Friday, March 31, 2017

Fire, flooding and climate.

April 21, 2017
By Traci Eatherton

The 1,200 residents of Satanta in Haskell County were evacuated Sunday afternoon as firefighters worked to contain a grass fire fed by strong winds.

...Last year's high wheat yield and low wheat prices (click here) have some growers looking at other crops, such as soybeans and corn, for the year. "I drove across the southern tier of (Kansas) counties, and saw a lot of wheat being grazed out. Crops being bailed for hay. And some being sprayed, terminating the crop, which are all indications that farmers may be changing crops," said Romulo Lollato, Kansas State University Extension forage specialist.

Total 2017/18 seedings of winter, other spring, and durum wheat for the 2017/18 marketing year, were reported in the NASS Prospective Plantings at just 46.1 million acres, which is 4.1 million acres smaller than the previous year's plantings. Winter wheat seedings are expected to be 3.4 million acres smaller than for the current marketing year, with durum and other spring planted area down 400,000 and 297,000 acres, respectively....

April 11, 2017
By USDA

Global 2016/17 wheat supplies (click here) are raised 1.7 million tons due to higher projected beginning stocks and a 0.3-million-ton increase in production. The change to beginning stocks stems from a 1.4-million-ton reduction in 2015/16 domestic consumption, primarily in the EU. World exports are lowered 0.3 million tons led by 0.5-million-ton decreases each for Australia, Canada, Kazakhstan, and Russia. Partly offsetting are higher projected exports for the EU and Ukraine. Total global consumption for 2016/17 is lowered 0.6 million tons to 740.8 million with a 1.0-millionton decrease in the United States, more than offsetting a small net increase for foreign countries. With supplies rising and use declining, global ending stocks are raised 2.3 million tons to 252.3 million....

April 18, 2017
By Bob Burgdorfer

...“The first fields of corn were planted; (click here) however, fieldwork in most areas was limited to spring tillage and fertilizer application,” the Nebraska report said.

Topsoil moisture was adequate to plentiful throughout the Midwest, with Iowa reporting 99% adequate to surplus, Illinois 96%, Indiana 94% and Nebraska 77%....

...“Central and eastern counties continued to receive rainfall, while most western counties remained dry. The additional rainfall aided pasture and wheat development but continued to delay corn planting in many areas,” the Kansas report said. “Powdery mildew and stripe rust have been identified in some wheat fields.”...

...Oklahoma is still contending with drought conditions in eastern areas of the state, although rain did fall in much of the state. Statewide topsoil moisture was rated 5% surplus, 66% adequate, 22% short and 8% very short....

Any commodity coming out of Oklahoma should be tested for methane contamination. The waters in Oklahoma are contaminated and that includes any irrigation. The fracking in Oklahoma has contaminated the water as well as the land. All products of any kind that will find their way into animal or human consumption should be tested for methane contamination.

This is not the first time there has been overflow into the Flint River from sewage plants and it won't be the last.

The Flint River in Michigan was never suppose to be a water source for human consumption. It has poor recharge and it sincerely is not that big a river to supply water for human consumption.

March 31, 2017
By Dominic Adams
Flint, MI - Sewage and storm water (click here) were discharged from the city's wastewater treatment plant into the Flint River early Friday morning and health officials urge people to avoid contact downstream, the city said in a statement.
The discharge was from the recent heavy rains that exceeded the plant's ability to treat convey sewage into the plant, the statement said.
Sewage and wastewater overflowed into the Flint River at about 3:53 a.m., March 31 and city officials did not say how much was discharged into the river or how long it lasted.
MLive-The Flint Journal could not reach city officials for comment.
The wastewater treatment plant retention and treatment basin discharges into the Flint River whenever its capacity and the plant's capacity are exceeded, the statement said....

No, no, no, no. Uga!

Wrong way to go is to follow the idea citizens have to be covert. Comey is creating his own need to exist with such wacko ideas.

This is the country where surveillance meets communication technology with respect.  Being forced into hiding is not the way to go. Absolutely not!

REMEMBER, this is happening under Trump and he already committed to Comey as FBI Director. This is not the way to live in a democracy. We are still a democracy, aren't we?

March 31, 2017
By Alex Cranz

Until yesterday, FBI chief James Comey (click here) seemed like a pretty savvy internet user. The guy knows that you’re supposed to cover your webcam with tape to hide from the NSA and WhatsApp is a fantastic way to communicate securely—even if he hates you for using it. But when the numbnuts set out to make a series of secret social profiles online, he elected to use the name of a 20th century theologian known almost exclusively to theology students and political figures trying to sound smart.

Now, thanks to some very smart journalism by Ashley Feinberg, a senior reporter form Gizmodo Media Group’s Special Projects Desk, everyone knows the head of the FBI is probably an egg on Twitter who likes New York Times stories about himself.

So, apart from eschewing social media all together, how can you, a private citizen, avoid a similar reverse-doxxing?...


Pence is afraid of his own lack of identity to dine privately with a woman.

Subliminal message, "Women can't be trusted with fidelity. It is not my fault."
"Uga! Uga!" One word, right? Exclamatory sentences, correct? I don't speak Caveman, so I am assuming there is an exclamation point after each guttural sound.

Maybe three "Uga!" are better. "Uga! Uga! Uga!." Better? Right?

