for $880 million of projects with completion dates of 2018 to 2025.
  • a robust monitoring and research plan to confirm that the performance of all five STAs is optimized and restoration is moving forward
Does anyone in media every pay a visit to the Florida Everglades to report on the cronies of Jeb Bush and their ability to destroy an ecosystem uninterrupted?  Or is it just hunting big game that bothers the Wall Street media?

April 9, 2015
By Faith Gardner

...Last week, South Florida Water Management District held a meeting about the possible purchase of 46,000 acres of land that sits to the south of Lake Okeechobee, currently owned by U.S. Sugar and residents.

The intention (click here) is to use the land to recreate a large area of the Everglades ecosystem on the former farmland, and create a 26,000 acre system of lakes to store and remediate seriously contaminated run-off water from sugar farms, and so keep the nitrogen and phosphorus-rich water out of lakes, water courses, wetlands, springs and public water supply. 

Thanks to the surfeit of nutrients, huge areas of open water and wetlands are regularly afflicted by outbreaks of stinking green slime - and the water district has come under growing pressure to act to stop the pollution and its severe consequences on local people and the Everglades....

Rick Scott was re-elected. Since when would Cecil's death ever bother a Republican in the USA?

September 9, 2014
By Susannah Nesmith

The Tampa Bay Times (click here) as been rolling out an impressive expose of secret hunting trips to Texas taken by more than a dozen current and former Florida lawmakers and officials including Gov. Rick Scott, who is in a tight race for reelection.
While the findings may strike some readers as business as usual in politics, the story involved some clever public records reporting and good follow-up by the Times’ Craig Pittman and Michael Van Sickler.
“I was thinking, I don’t have a lot of faith in Texas public records,” Van Sickler told me. “I shouldn’t have thought that. The people over there were very helpful.”...

This is not a surprise. Republicans are horrid conservationists. What else is new?

Cheney was so terrible with a gun he nearly killed one of the people in his hunting party. As a matter of fact, Republicans probably admire the Trumps hunting as a family.

July 29, 2015
By Inae Oh
 
On Tuesday, (click here) an American dentist admitted to paying $50,000 to hunt and kill Cecil the lion, a beloved animal and popular tourist attraction in Zimbabwe. News of the killing sparked swift condemnation on social media, with many calling for Walter Palmer to be extradited to Zimbabwe to stand trial.
Amid the outrage, photos quickly resurfaced of Donald Trump's sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, posing with the dead bodies of several exotic animals, including an African elephant and leopard, they had previously hunted for sport....

I think Donald Trump is the best candidate in the Republican field to date even if he doesn't like breast pumping. When he takes a policy position to outlaw breast pumping I'll take a stand. The child in question is at least five years old now. I doubt he suffered trauma from a bad day at the office.

Do cops live in an alternate universe they don't know what is going on in this country?

The defense attorney stated, "He sped away, he didn't just pull away." Oh, that explains everything. I am sure as a car speeds away shooting the driver is going to lead to a better outcome for everyone. Some of the poorest police practices occur when a cop shoots at a moving car. There is a reason why that is poor practice.

29/07/2015

A University of Cincinnati (click here) police officer who shot a motorist during a traffic stop over a missing front licence plate has been indicted on murder charges.

Prosecutor Joe Deters announced the grand jury indictment at a news conference to discuss developments in the investigation into the July 19 shooting of 43-year-old motorist Samuel DuBose by Officer Ray Tensing.

Authorities have said Tensing spotted a car driven by Mr DuBose and missing the front licence plate, which is required by Ohio law. They say Tensing stopped the car and a struggle ensued after Mr DuBose refused to provide a driver's licence and get out of the car.

Tensing has said he was dragged by the car and forced to shoot at Mr DuBose. He fired one shot, striking Mr DuBose in the head.

But Mr Deters dismissed Tensing's claim that he was dragged by the car and suggested that he should not have pulled Mr DuBose over to begin with.
"He fell backward after he shot (DuBose) in the head," Mr Deters said....

The reason Samuel DuBose sped off in his car was because he was scared of being killed by a police officer and it happened anyway. Young black people, especially young men, are scared to death in just living their lives. 

There should be a moratorium across the country on minor traffic stops.

Anyone has any other way to stop this?  

In time, the oceans defeat mysteries. Sincerest sympathies to the families and friends. The nightmare starts all over again in some ways.

It is a long way from Australia. There were sightings of a large jet far west of Indonesia.

Reunion Island (click here) is the perfect destination for travellers seeking both a relaxing island holiday and an action-packed adventure trip. Hike the island's unique cirques and the active Piton de la Fournaise volcano. Visit the UNESCO World Heritage status natural park to see the island's native flora and fauna up close. Go canyoning over La Réunion's many waterfalls or take to the ocean with a scuba diving or surfing expedition.  The island also features almost 1000km of hiking trails over incredibly contrasting landscapes. Once you've satisfied your adventurous side, kick back under a shady palm tree on the white beach and work on your tan.

Those sightings were made within the first few weeks, right? The jet was still flying.  

July 29, 2015
By AP

Air safety investigators (click here) have a "high degree of confidence" that a photo of aircraft debris found in the Indian Ocean is of a wing component unique to the Boeing 777, the same model as the Malaysia Airlines plane that disappeared last year, a U.S. official said Wednesday.
 
Air safety investigators — one of them a Boeing investigator — have identified the component as a "flaperon" from the trailing edge of a 777 wing, the U.S. official said....

The name of the place where the debris was found is really weird.


