Tuesday, July 07, 2015

This is Kelly Hanlin. She is one of the Occupy protesters. Of all things she met her husband at the protests. After she was pepper sprayed. 

She and her spouse now have a baby girl, I believe it was. What could be more perfect. I wish her and her new family the best for the future.

NEW YORK, July 7 (UPI) -- New York City (click here) agreed to pay more than $330,000 to six Occupy Wall Street protesters who said police unjustly doused them with pepper spray during a demonstration that helped launched the movement into the spotlight. 

The recently reached settlements, ranging from $52,500 to $60,000 per person, or a total of $332,500, are just some of the payouts arising from the early days of the protests against economic inequalities that began in September 2011....

This is an interesting article in The Atlantic. "Occupy" is shaping the future.

June 10, 2015
By Michael Levitin 

...Nearly four years (click here) after the precipitous rise of Occupy Wall Street, the movement so many thought had disappeared has instead splintered and regrown into a variety of focused causes. Income inequality is the crisis du jour—a problem that all 2016 presidential candidates must grapple with because they can no longer afford not to. And, in fact, it’s just one of a long list of legislative and political successes for which the Occupy movement can take credit....

Excuse me?

The gun (click here) used in the shooting death of Kate Steinle in San Francisco belonged to a federal agent, a source tells CNN. CNN's Sara Sidner reports.

Anderson are you certain about this?

I can't find a second source on this? I have to admit in the televised interview where he admits to the shooting, his story about where he found the gun seemed like a fabrication. There actually was a gun wrapped in a tee shirt on the ground? And it's a police officer's gun? Not a police officer, but, a federal agent no less.

What the heck is going on here? 

How does an illegal immigrant find himself returned to the USA five times, with a probation officer in Texas, only to find a federal agent's gun on the ground and then the weapons is discharged to kill a completely innocent woman? 

This needs an investigation to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. 

Did Sanchez kill a federal officer? Some where along the border? 
The Arctic is Unforgiving.

There is no room for mistakes. It is just the way it is.  

The USA has a mission in Antarctica. Why doesn't the USA have a mission in the Arctic Ocean? 

Ever hear the story of "The Fram?"

This is a model of the Fram. It was specially constructed to cross the Arctic Ocean.

The sailing of The Fram was preceded by another ship called "Jeanette." Three years the Jeanette was lost and then one day it's debris floated into a Norwegian harbor. See, the Jeanette did not sink. The ice had broken the ship into pieces, but, the debris didn't sink. It became encased in the ice. But, why did the debris float into a Norwegian harbor? It was all encased in ice and in the Arctic Ocean, so what gives with the debris floating into a Norwegian harbor?

The Arctic Ocean is fluid. In it's coldest cold and isn't thickest ice it is fluid. No matter what time of year it is the Arctic Ocean is fluid. 

The picture to the right is a really cool picture. It was taken by a NASA satellite. This is not the Arctic Ocean. Any guesses? Just try. 

This is the Lambert Glacier in Antarctica. Anyone guess it is water running over rocks? 

Ice in Antarctica or the Arctic Ocean is always flowing. Gravity. These structures are watched intensely by the mission in Antarctica. They are important structures. However, they are very dangerous to untrained people. They are especially dangerous on a hot planet. But, they are beautiful. 

As to The Fram. This is Fridtjof Nansen. Up to the time he took The Fram into the Arctic Ocean there was a belief the Arctic Ocean was open water. Cold. With icebergs, but, open. Nansen stated with the Jeannette washing up in pieces after missing for three years, the ship was carried by ice into the North Atlantic. He stated the debris finally floated to harbor because the ship was crushed and crushed and crushed again as it moved WITH THE ICE. It was all theory.

The Fram had a different profile and was designed to have a boarder and flatter bottom. It was designed and built with an understanding it would rise to the top of the ice and becomes part of the ice flow of the Arctic Ocean and be carried across the North Pole from the North Pacific to the North Atlantic.

He and a crew set sail in the North Pacific and entered the sea ice. This was not a ice breaker. It was a ship. The trip went nearly as predicted. The Fram became encircled with ice and eventually rose above the water into an upright position frozen in the ice. Three years later, The Fram was released into the North Atlantic intact with crew to sail home. 

Nansen and The Fram answered the question about open water. There was none. The only disappointing aspect of Nansen's trip was that he came close to the North Pole but was somewhat south of the North Pole. Not to be undone he and another set out across the frozen Arctic Ocean to the North Pole and marked their presence. They lived for three years in The Fram and hunted for food. They did research during that three years. 

