Friday, May 22, 2015

The region of the Middle East has to stabilize itself.

Ahmed Ali is a visiting senior fellow and director of the Iraq Security and Humanitarian Monitor at the Education for Peace in Iraq Center in Washington. 

May 21, 2015
by Ahmed Ali

WASHINGTON — THE fall of the Iraqi city of Ramadi on Sunday, (click here) and of the Syrian city of Palmyra on Wednesday, is a big gain for the Islamic State, but not an utter disaster, as many observers fear.

Rather than inducing panic in Western capitals, it should lead to a realistic assessment of the Islamic State’s strengths and weaknesses. One setback in a long war must not trigger hasty strategic shifts that lead to foreign countries’ becoming mired in Iraq once more.

Palmyra has economic and cultural significance, as it sits among gas fields and is home to renowned ruins. But Ramadi, in western Iraq, is of far greater military and strategic consequence.

The attack on Ramadi was a sign of desperation, not strength. It took 16 months of continual clashes with tenacious Iraqi security forces and loyal Sunni tribes before the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, could take Ramadi. Before it fell, the Islamic State already controlled half of the city. Its battlefield rivals were exhausted, and it wanted to give its adherents a psychological boost. Ramadi was a ripe target....

The dolphins that are dying and giving birth to genetically damaged young have been studied for over 40 years. The BP disaster has decimated the integrity of this population.

The Sarasota Dolphin Research Program (SDRP), (click here) a partnership led by the Chicago Zoological Society and based at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida, conducts the world’s longest-running study of a dolphin population. The program’s primary goal is to contribute to a better understanding of the structure and dynamics of populations of small cetaceans, as well as the natural and anthropogenic factors that impact them. The SDRP uses an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach in conducting studies of bottlenose dolphins within Sarasota Bay, Tampa Bay, Charlotte Harbor, and the Gulf of Mexico coastal waters.  For more information about the SDRP, please visit: www.sarasotadolphin.org.

This was stated in the 2000 election.

George W. Bush (click here) "will also ensure that the federal government, which is the country’s largest polluter, complies with all environmental laws."

Lies.  

To refuse the USA was responsible of 25% of global greenhouse gas emissions, it was easier to blame China. So much for accountability. 

LEADING on the Climate Crisis means setting the example other countries need to follow. At the time Bush was pointing fingers at China, it was building wind farms in number and acres greater than the USA had. 

When President Obama went to China he didn't point a finger and demand for China to modernize their country and end their polluting. He showed China's leadership the willingness to work together with them to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Now, both the USA and China have a common mission and it is a good mission to end the danger of the Climate Crisis. It takes grown up with a moral center to act in a responsible way to bring about change. President Obama is that moral president. 

If Germany can do it, the USA can do it. Reduction in greenhouse gas emission by Germany also lowers it's dependency on natural gas. Alternative energy helps Germany with it's long term national security.

FRANKFURT, May 22 (Reuters) - German carbon dioxide (CO2)(click here) equivalent emissions regulated under the European emissions trading scheme (ETS) in 2014 fell by 4.1 percent to 461.2 million tonnes, according to official national data released on Friday.
The number was published by Germany's carbon registry DEHSt and underscored the general trend of lower pollution in the EU last year. The bloc's ETS emissions fell 4.5 percent, helped by the rise of renewable energy and mild weather, which lowers energy demand. "In Germany, 2014 was the warmest year on record since measuring started in 1881," the DEHSt report said....

All the other 195 countries needs to take example and apply alternative energy to increase their national security. 

The American media is sad about antiquities and history being destroyed by the former Ba'athists now called Daesh.

And on August 23, 2004, the USA military started to bomb this Mosque. The bombers were first jets and then came the tanks. 

Moqtada al Sadr was fighting for his life and the life of his Mosque. He is a cleric in Iraq where his father, grandfather and an uncle was killed in their own home by Saddam. Bush was no better than Saddam. It wasn't until the Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani entered his authority to his people did the attack stop. And it stopped dead in it's tracks. So don't tell me the USA has all these high moral values because it serves the purpose of seeking sympathy for Iraq. Ain't no way, the USA comes away from the Iraq war as saintly to any crimes against humanity.

The American people don't want the deaths of these people on their hands, yet alone more people of the Middle East. The Republican presidential hopefuls are not going to bring the USA to the brink of war again.
 