Eucharistic Miracle of Saint-Andre de la Reunion Island of La Reunion, 1902 (click here if you dare) 

On January 26, 1902, at the parish church of Saint-André, a city on the island of La Réunion (French colony), Abbot Henry Lacombe, pastor of the church, was witness to the miracle that he would recount to thousands of people during the Eucharistic Congress of Angouleme (1904), as well as to the group of priests gathered for a spiritual retreat in the town of Perigueux. The face of Jesus appeared in the Host which was for many hours witnessed by thousands Of people....
  
Incredible similarities (click here) between the flaperon a #B777 and debris found this morning at #Reunion ... #MH370

Is this for real already?

Still yet another traffic stop and another African American dies. This was on a college campus and police have guns to use to shoot students and professors and administrative personnel. 

You know there are those from the gun rights organizations that state everyone was armed no one would die.

Really?

July 29, 2015
By Jacquellena and Erik Ortiz

Officer Ray Tensing 
Greenhills Police Department

The white University of Cincinnati (click here) police officer who shot unarmed black man Samuel Dubose during a traffic stop has been indicted on a murder charge, a prosecutor announced Wednesday, saying the cop "purposely" killed the motorist and "should never have been a police officer." 

In announcing the charge against officer Ray Tensing, Hamilton County prosecutor Joe Deters lambasted the cop over the death of Dubose, 43, saying the fatal shooting was "the most asinine act I've ever seen a police officer make."... 

When an American doesn't have a driver's license on their possession they are in violation of the law. That means the driver has to call someone to come and drive him home to get his license and then take it to the judge in the summons. That is not difficult. 

A citation is ordered and the driver is told not to drive the car and to have someone come to drive him and the car home. This is straight forward. There is no reason to chase anyone and kill them. All the police officer had to do at the point where the driver ran off was to call a wreck to impound the vehicle. This is basic police work. When the driver finally comes to realize he no longer has a car to drive he'll have to go to the court or the towing facility to pick up the car. When people have their car impounded they learn that a missing license plate and the absence of a driver license is not a good idea.

This man was unarmed.  

The oil companies are not suppose to be in Aleutian Islands.

11 May 2015
By Coral Davenport

...The approval (click here) is a major victory for Shell and the rest of the petroleum industry, which has sought for years to drill in the remote waters of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, which are believed to hold vast reserves of oil and gas....

They will endanger the entire region from Seattle to the Chukci Sea with oil and contaminated ballast water.

The companies need to move their mess to Barrow. 

This was Obama's answer to the Keystone Pipeline. Alaska already has a pipeline. The companies should also prepare for sinking icebreakers and oil platforms. There is more sea ice with a hot planet. It is like having an Arctic Ocean full of boats colliding into each other. They loose a lot of monies in equipment damage and loss. Let's hope they don't lose lives along the way. The drilling is never going to show a profit. 

Get them out of Seattle, they are doing too much damage to the northern Pacific. Fisheries are already having trouble sustaining themselves and now there is going to be oil pollution. 

Pacific sardines (click here) are found from southeastern Alaska to the Gulf of California, Mexico. Sardines live in the water column in nearshore and offshore areas along the coast. They’re also sometimes found in estuaries. Sardines prefer warmer water – during the 1950s to 1970s, they abandoned the northern portion of their range because sea surface temperatures cooled and the sardine population decreased. Now that sea surface temperatures are warm again, the stock has increased and they’ve reoccupied areas off northern California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, as well as habitat far offshore from California....

The commercial fisheries have been closed because of the sardine crash. These ecosystems cannot afford anymore problems. Get the blasted oil companies out of the north Pacific.

March 6, 2015
By Paul Shively

The population of Pacific sardines, (click here) a crucial forage fish for marine life along the U.S. West Coast, has dwindled to the point that it can no longer sustain a commercial fishery, according to a preliminary assessment by scientists advising West Coast fishery managers. 

The ongoing collapse is bad news for ocean wildlife, as well as fishermen and others who rely on a healthy ocean.

This is a major cause for concern, but it shouldn’t come as a complete surprise. In 2012, two government scientists predicted we would end up in exactly this position, finding a parallel with the last major collapse in the middle of the 20th century. Three years ago, the scientists wrote that “all indicators show that the northern sardine stock off the west coast of North America is declining steeply again and that imminent collapse is likely.”

That prediction turned out to be right....

No one listens to the scientists and this is still ongoing negligence of the US federal authorities to ignore the warnings. These fisheries are a mess. Besides the pollution from the oil industry, there is the continued migration of Japanese radiation. No one ever listens. 

April 13, 2015
By Jeff Barnard

SALEM, Ore. -- Federal fisheries managers (click here) have followed through on expectations they would shut down the West Coast's upcoming sardine commercial fishing season because of rapidly declining numbers.
Meeting outside Santa Rosa, California, the Pacific Fishery Management Council voted Sunday to close the season starting July 1.
Geoff Shester of the conservation group Oceana says the next step is deciding whether overfishing is a factor. That could lead to shutting down the rest of the current season, which runs through June 30.
Sardines regularly go through huge population swings. A major collapse in the 1940s took down the sardine industry in Monterey, California, made famous by the John Steinbeck novel Cannery Row. It did not rebound until the 1990s. Most of the West Coast catch is now exported to Asia....

Those responsible for monitoring the fish stocks in US fisheries come out with data and outcomes. They recommend cutting back on the harvest to insure a quick rebound to the stocks. Does the government listen? No. What happens? The fisheries collapse and the fishermen face hardship because of it. It is all government corruption.

There is no real management so much as feast and famine.