Tuesday, September 30, 2014

I think Newsweek got it right. They even call it treason.

Congressman Doug Lamborn, (click here) a Republican from Colorado, is an un-American demagogue, willing to sabotage this country for his own grandstanding narcissism. If his words are to be believed, this brigadier blowhard is thoroughly unfit for public office and instead should be rotting in jail on charges of treason.
Or am I being too subtle?
Lamborn is the latest type of political muck America needs to scrape off the bottom of its national shoe: an officeholder so absorbed with his hatred of the opposing party that he is willing to do anything, no matter how much it damages our national security and the underpinnings of our democracy, if it will win him some applause and maybe a couple of votes.... 

Fort Carson is in this district in Colorado Springs. Some of the military from Fort Carson are going to Africa. The military presence in this district is the primary economy. After the military there are farmers and ranchers and tourism to Pike's Peak. The USA Air Force Academy is in Colorado Springs as well. This is all Air Force Territory,  Peterson Air Force BaseSchriever Air Force Base, and NORAD. I would think the US Representative for the district would have greater respect for the military. I have to wonder who from the military might have been sitting in the audience when he stated Generals should be resigning in protest.

Commanding (click here) General Maj. Gen. Paul J. LaCamera, 4th Infantry Division and Joint Task Force Carson, greets local Gold Star mothers at the Fallen Heroes Family Center prior to a luncheon held in their honor, Sept. 30, 2014. Gold Star mothers are moms who lost a son or daughter in military service to the nation. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Eric Glassey, 4th Inf. Div. PAO)

I don't believe these generals are interested in giving up their leadership commands. Doug Lamborn lied. He should apologize to all the people involved.
Mr. 47% is stumping for Tom Cotton. Wow. I'm surprised.

Here is why Romney is campaigning for Tom Cotton. Cotton backs the Ryan plan to privatize Medicare by offering vouchers. Ryan was Romney's Vice Presidential pick.  

Cotton supports Medicare "premium support" vouchers. (Feb 2014) (click here) 

Cotton is an extreme right wing candidate that defers to Wall Street all the time. With everything:

No so-called "earned path to citizenship". (Nov 2012)

Supports exiting US to apply for citizenship. (Sep 2012)

Voted YES on allowing compensatory time off for working overtime. (Apr 2013)

Audit federal agencies, to reform or eliminate them. (Jul 2010)

Support DOMA and traditional marriage. (Nov 2012)

Voted NO on reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act. (Feb 2013)

Opposes same-sex marriage. (Sep 2012)

Protect anti-same-sex marriage opinions as free speech. (Sep 2013)

For a young man of 37 years old he's got a lot of old ideas. Does he have any of his own?


I am surprised Congressman Steven King hasn't demanded an electrified fence around the White House. I am sure Herman Cain would endorse the idea.

I really do believe the reason Omar Gonzalez made his way across the lawn without being stopped had to do with the controversy of all the citizen killings by police. The Secret Service dearly didn't want to kill anyone they believed to be unarmed. 

Mr. Gonzalez had a knife, but, it wasn't brandishing it as weapon, it was on his person. He actually wanted to talk to the President and as former military I find that interesting. He wanted to speak to the Commander and Chief. He obviously has mental illness problems, but, they weren't manifesting as violent toward the President.

I think all the events need to be taken very seriously and every potential for any harm to anyone in the White House complex has to be defeated. We so rarely hear of these instances that seem to happen on a regular basis, the Secret Service does a commendable job in stopping the assault without causing death to a citizen. That is a tough job. 

I think the country and the Secret Service need to do better. The incident in 2011 could not be stopped. The best anyone could do is find the perpetrator. The fact the shootings took place IS also a very big concern and it is a concern for the country. The Secret Service does not read minds.

It's going to become global. The efforts by the USA in West Africa need to continue to contain the spread.

September 30, 2014
By Michaeleen Doucleff
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (click here) confirmed Tuesday that the first case of Ebola has appeared in the U.S.
A man in Dallas has tested positive for the virus, the agency says. The man flew to the U.S. from Liberia, arriving on Sept. 20, NPR has learned. He wasn't sick on the flight, and had no symptoms when he arrived.
He first developed symptoms on Wednesday, Sept. 24, according to the CDC, and first sought care on Friday. On Sunday, he was placed in isolation at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.
Health officials have already started searching for people who may have come into close contact with the man. Ebola isn't contagious until a person starts showing symptoms. And the virus is spread only through direct contact of bodily fluids...

There is always absentee ballots for those that cannot make it to the polls.

September 9, 2014
By Adam Liptak

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court (click here) on Monday blocked an appeals court ruling that would have restored seven days of early voting in Ohio....
Where are the whistle blowers when it was obvious there was compromise of not just the President's security and that of his family, but, the entire staff of the White House and the Secret Service themselves?