By Mike Dorning
 
BAGHDAD — U.S. warplanes (click here) pounded away at followers of radical cleric Moqtada Sadr in Najaf and tanks advanced closer to the shrine where the rebels have gathered, as Iraq's interim government warned Sunday night that a raid on the mosque is imminent.
Late Sunday, leaders of Sadr's al-Mahdi Army told The Associated Press that U.S. attacks had damaged the outer walls of the mosque. A U.S. military spokesman denied American forces hit the walls, AP reported.

The lies of "W" and Cheney are stated by two people that had worked for the administration. Where is former CIA director Tenet. I know what he was thinking. He has to have the guts to say it.

The USA is NOT at war in Iraq or Syria. The USA is in assistance of the Arab Coalition. 

There is no USA combat troops in Iraq or Syria and there won't be.

Questions?

Republicans are confused between their politics and lies. War fits their politics, the lack of it leaves them with absent accusations that has no basis. In other words, the Republican politics require the USA to be at war, otherwise, President Obama is responsible for the lack of it. They have to blame someone. "W" blamed Saddam of great crimes of WMD and nuclear proliferation. It was all a lie and the fact there is no war in the Middle East where the USA has no combat mission today, is driving them crazy.

What is there to understand about Republicans? They lie for the purpose of their crony politics. They have no moral gravity to their politics. They entered into a war that was completely illegal and immoral. Now, their presidential politics want to do it again.

"What I didn't find in Africa." (click here)
July 3, 2003
By Joseph C. Wilson 4th
WASHINGTON— Did the Bush administration (click here) manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq? 


Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.... 

Former CIA Deputy Director Morrell CONFIRMS the truth as stated by former Ambassador Joe Wilson, 4th.

Joe Wilson stated "W" lied and Morrell stated Cheney and "W" lied. What does it take for American citizens to realize they were lied to and our soldiers died along with tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis. Why would a people in the Middle East trust the USA again? Why would they hate us? The American people can't control the politics of their country to stop heinous use of their military? Really? 

It has been twelve years since the illegal invasion of the American military into Iraq and Republicans are still demanding the country return to war. When that stop? Never? Every time a Republican raises their lying heads to run for president the USA is suppose to jump on the band wagon and elect another war president? 

Bring them home.

May 21, 2015
By Kyle Jahner, Staff writer

Col. John Reynolds (click here) just finished leading the first U.S. conventional force to deploy to Iraq since 2011. And after helping train the Iraqi army for months, he came away impressed at the growth of the increasingly "battle-hardened" force.

The 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division returned to Fort Riley in March after deploying to Camp Buehring, Kuwait. From there, it trained alongside Kuwaiti partners before receiving the task to travel to Iraq to provide security at key points in Baghdad and train Iraqi Army recruits to battle the Islamic State terror group.

"They were excited that we were back," Reynolds told a media roundtable on Thursday at the Pentagon. "You could see relief from the tactical and operational commanders. I was impressed with the leadership there, because they were fighting. You could tell they were fighting hard in the north. They were battle-hardened."...

...U.S. soldiers offered a professionalism and set of values, Reynolds said.

The USA is not needed in the region anymore. Russia has also shut down the access to Afghanistan thorough Russia by the USA military. 
 
As an example Reynolds told the story of a recruit who approached him and confessed he hated Americans. Reynolds had a quick reply: "I don't care, as long as you hate Daesh more." Reynolds said he personally participated in a PT training session with the recruits, the American-hater included....

..."Every single soldier was able to get off the camp at Camp Buerhing, and go into downtown Kuwait," Reynolds said. "I've been deployed 13 times, and this was the first time I was able to go downtown into a mall."

This is what children learn from drug wars.

Relatives of Cristopher Raymundo Marquez Mora during his funeral service in Chihuahua on May 17, 2015 (AFP Photo/Daniel Acosta) 

May 19, 2015

"They were playing, (click here) they tied him up and they put a stick on his neck that semi-asphyxiated him," the statement said.

"When the boy fell to the ground, they hurled rocks at him, they stuck a knife in his back and once dead, they dragged him where they deposited the body, in a shallow dig," it said.

"They covered the body with dirt and put plants and a dead animal on the surface" in a bid to hide him, the statement said.

The two 15-year-old boys could be jailed if found guilty but the other three other minors face "other types of sanctions," prosecutors said.

The murder took place in a state that has endured some of the worst bloodshed in Mexico's drug war, with thousands of people killed in turf wars between cartels....

Forest fires are at record highs around the globe.