Humans don't make the rules on Earth. We are allowed a planet to live on. We are lucky. Earth is a great planet. Earth is such a dynamic and intimidating planet it scares people. Tornadoes, volcanoes, floods and all sorts of dynamics that 'handle' people rather than people handling Earth. Earth even has wild animals that are carnivores. Those carnivores live on the land and in the sea. 

People over time have conquered their space so they weren't ravaged by nature or Earth. Given that people from their beginnings on Earth have survived it would appear as though, "people are powerful." Yes? Very powerful. It could be said, people are more than Earth can handle.

So, given the fact people have carved out a place for themselves in nearly every corner of the planet conquering Earth is the way to go and there isn't anything about Earth people can't overcome. 

HUMANS RULE THE WORLD.  

Or do they? 

Can anyone simply go on vacation and swim to the deepest depth of the Marianas Trench? Or climb K2 without a hitch? Or go to Antarctica and the Arctic Ocean for sightseeing? The kind of sightseeing one would do in Venice, Italy? 

Of course not. People have to use adaptive methods to attempt such dangerous tasks. 

So, lets try this again.

Do people rule the world? 

No, they don't. So, when I hear about a petroleum company having their equipment trashed by the Arctic Ocean all I can say is, "I told you so.

I was proud of the way South Carolina was handling the retirement of the confederate flag.

Then comes the majority leader of the House, Michael Pitts, to put an end to movement to remove the flag from state grounds. 

Mr. Pitts was among demonstrators on the South Carolina state grounds to protect the idea the confederate flag represents southern pride.  

I believe he is the man in the white shirt who is second from the front of the picture. It certainly looks like him. There were arrests at this protest.

June 29, 2015
...The pro-Confederate flag (click here) rally hopes to draw attention away from the racial profiling the Confederate flag has garnered and provide insight and history into the true meaning behind the flag.

Mr. Pitts (click here) is a member of ALEC.  He is also a member of many gun clubs and a turkey federation. I think that is about hunting.

This is Mr. Pitts voting record. (click here) 

His record is fairly standard. He is part of a right wing conservative political party. He is not a libertarian. He only has about 15% rating by the Tea Party and 55% with the Club for Growth; which isn't really about growth, but, about enforcing corruption. And right along with the Club for Growth, Mr. Pitts was endorsed by the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce.

He insists the confederate flag is about southern pride. Now this man is a leader. He knows was the real world is all about. Yet, he articulates a fantasy. The fact the confederate flag is affiliated with the KKK will be demonstrated on the state grounds in South Carolina. As a matter of fact, the chapter of the KKK will come all the way from North Carolina to support folks like Mr. Pitts. I don't know if there are campaign donations.

Pelham, North Carolina Ku Klux Klan chapter the Loyal White Knights will hold a rally on the grounds of the South Carolina State House next month to protest the removal of the Confederate flag (file photo) 

July 7, 2015
By Anneta Konstantinides 


A North Carolina (click here) chapter of the Ku Klux Klan will hold a rally on the grounds of the South Carolina State House next month to protest the removal of the Confederate flag. 
The event will take place on July 18, just a day after the one-month anniversary of the racially-motivated massacre of nine people in the historic black Emanuel AME Church in Charleston.
James Spears, Grand Titan of the KKK's Pelham chapter known as the Loyal White Knights,  said the Confederate flag was being removed for 'all the wrong reasons' and was 'part of white people's culture'.... 

The idea the confederate flag is linked to hate and hate crimes is not a myth. The KKK is not about southern pride in a benign way whereby children will gather at the curb for the parade.

The KKK has a very long history of violence that has occurred within the century.  

The last lynching by members of the KKK was Michael Donald. He was killed by two KKK members on March 21, 1981. That was 1981. 1981. '81. Got that? The murder was considered arbitrary and he was hanged by his murderers. His body was swinging from a tree when found.  

Not long ago there was a black man found hanging from a tree. I think it was in his own backyard. People were thinking it could be a possible suicide. As of yet I haven't heard a conclusion, so there may be a more recent date than 1981 for the last lynching by the KKK. 

When Mr. Pitts stands at the desk in the South Carolina State House with a list amendments to delay or possibly derail the vote on the confederate flag he will be lying about the benign nature of that flag. I completely believe he knows he'll be lying.  

This is a shame, because, Governor Haley with her magnificent example of concern and quite frankly love of the citizens of South Carolina had my hope and many others this would be the beginning of the will of the people of South Carolina to remove a symbol adopted by the KKK as a one of hate. 

I realize there are people today part of a club that is to honor their family members who fought for the south. The idea the confederate flag is an emblem of southern pride is a bit contorted. It is. The entire idea is political. It is time government lands are free of political symbols affiliated with hate.