There is something very wrong here. Senior staff officers aren't willing to stand up for their own safety knowing the protocols were breached?

This doesn't make sense.

This is the Secret Service. They put their lives on the line for the President and his family everyday, yet security breaches existed. None of this sounds right.

Mr. Gonzalez is not the problem, the fact that a person receiving treatment for PTSD was allowed to own and operate multiple weapons including assassin rifles and scopes is the problem. The fact the doors to the north portico were unlocked and the alarms off is the problem. The newspaper reports are not the problem, the fact the reports by an officer to the Washington Post and the official record do not match is the problem. The incident of seven bullets hitting the White House without proper investigation is the problem. The fact the investigation to the shots heard was interrupted with excuses is the problem. 

There are plenty of problems here including the fact guns are in our society in the hands of people determined to cause harm to others and those that are receiving treatment for mental instabilities. 

Some of the problems belong to the Secret Service, but, there are problems here that belong to the American people and the insistence freedom and liberty means owning and operating dangerous weapons. 

The case against a free flow of guns in this country is getting greater and greater including recently a nine year old girl, a rancher in violation of federal leases and his ability to garner a militia of 5000 gun operators, some with military training and the willingness to kill federal officers DOING THEIR JOB and now direct threats to the President, his family and the staff and officers of the White House. When is Liberty going to be defined as being able to live without the fear of inappropriate use of guns in the USA?

The Secret Service showed restraint in protecting the lives of an unarmed man. It would be real interesting to have the life Mr. Gonzalez jeopardized in White House grounds.

The Secret Service is sensitive to issues the public reacts to. They have to because they are dealing with the lives of political figures all the time. If a death of an unarmed man was realized on White House grounds, how that play to the nation?

At some point in time the judgement of the Secret Service has to be respected. Mr. Gonzalez was not equipped with a suicide vest. There were those in the guard that day who determined shooting an unarmed man was imprudent. They were right. Obviously, they are seasoned at protecting the perimeter in a meaningful way.

The morale of the Secret Service was down according to reports. I can understand that. As a matter of fact considering the liberal gun laws in the USA it is a sure bet that police around the country and their morale are effected. There are a lot of reasons for poor morale. I suggest the Congress get it right and fix it. Pay cuts? Time off? Shortage of staffing?

The country leaves too much to chance under this Congress and it shows.

Earnst, a moderate? Her definition of protecting Social Security is radical.




The Republicans aren't trustworthy.

July 25, 2014

...Ernst is on the record (click here) that she would be “willing” to look at Social Security as a personal savings account for some workers, whether in an interest-bearing account or one that is tied to the (stock) market. Our finding on this claim in the ad is one that requires a leap to logic to go from Ernst considering making younger workers eligible to manage their own accounts to an overarching claim of “gambling our savings in the stock market”. 

Here is Ernst’s quote from that May 9 interview with the Register, in full context of the exchange:

 “We need to keep those promises to seniors and those that are entering that age bracket but I do think we need to look at younger workers and those entering the workforce and we need to find a solution here and something that I am willing to look at is a personal savings account. It would be one that whether it’s interest-bearing, whether it is tied to the market, I would need to look at the details but I do think that is something we would need to consider. With those personal savings accounts, it needs to be something that is hands off and something that, as legislators, we would not be able to raid.”...

Social Security is getting a new data center and it came in under budget;.

September 30, 2014
A slew of data (click here) is coming to Frederick County, and it's headed for the new Social Security Administration National Support Center in Urbana. 
The new 300,000-square-foot facility will maintain the demographic, wage and benefit information of almost every American, according to a news release from SSA. A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held Monday, and about 80 federal employees will be working in the center by August 2016.

The building was needed because SSA's 30-year-old support center was not constructed as a data center, said Bill Zielinski, chief information officer for SSA. The Woodlawn facility is not up to par with changing technology and electricity requirements. A feasibility study indicated that a new data center was the best way to go, he said....

USA Troops support President Obama's strategy to build the Middle East coalition.

September 29, 2014

By Andrew Tilghman with Gina Harkins, David Larter, Stephen Losey, Hope Hodge Seck, Michelle Tan and Jeff Schogol

Poll: 70% of troops say no more boots on the ground in Iraq (click here)

...The reader survey asked more than 2,200 active-duty troops this question: “In your opinion, do you think the U.S. military should send a substantial number of combat troops to Iraq to support the Iraqi security forces?” Slightly more than 70 percent responded: “No.”
“It’s their country, it’s their business. I don’t think major ‘boots on the ground’ is the right answer,” said one Army infantry officer and prior-enlisted soldier who deployed to Iraq three times. He responded to the survey and an interview request but, like several other service members in this story, asked not to be named because he is not authorized to discuss high-level military policy....