South Saskatchewan 

Throughout province, 163 wildfires so far in 2015 (click here)

May 21, 2015
CBC News

Crews have been busy fighting forest fires in Saskatchewan this year, with almost double the number compared to this time last year.  
As of Wednesday, there have been 163 fires in the province this year, compared to 85 by this time last year.
Most of the fires are in the Prince Albert and Buffalo Narrows area, with a smaller number in the La Ronge area.
Twelve wildfires were burning on Wednesday.
In the southern half of the province, the risk of fires is elevated, according to the environment ministry.
On the east side of the region, the risk has been deemed high while in western and central areas, it's extreme, according to the ministry's Thursday fire forecast map.
One forest fire was burning close to Creighton, Sask. A water bomber and a helicopter dropped water on the blaze late Wednesday afternoon.

Portugal 

VIANA DO CASTELO, Portugal (AP) " Race organizers (click here) of the Rally of Portugal have canceled a stage on Friday because of forest fires.
Organizers canceled the 27.53-kilometer (17.1-mile) stage around the town of Ponte de Lima near the northern border with Spain "because of nearby forest fires."
That was scheduled to be the day's fourth stage.
Portugal has had a dry winter and spring, and May has seen record monthly temperatures.

In the US, there are less than ten wildfires, but, most are occuring in Florida. Alaska has two large incident fires.

May 21, 2015
By Susan Miller Degnan
Two small Miami-Dade wildfires (click here) were extinguished by firefighters Thursday, but the huge, now 30,000-acre Everglades fire battled for the past several days is still raging on.
The blaze in the Big Cypress Preserve “way out west in the Everglades’’ cast smoke over Miami-Dade and Broward on Friday as well, as forecast by Florida Forest Service senior forest ranger Gabriel Llamas Thursday evening.
Miami-Dade County spokesman Luis Espinoza of the Division of Environmental Resources Management said the air quality index was expected to be in the moderate range Friday.
“Residents – especially active children, the elderly and people with respiratory problems – should avoid prolonged outdoor exposure,” Espinoza said.
Llamas said the Big Cypress Preserve fire is on the south and north sides of I-75 in Collier County, and was about 13 percent contained as of Thursday...

While the northern hemisphere is hot and on fire, the southern hemisphere is experiencing frigid temperatures.

New Zealand

May 22, 2015
 
Two big weather systems (click here) will bang both ends of New Zealand this weekend and the year's coldest blast yet is expected early next week.
MetService said the sunniest skies this weekend will likely be in the middle of the country, as rain and strong winds strike the north, and a polar blast brings snow to the south.
MetService said a low pressure system from the Tasman Sea will hit Northland and the Coromandel Peninsula on Saturday, bringing rain and strong winds to places as far south as Ruapehu.
Meanwhile, snow in Otago and Southland was forecast to reach altitudes as low as 200m above sea level....

US Drought Map 
May 19, 2015 

The storms are not helping. As a matter of fact, the drought west of the Mississippi and central of that region is where severe storms were recently recorded.



Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/deadline-miami/article21560760.html#storylink=cpy
A person with a lisp falls under the American with Disabilities Act. Having an income doesn't disappear because one has a disability to surmount, be it short term or a lifetime.

No person with a disability should be apologizing for it. Never. That is simply the way their body works. Surmounting a disability is a challenge more people don't have. It requires effort to simply function to be in line with everyone else. Regardless of the disability they should be admired for their life and the challenge they face everyday.

No one should apologize for a matter they have no control. It's ridiculous to think any handicap is accommodated by law and social contract and therefore in gratitude for a just society. They are Americans seeking to pull their own weight. That is nothing to apologize for.

There is an article in The New Zealand Herald I found very interesting. It is about a syndrome called selective mutism, known better as SM. As first glance the child is sometimes thought to be autistic. Tests of the child by professionals show differently.

The children suffer by harassment in school as well. It makes the recovery from SM a difficult challenge. The article is by a mother and the family's journey through a difficult diagnosis.

May 23, 2015
By Kim O'Connell

...Typically, (click here) SM kids speak in certain places where they're most comfortable, such as home, but not in other locations, such as school or day care. This was the case with our son. For selectively mute kids, I read, even whispering with one other person can feel like speaking to a crowd of thousands.
Reading about SM, I felt a shock of recognition. Growing up, I, too, had suffered from a public-speaking phobia, and I rarely participated in class discussions. In high school, I would lose sleep for nights on end before giving an oral report.
Although I've mostly conquered those fears, painful, embarrassing memories rushed to the surface as I perused Web sites about the condition. And along with them came a deep sense of guilt. I learned that three-fourths of children with SM have a parent with social anxiety. If anxiety was in my son's makeup, I was convinced that I had put it there....