March 31, 2017
By Jessica Valenti

I have to hand it to conservatives: (click here) it’s 2017, and somehow they have Americans debating whether it’s appropriate to dine alone with a woman.
You see, this week a Washington Post article about Karen Pence revealed that the vice-president will not eat a meal with a woman other than his wife. Those on the right are commending Pence’s marital devotion and moral fortitude, claiming that such a rule is a smart defense against sexual temptation.
One conservative blogger questioned where there was ever a good reason for a married person to eat out alone with a member of the opposite sex; the former CEO of the blog RedState chimed in to answer: “Planning your spouse’s surprise party or funeral and that is it.”...

No immunity for Flynn. Facts will come forward in trial IF he is defensiable at all.

March 31, 2017
By Chad Day, Eileen Sullivan and Julie Pace

Washington - Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn (click here)is in discussions with the House and Senate intelligence committees on receiving immunity from "unfair prosecution" in exchange for agreeing to be questioned as part of ongoing probes into possible contacts between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russia, his attorney says.

"General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit," attorney Robert Kelner said Thursday.

Kelner said no "reasonable person" with legal counsel would answer questions without assurances that he would not be prosecuted, given calls from some members of Congress that the retired lieutenant general should face criminal charges....

Very little of the trial will be public due to his positions of power in the government. In that lies an opportunity for THE TRUTH in closed sessions. Either he is guilty or not. Let him prove his innocence with THE TRUTH. There is no reason to offer him a deal.




Read more here: http://www.theolympian.com/news/politics-government/article141893424.html#storylink=cpy

Campaign promises are frequently lies. The difference between mainstream politics and Trump, is that Trump believes the lies.

March 28, 2017

About 35 years ago in Flagstaff, (click here) a prostitute more than held her own in a game of mental chess while answering questions from a prosecutor during the murder trial of an infamous motorcycle gang president.
Her testimony contradicted statements she had earlier given authorities, yet she held firm that the version she was giving on the witness stand was the truth.
And, the prosecutor asked, did that mean the earlier contradictory statements were a lie?
Absolutely not, she replied. When asked how they could not be considered a lie, she flippantly replied, “I wasn’t under oath then.”
Amazingly, a similar mentality is at work in a legal hearing from the man who once bragged that he was the “Toughest Sheriff in America.”
Former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio currently faces a misdemeanor charge for disobeying a court order to discontinue immigration patrols. Those patrols, the Associated Press reported, continued for 17 months after a judge issued the order.
He is now asking the judge hearing the criminal contempt-of-court case to not allow statements he made on the campaign trail concerning immigration enforcement to be used in the current case against him.
There is no denying he made the statements, but according to court records they should not be admissible because they were “not made under oath.”...
How is peaceful genocide carried out?

Seriously, now. The White Supremacists want to carry out peaceful genocide.

How does that happen?

Yes, I think this is a serious issue.


Cultural Degradation and lack of enforcement of principles that uphold it.

"Cultural Degradation and Minority Student Adaptations: (click here) The School Experience and Minority Adjustment Contingencies." George W. Noblit and Collins, Thomas W.


Counterpoints

Vol. 44, Particularities: Collected Essays on Ethnography and Education (1999), pp. 127-141

As a collective, the people of the USA are being taught that celebrations 'away from work' causes a loss in economic viability as a country. That is a lie. Such celebrations make us stronger in all aspects. Celebrations bring about an economy that upholds the integrity of the morality of a society. Should we do away with the 4th of July and replace it with April 30th?

The point is the USA has built a society that values freedom, social order and humanity. We strive to do better than the generation before facilitated by that very generation of parents. That is a phenomena we should all cherish, yet in the year 2017 the poison that pervades our society is removing the government previous generations have nurtured. We are, or already have, losing our culture. That degraded culture is being replaced by the "Culture of the Homeless."

Does the Republican Party have a culture? What is it?

Rudeness, bullying, power misdirected, but, also there is the social culture of such values as Paleo/Carnivore/Caveman. The dietary staple of the homeless is eggs and beef. Carbs as available. I don't care where one looks, the soup kitchens serve the caveman diet to the homeless. 

Do the homeless have a culture? You betcha.

Women are fought over in the USA in the streets as a symbol of masculinity. That is the culture of the chronically homeless. Cavemen and their women euphemistically dragged by the hair. No joke.

How do you get the disenfranchised to vote?

You relate their culture back to them in a way that provides hope. 

"The Art of the Deal" can take up to ten years to achieve and that is why the Trump voter is satisfied with the ? progress ? 

Ten years? In government that is a flash of light.

...He began his work in 1966 in Boston, (click here) after visiting the Columbia Point Health Center -- a successful clinic bringing health care to low-income residents of the community. Kennedy came away impressed with the clinic's ability to provide treatment to low-income populations. He was aware of a similar clinic in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, and saw in the two clinics a model that could be replicated across the nation to provide more health care to people who needed it. He introduced an amendment to the Economic Opportunity Act that set aside $51 million to establish another 30 centers around the country. Today, as a direct result of Senator Kennedy's vision as a 34-year-old, first-term senator, 20 million low-income Americans receive access to quality primary care at 1,200 community health centers across all 50 states and U.S. territories...

The Art of the Deal holds no magic act. It provides nothing in the way of a policy or platform. It is about power and how to PERSISTENTLY press an agenda. That is definitely a form of art. A deal? Negotiations are always ongoing and in government are hardly a deal. Policy invokes any COMPROMISE.

Do I think Donald Trump has something unique to add to the USA's proud history of diversity, humanity and justice? Absolutely not. The longer his administration continues, the more and more it is evident it has an agenda that degrades the American culture and belongs nowhere in governance.

Keep feeding the homeless and generating false hope and the elections may work out for Republicans for awhile considering the term of a president is eight years and Trump's dealing can take ten.