The USA did this once before. Why repeat the mistake? A new kind of Fairy Dust I guess.

I find the glibness of the media is absolutely disgusting and the enthusiasm for a ground war by the right wing antiquated. "Every once in awhile you just have to mow the lawn." These are lives, not blades of grass and not robo soldier either. The first invasion into Iraq was illegal and immoral and somehow the threat from the Islamic State makes it a moral war worth our soldiers lives. 

The Islamic State invasion of Iraq's northern border was due to the fact the leadership of the USA never had it right in the first place, now all of a sudden this is suppose to be different. Why?

The region was out of balance because the weak Iraq border allowed the militants to capture war machines. The heavy military equipment provided by the USA has to be destroyed and the revenue source of selling Syria's stolen oil has to end as well. But, the people in Iraq are still the same people. 

The lives of our troops are important and they aren't disposable because Bush conducted an illegal war in the first place. Wrong is wrong and two wrongs don't make it right.

Monday, September 29, 2014

One of the all time supporters of feminism was Alan Alda.

The sixties was a pivotal time for women. The Women's Movement attracted men and women. It was about equality and while there are still barriers to a woman's success the sixties generation of women accomplished great strides in equal rights.

The movement was wrongly characterized as "Anti-Female." Gloria Steinem was a magnificent feminist. She wrote a book entitled, "The Revolution from Within." It was a book for women that gave them permission to attain whatever they longed to do. Gloria Steinem never once advocated a woman to be anyone other than she wanted to be. Burning the bra was not a pre-requisite to be a feminist.

The protest marches were reminiscent of the Suffrage Movement which of course brought the vote to all adults in the USA and not just white men.

Sufferage, not different than the Woman's Movement is about civil rights. It is about equality. Today's feminists actually benefit from the struggles of their mothers and grandmothers, but, they still have a movement requiring strong women with clear standards of equality. 

There is no requirement for any woman to sacrifice her happiness she finds in her life including looking in the mirror and finding a beautiful person. A beautiful person on the inside can also be expressed on the outside. There is no crime in it. I will say this. The PREJUDICE against women was sexually driven and in order for the movement to be heard they rejected all the so called women's standard issue bra and girdle and make up. The 'status quo' was rejected to make it clear that women were cast into a mold and not an expression of their true selves.

Today, physical attractiveness has become a standard due to 'the profile picture' many place in a public forum. Social media is important as it does exchange ideas and promotes freedom and democracy.


Even "Barbie" has been changed to reflect a more modern image of a woman than the old inappropriate sexualized and unattainable figure and face. The first Barbie was also only Caucasian.

The door is open today to any woman that finds her identity is one seeking equality. It doesn't require membership by burning bras or cinching up girdles or painting on a face no one knows without it. It is an open forum and basically always was. But, in the days of the 1960s movement there was rejection of the sexualized woman of which there was a real purpose.

Feminism is as important today as the past. Women's Sufferage was a huge achievement, but, the sisters weren't finished and didn't realize it until something like eighty years later and the Women's Movement of the 1960s came to the surface in the USA and across the globe. The Women's Movement was occurring in other countries, including the UK, at the very same time. Some countries still didn't recognize women as equal to vote and there are still some today that do not.

Feminism for men was about being free of the burden of 'being that man.' A distant and removed masculinity demanded by the women they dated and ultimately married. The roles of men and women were divided by social walls. Invisible walls, but, palpable just the same. So when men joined the Women's Movement is was as much about being real and themselves in expression by wearing open collars and shoes without socks. The designers of the day catered to the feminist movement with men's wardrobes as well.

Today the hurdles are still real. There are far less women in government than in decades past, there still isn't a woman President in the USA. Britain achieved a Prime Minister long ago. But, the UK was pivotal to freedom movements of the 1960s. There were the Boys from Liverpool that helped change music and self-expression in music. There were great female artists in the USA bringing song and playing guitars to the Culture Movement.

Some of the expressions of the barriers that remain are more subtle, like the women of Wall Street and their struggle for equality and recognition without the sexualized oppression of their peers.

Today, in the USA there is a huge regression of the rights of women in dictating their own rights to own their own bodies. Today, rather than the sexualized oppression exists an imposed oppression by government to limit the choices of women. Just because a woman has a uterus doesn't mean she has to postpone a career or aspiration without the affection of a man, husband or otherwise.

There still remains hurdles to something as obviously simple as equal pay for equal work. Today women are heads of households and during 2008 they were proven to be the sole support of families at times. That reality has to translate into pay equal to that of men and a living wage. Need I mention health care and the importance that plays to women and their lives.

Choice should always be a woman's middle name. There is nothing wrong with valuing life at any stage of development, but, then that is choice. Where it becomes wrong to move Pro-Life movements to a political stage is where women lose their right of 'habeous corpus.' A woman should never be faced with choices that is the best of two bad choices, it should be their decision alone about how they conduct their bodies and the age they decide to to give birth.

Women need to be able to take on the challenges of life fully armed with every possible choice. The way they conduct their sexuality is their own business, their own choice; even if that choice leads their identity to having a female partner.

There are many reasons why feminism is still with us. Given the fact the movement took life again in the 1960s only goes to prove it is always with us waiting to be blossomed into a greater aspect of every woman's life. There is still much to say about feminism and the freedom it brings to both genders.
Alan Alda’s is a lifelong feminist. He’s been speaking out for women’s rights since the birth of Gloria Steinem’s Ms. Magazine, in which he published a 1975 article titled “What Every Woman Should Know about Men.” In this article he coined the phrase “testosterone poisoning,” writing: 
"Everyone knows that testosterone, the so-called male hormone, is found in both men and women. What is not so well known, is that men have an overdose… Until recently it has been thought that the level of testosterone in men is normal simply because they have it. But if you consider how abnormal their behavior is, then you are led to the hypothesis thatalmost all men are suffering from testosterone poisoning.”
Alda’s other feminist works include co-chairing (with former First Lady Betty Ford) the ERA Countdown campaign. In 1976 The Boston Globe dubbed him “the quintessential Honorary Woman: A Feminist Icon” for his activism to support the Equal Rights Amendment. 
We at Just The Tip dub him a quintessential feminist, and thank him for his efforts on behalf of women. 
James Clapper underestimated the ability of the Iraqi military because he was more interested in kissing the ring rather than telling the truth.

He covets his salary not the country. 

He has lied to Congress and now he has poor estimates of the circumstances in the MIDDLE EAST! 

Of course if all that one is interested in are the intelligence reports from Israel about Iran there is a huge gap to the truth and reality!

If the USA government believes they are too reliant on Clapper to fire him, think again!

How long does it take to learn a job, in the case of Clapper evidently a lifetime.

I can think of one other person that could promise Clapper a quiet retirement:

September 28, 2014
By Joseph C. Wilson

Does Senator Pat Roberts, (click here) the Republican from Kansas, live in Kansas? That's the issue that's tripped him up as he runs for reelection. But I have known for a decade where he really lives. Like Dorothy, he is no longer in Kansas anymore. Like Oz, he is a charlatan. He lives in a land of lies and deception of his own making.


Roberts, who first came to Washington as a congressional staffer in 1967, claims a recliner chair in a supporter's home as his legal residence in Kansas. Neither the supporter nor Roberts' staff knows how often he makes use of the chair, but it is clearly infrequently at best. Kansans are understandably upset at the disdain shown by the Senator, so much so that the three-term incumbent who has only a Lazy Boy in the state is in danger of losing his seat....

Syrians at risk for genocide should first RUN. Their small local armies need to escort them.

The young people of the Islamic State don't have to die. They can surrender to a land of real religion and not one contrived. They are in a precarious situation whereby they are now locked into confrontation for hopes of winning the day. They haven't reflected on their outcomes if they surrender and ask for mercy. 

The bombing simply degrades the capacity of ISIL to conduct rapid movements through the land. But, the militia still exists. There was a compelling report tonight by Scott Pelli about the small city in Syria whereby Syrian Kurds are conducting their best efforts to fight back against potentially dangerous militias. 

That is noble, but, not prudent. It is noble for journalists as well, but, certainly they know it is not prudent. While the female journalist asked the soldiers about capture I could help but believe she wasn't even reflecting on that potential herself.

The best outcomes for any people whereby militias are closing in and even before it is a realized threat; they need to escape the siege. The army of any town should first put an escort of their town's people to safety in places like Turkey before they sacrifice themselves to a battle they may not win. 

The FIRST and best outcome to genocide is to RUN. All those that survived other such violence did exactly that. The Jewish people in Poland traveled away from their homes to save their lives. The people that did survive Rwanda genocide were those of the people that left and not those that stayed. 

RUN and don't look back.

Climate changes in increments. This occurrence of climate change on Earth is unique to any other period in human history.

Why these events are so upsetting to many in the scientific community is because governments have not acted on these predictions until is appears nearly too late. Let's hope it is not.

Scientists in the 1950s and 1960s and as far back as the time of the discovery of Ford Motor Company have stated imbalance in the amount of greenhouse gases would cause drastic changes in climate. The problem as it presents itself today was suppose to be avoided at all costs. Today water vapor from Earth's troposphere is not showing up in Earth's mesosphere where it has absolutely no effect on climate.

The changes in energy sources occurring today in the way of renewables/alternatives were suppose to be incorporated into the global needs as fossil fuels became antiquated and obsolete for the problems they were causing in climate.

Governments instead of following the recommendations of their scientists played their own game of politics to evade what was to be the most dangerous global trend next to nuclear weapons. The power of money and influence is what has put Earth in a record warming trend that promises to get worse.

Politicians found it easy to evade the truth simply because Earth's climate shift occurs over longer periods of time and reacts to the condition of land and oceans under it's atmosphere. So, when politicians looked for old trends to explain away the concern for Earth's climate they weren't difficult to find simply because the worst was never suppose to happen, but, today cannot be denied.

September 29, 2014
By News Staff

...Like a large boulder (click here) that has tumbled into a narrow stream, the Triple R diverted the flow of high-speed air currents known as the jet stream far to the north, causing Pacific storms to bypass not only California, but also Oregon and Washington. As a result, rain and snow that would normally fall on the West Coast were instead re-routed to Alaska and as far north as the Arctic Circle.
An important question for scientists and decision-makers has been whether human-caused climate change has influenced the conditions responsible for California's drought. Given the important role of the Triple R, Diffenbaugh's team set out to measure the probability of such extreme ridging events. The team first assessed the rarity of the Triple R in the context of the 20th century historical record. They found that the combined persistence and intensity of the Triple R in 2013 was unrivaled by any event since 1948, which is when comprehensive information about the circulation of the atmosphere is first available.
To more directly address the question of whether climate change played a role in the probability of the 2013 event, the team collaborated with Bala Rajaratnam, assistant professor of Statistics and of Environmental Earth System Science, and an affiliated faculty of the Woods Institute for the Environment. Rajaratnam and his graduate students Michael Tsiang and Matz Haugen applied advanced statistical techniques to a large suite of climate model simulations. Using the Triple R as a benchmark, the group compared geopotential heights–an atmospheric property related to pressure– between two sets of climate model experiments. One set mirrored the present climate, in which the atmosphere is growing increasingly warm due to human emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. In the other set of experiments, greenhouse gases were kept at a level similar to those that existed just prior to the Industrial Revolution.
The interdisciplinary research team found that the extreme geopotential heights associated with the Triple R in 2013 were at least three times as likely to occur in the present climate as in the preindustrial climate. They also found that such extreme values are consistently tied to unusually low precipitation in California, and the formation of atmospheric ridges over the northeastern Pacific.
"We've demonstrated with high statistical confidence that the large-scale atmospheric conditions, similar to those associated with the Triple R, are far more likely to occur now than in the climate before we emitted large amounts of greenhouse gases," Rajaratnam said....
September 28, 2014
By Kate Bramson

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — You thought it was pretty hot for the final Sunday in September, didn’t you?
You were right.
When the mercury hit 86 degrees Fahrenheit Sunday at 2:51 p.m., it broke Providence’s 1943 record for the hottest September 28, National Weather Service meteorologist Robert Thompson said. Back then, the high was 84 degrees, according to National Weather Service records.
The low temperature Sunday was 55 degrees, well above the record low of 33 degrees set in 1980.
Saturday, too, brought pretty glorious fall weather for a Sept. 27. The high of 85 degrees fell just one degree shy of breaking the 1998 record, Thompson said.
More typical temperatures on September 28 range from an average low of 50 degrees to the average high of 70, he said....

John McCain's arms to rebels went to create the Islamic State, he has no room to talk.



September 29, 2014
By Jake Flanagan

...Lochhead for The San Francisco Chronicle. (click here)  “Aquifers are being drained at n alarming pace. More than 95 percent of the area’s native habitat has been destroyed by cultivation or urban expansion, leaving more endangered bird, mammal and other species in the southern San Joaquin than anywhere in the continental U.S.”

The drought may cost the region’s farmers upward of $1.7 billion in damages and lost crops, resulting in more than 14,500 farmhand layoffs, Mr. Sahagun writes. “Central Valley irrigators will only get two-thirds of their normal water deliveries,” he says. “Additional pumping of groundwater to replace those shortages will cost farmers about $450 million. About 410,000 acres, or 6 percent, of the irrigated cropland in the Central Valley will be fallowed this year.”... 

Earth is experiencing a crisis far different from the Islamic State, although the Islamic State has mapped out the water supply of the region as a target to win. Earth is parched of water because of decades if not nearly a century of anthropogenic greenhouse gas pollution and the irresponsible disregard of scientists warning of exactly what is happening today.

If governments don't end their pollution of greenhouse gases into the troposphere no one will ever have to worry about the Islamic State again. All arguments will be settled and it will God that has The Last Word.

September 29, 2014
By Miguel llanos
Long duration heat waves (click here) "are becoming increasingly likely" due to human-caused climate change, but its effect on other types of extreme events — California’s prolonged, severe drought and extreme rain in Colorado, for instance — is a lot less clear, according to a sweeping report that seeks to analyze extreme weather events in the context of climate change.
The difference in confidence, the report's authors said Monday, is that while connecting higher temperatures to heat extremes is relatively straightforward, detecting a human signal in more complex events like droughts or storms is much harder.
"Temperature is much more continuous as opposed to precipitation, which is an on/off event," Tom Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center, told NBCNews.com. "If you have an on/off event, it makes the tools we have a little more difficult to use."...

California's water emergency has caused the state government to turn to old reservoirs that have not been used in decades and taking control of aquifers underground to provide water to everyone and not just those that are lucky enough to be in the path of severe rains and flooding.

The effects are everywhere. There is absolutely no reason to disregard the warnings that are now five decades old. 
Wind Map (click here)


There is a large high pressure system that is permanent off California's coast. 

September 29, 2014
2030.18z
UNISYS Water Vapor GOES West Satellite (click here)

There was a Category One Hurricane off the Baja Peninsula. The land is so parched and the air so dry, it is removing the water vapor from the hurricane into the troposphere with a trail as far as Texas.

Monday, September 29, 2014 9:14 AM MDT (click here)

There is hardly a cloud in the sky this morning, anywhere on the Baja peninsula. Temperatures will continue to warm back up across the peninsula too, peaking late in the week. On our Tropical Watch we have Rachel, which was reduced to a Tropical Storm this morning, well to the west of the peninsula that to the surprise of all became aa hurricane over the weekend. Down south there is another emerging threat that is at least forecast to bring us rain by next weekend in Baja California Sur for a couple of days.

September 17, 2014
weather.com


Hurricane Odile (click here) roared into Baja California on Sunday night, causing extensive damage across the scenic peninsula. At luxury hotels in Cabo San Lucas, windows were blown out, structures were destroyed and lower floors were flooded, while entire neighborhoods were leveled and trees and power lines were toppled across Los Cabos.
After the storm passed, residents in local neighborhoods combed through the rubble of destroyed houses to retrieve belongings while in Cabo San Lucas. Looters grabbed everything they could carry at several stores along the tourist strip before troops intervened....

With any luck California will receive some rain. How much? Hard to say because the hurricanes have relocated due to anthropogenic global warming. The hurricanes, due to the overriding Coriolis Effect are now occurring more frequently west of North America.

There were six hurricanes in the Atlantic Season this year with only one more month to go and none saw landfall.

If this trend continues, Europe will have more rainfall from hurricanes than the USA will and the east coast will find it's drought returning. The problem with any relief for California is that as these storms move northward they will dissipate due to very dry air aloft.

Another drought report will be out on Thursday, October 2nd. Hopefully it will reveal some moisture from Hurricane Odile will have reached southern California. 
This is incredibly brilliant. The Chinese people are so resourceful. They were able to send a message without any violence. Amazing. 

The Chinese leadership should be very proud of it's people. It has let them know they are not happy in an inventive way to bring about awareness.

The leadership in Hong Kong needs to mitigate the unrest by receiving public comment to bring a larger involvement by the people. That is all they are asking for; they want a greater voice in governing their city. They don't want to destroy anything, they want to be a greater part of it. It is magnificent to realize how the people have come to the realization they are competent and reliable to bring about productive change.

China has five year plans. They seem to be working. China should embrace that.

September 29, 2014
Through tear gas (click here) and the sweltering sun, umbrellas have been an indispensable tool for Occupy Central protesters in the streets -- becoming a new symbol of protest for a more democratic Hong Kong.
As the civil disobedience movement entered a second day on Monday, logos for the "umbrella revolution" or "umbrella movement" began spreading on social media. 
Two designs shared by an internet user named Kacey Wong showed umbrellas in a shade of fiery red-orange, as well as red and white.
Another logo shared by netizen Ger Choi showed the outline of a white umbrella, above which hovered a yellow star in a halo of green and blue.
Prime Miniser Netanyahu's inflammatory speech is unwelcome. I thought he might be on the road to saying something constructive, but, he simply wants Israel to be the center piece of any idea there are danger in the Middle East.

Israel is carrying attacks against people unable to defend themselves in Gaza and his words are unwelcome.

Netanyahu needs to take responsibility for the disproportionate deaths in Gaza in the resent invasion. Israel needs to roll back it's settlements and leave Palestinian lands.

This is from Al Monitor:

June 30, 2014
Most of today's Salafist jihadist (click here) movements have no interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for the time being regarding it as irrelevant. Instead, their call is to engage in intense, bloody confrontations involving bombings, executions, and suicide attacks against governments headed by Muslims and against Muslim civilians....

...Some jihadists or pro-jihadist Salafists have issued video clips and tweets explaining their lack of assistance to the Palestinians. One tweet stated, “The Hamas government is apostate, and what it is doing does not constitute jihad, but rather a defense of democracy [which Salafists oppose].” Another tweet said, “Khaled Meshaal: Hamas fights for the sake of freedom and independence. The Islamic State: it fights so that all religion can be for God.” Meshaal is head of Hamas' political bureau....

The ideologies of the extremists in Syria and Iraq don't carry the label of Hamas. Hamas is alone and it has always been alone.

At least Israel has bomb shelters.

No one is turning anything upside down. Israel has to leave the settlements on Palestine land.

The UN Human Rights Council is a terrorist organization. Now who is turning everything upside down?

Any human rights needs land to live on and water to drink and food to eat. 

No one is gasing Jews. I am waiting now for Hitler to spring to life again.

The Islamic State has a genocidal methodology. That was not assigned them to demonize them, they earned all by themselves. Iran has nothing to do with the development of the Islamic State. Iran and Hezbollah have a relationship. Iran and Assad have a relationship and they are opposing and waging war with the Islamic State. That is what is so critical about this confrontation of the Islamic State by the nations of the region. It is completely remarkable, but, despite their differences they all identify the Islamic State as a serious and dangerous enemy.  

Israel should be ashamed of the dead in Gaza. That was unwarranted. Israel should be ashamed of the lack of homeland facing the Palestines. Israel is wrong and no faux sense of pride in a the flag is going to change that.

The Israeli people have a right to be proud of their accomplishments, but, war with Palestine by invading the borders of their land and killing them in Gaza is not point of pride for anyone in the world. It has to stop.

Every nation of the world takes Israel's safety seriously and that is something Israel has yet to appreciate. Israel is not alone in this world and it needs to realize its' future is secure. Israel's irrational fears only reflect it's unforgiving attacks on Hamas.

The argument is not about amnesty, it is about the mistakes of previous administrations.

The political right wing of the USA always looks to the simple answers to provide the electorate with 'a reason to vote.' The reason the immigration law is JUST is because the flaws in immigration policy occurred under Reagan.

Reagan did provide amnesty, but, he never followed it up with a secure southern border OR policies to provide methods for Mexico to build their economy and keep their citizens at home. I'll go so far as to say, Reagan is the reason there are such tenacious drug cartels. If the southern border and the Mexican economy weren't so weak, the drug cartels would not be flourishing.

This problem at the USA southern border was allowed to exist through over 40 years of Republican policy.

Today, we have new generations that are part of our brain trust. It is completely wrong to allow these talented people to be deported or their families.

The child immigrants only prove the failure of USA policy in Central and South America for the past decades as well.

September 29, 2014
By Rick Moran

...Mr. Braley, a Democrat, (click here) said that Congress has missed an opportunity to fix what he called the nation’s broken immigration system, because House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, has refused to take up a bill that passed the Senate with the support of Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Marco Rubio of Florida.

“Will you join John McCain and Marco Rubio in calling on Speaker Boehner to bring this immigration bill to the floor of the House so we can pass it?” Mr. Braley asked Mrs. Ernst.

Mrs. Ernst, a Republican, said that Congress should “secure the border,” “enforce the laws on the books” and then move to “modernize” the legal immigration system.

She said, “I don’t support amnesty” and said she is opposed to President Obama taking executive action to “grant amnesty” — which some conservatives fear he will do after the 2014 mid-term elections.
“I do support bringing a lot of these illegal immigrants forward, but not granting them amnesty,” she said. “We have 5 million people waiting in line right now to receive U.S. citizenship and we need to honor that commitment to those people.”...

Boo who, boo who, Wall Street is offended by their own lack of expertise to even require a bailout.

September 28, 2014
By Noam Scheiber

WASHINGTON — TODAY is the start (click here) of the trial in Starr International Co. Inc. v. United States, the case alleging that the government’s 2008 bailout of A.I.G. amounted to an unconstitutional plunder of the company’s shareholders. Starr, a firm run by the former A.I.G. chief executive Maurice R. Greenberg, was the insurer’s largest single shareholder at the time. It saw the government grab almost 80 percent of its common stock amid the bailout (a proportion that eventually rose to 92 percent), and is asking for a cool $40 billion to make it whole....

I'll tell you what is unconstitutional and that is Wall Street running game on the USA people KNOWING they were running toward a cliff. Maurice belongs in prison along with the rest of them. Wall Street is STILL corrupt. They learned nothing. They learned they can be corrupt and get away with it.

August 1, 2014
By Susan Craig and Ben Protess

Updated, 10:03 p.m. | A former Goldman Sachs (click here) trader at the center of a toxic mortgage deal lost a closely watched legal battle on Thursday, giving Wall Street’s top regulator its first significant courtroom victory in a case stemming from the financial crisis.

A federal jury found the trader, Fabrice Tourre, liable on six counts of civil securities fraud after a three-week trial in Lower Manhattan. The case had given both sides — the government and Mr. Tourre — a chance to repair their reputations....

...Some critics have questioned why the agency chose to make Mr. Tourre — a midlevel employee who was stationed in the bowels of Goldman’s mortgage machine — the face of the crisis. Rather than aim at a high-flying executive, the agency pursued someone barely known on Wall Street....

One has to wonder how corrupt the federal system actually is when men die on the street for selling cigarettes to those that cannot afford to buy a pack while those importing tobacco illegally into the USA go without prosecution and midlevel devotees to greed are jailed for fraud.

I tell you what. If Congress can't bear to part with their corrupt money for campaign funding they should prosecute the Regulators for playing footsie with the banks. That might actually work.

September 26, 2014
By Michael Lewis

Probably most people would agree (click here) that the people paid by the U.S. government to regulate Wall Street have had their difficulties. Most people would probably also agree on two reasons those difficulties seem only to be growing: an ever-more complex financial system that regulators must have explained to them by the financiers who create it, and the ever-more common practice among regulators of leaving their government jobs for much higher paying jobs at the very banks they were once meant to regulate. Wall Street's regulators are people who are paid by Wall Street to accept Wall Street's explanations of itself, and who have little ability to defend themselves from those explanations....

Whoever the next president is, they need to make Michael Bloomberg Secretary of the Treasury and maybe the financial markets will finally be civil and worthwhile again.

2008 is due to happen again. The corruption is still there and quite possibly worse.

Reality Check, this is not a threat to the USA.

September 29, 2014

...Asked how Islamic State fighters (click here) had come to control so much territory in Syria and Iraq, Obama acknowledged that US intelligence agencies underestimated the threat and overestimated the ability and will of Iraq’s army to fight. Obama said he agreed with his director of national intelligence, James Clapper, who acknowledged that the US “underestimated what had been taking place in Syria.” Obama also said it was “absolutely true” that the US overestimated the ability and will of the Iraqi army.

Republican Sen. John McCain, who lost the presidential election to Obama in 2008 and has been a frequent critic on foreign policy, said in an interview Monday that the administration had miscalculated the necessity for the United States to keep a residual force of troops in Iraq after the war there ended....


Ya gotta love John McCain. The war is over, but, the USA needs a presence in Iraq to guarantee we are involved with 'boots on the ground' when it starts again.

They are proud of themselves. Is there something wrong with that? The countries need to protect from extremists and it is time for them to define what dangerous means to them. They can't find a greater evil than IS.

September 29, 2014
By Saad Dorsi
The world has finally decided to confront the threat (click here) of the Islamic State. It was just about time. Waves of jet fighters coming from an international coalition have started to roam the skies above Syria and Iraq targeting locations and supply lines the IS is using to sustain its terror.

Since the IS started to attract media attention, it spared no effort to demonstrate how a human being can stoop so low. 

The most outrageous and unfortunate thing is that they used the name of Islam to further their diabolical designs, reviving fears and dreadful memories their evil twin, Al-Qaeda, had planted in the hearts and minds of the whole world toward this peaceful religion. Sadly for Islam, it had to be used by groups of lunatics as a justification for their greedy pathetic existence. Needless to say, this great religion has nothing to do with these crazy people. The teachings of Islam are different from their skewed interpretation of this religion....


They are a wonderful people that dearly needs to offer opportunity to every citizen while identifying the evil that can change their lives forever. Not every Saudi woman can afford to provide a new car to her husband on their wedding anniversary, but, that is true for American women as well. This expression of love of her husband is no different than any Western woman. What is different is the dress they wear and the place where they live. 

The Arab nations need to remove the danger allowed to exist in the region by providing financial support to extremists. The Arab nations need this fight. They need it for many reasons. This woman and her spouse are important and their safety from evil is important as well.
Manama: A Saudi woman (click here) has surprised her husband by offering him a new car on the anniversary of their wedding.
The elated wife decorated the Toyota Prado with flowers and posted several messages that expressed her deep love for him, local news site Al Marsad reported on Monday.
“Because you are the love that I live for, because you are the soul with which I want to stay, because you are my passion and love, I tell you from every fibre in my heart: May God protect our love. Please do accept this simple gift from me,” the wife wrote on a poster that she decorated with red and white roses and left on the car shield.
Social media users praised the wife’s open and honest love for her husband.