Mr. Pitts cannot remove the fact there are nine magnificent people dead because of hate. They were killed in a church sanctuary. The killer displayed the confederate flag as a personal signature to his loyalties. 

When Mr. Pitts carries out his protest in the way of amendments to the South Carolina Senate bill he will be facilitating more hate to reside under the guise of the South Carolina government. He is irresponsible and has faux loyalties. He is obstructing a bill that honors the people of South Carolina in their disgust of deaths of nine of their citizens and one an esteemed member of the South Carolina elected government by the people.

Rev. Clementa Pinckney was murdered with hate in the heart of his murderer. He was murdered because of his skin color. The murderer took the life of a man that worked through his elected status for equality and to improve lives, even the life of his murderer. If Rev. Pickney was alive today he would be trying to reach that young man's heart to change it and make him a man in pursuit of a proud and productive life. 

The families of these victims have spoken within the practice of the grace of their faith in forgiveness of the murderer. And Mr. Pitts stands in opposition in a very underhanded way to stop a bill that will honor the people of the state and uplift their loyalties to each other and their futures together. 

Mr. Pitts is not worthy of his position in the South Carolina House.

If the USA and allies put boots on the ground AGAIN, there would a hideous outcome.

February 9, 2015 
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

...The figure of 200,000 ISIL fighters (click here) advanced by Fuad Hussein includes support personnel (ansar), police-style security forces (hisba), local militias, border guards, paramilitary personnel associated with the group’s various security bodies (mukhabarat, assas, amniyat, and amn al-khas), and conscripts and trainees. The actual number of ISIL front-line and garrison fighters is much lower, which are divided between their regular forces (jund), the elite paramilitary (inghimasiyun, which alone may have up to 15,000 members), and death squad (dhabbihah) personnel. Unless one is able to objectively evaluate these bodies, merely throwing out raw numbers is meaningless....

They would slither out from every rock and every crack in the wall. Absolutely not.

There would be substantial casualties all the way around, the cost would be ridiculous and the body count of innocent people could move past those dead from Vietnam. 

It isn't going to happen! 

Senator McCain is wrong. There is no blanket strategy to kill anything that moves.

United States Advisors are there to provide expertise to facilitate the Iraqi military to end the dangers from Daesh. They are not there to kill Assad's forces, they aren't there to root out any al Qaeda and kill them. 

Senator McCain hasn't seen enough killing I suppose. It is wrong for the USA military to enter into a civil war. The USA is to end any attempt at genocide. The United Nations is attempting to bring about shared governance. That is if Assad's forces are actually alive to serve a shared governance.

These are Assad's forces being killed. The USA is not needed in a war where enemies of one side or the other change like the wind. The USA has killed enough in the Middle East. The regional powers need to take over protections of their countries.

July 4, 2015 
By AP

The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) (click here) has released a video showing the killing of some 20 government soldiers in the historic town of Palmyra in central Syria.
The video released Saturday showed the soldiers being taken in pickup trucks from the town's notorious Tadmur prison to the amphitheater. At the theater, they are shot dead by young ISIL members armed with pistols. Hundreds of people were seen watching the killings.
It was not clear when the killings took place.
The Associated Press reported in May that scores of troops and state employees were killed after ISIL captured the town.
Palmyra is a UNESCO world heritage site famous for its 2,000-year-old Roman colonnades, other ruins and priceless artifacts. ISIL members destroyed two historic mausoleums in Palmyra, Syria’s head of the government’s Antiquities and Museums Department told the AP on June 24.

This is almost laughable. I know it is serious and I am glad the women are being recognized by the courts.

The 1970s.

Quaaludes (methaqualone). 

They were everywhere. I knew a guy who worked on the construction of skyscrapers. The jargon was Iron Hanger. Something like that. He took them all the time. He said it helped remain calm while he was at the higher levels of the building. 

It never was my pleasure of take the lousy medication.

During the 1970s Quaalude (click here) became a widely abused sleeping pill. The key chemical needed to make Quaalude was methaqualone, first developed in India in the 1950s as an anti-malarial drug. By the mid-60s, U.S. doctors began prescribing Quaalude as a non-addictive alternative to barbiturates.
However, by the late '70s, illegal use of the drug had surged, especially among teenagers. Users would "'lude out," combining the drug with alcohol to achieve a drunken, sleepy high. Overuse could lead to respiratory arrest, delirium, kidney or liver damage, coma, and death. As the abuse reached its peak, it was linked to overdoses, suicide attempts, injuries, and car accidents....

Evidently, Mr. Cosby couldn't finesse his way with women and called for back up. Shame on him. But, this was common practice 'in the day.' I am not surprised it was quaalude. It actually makes sense.

I take it none of the women working with him on a TV set had these problems? 

McDonald's violate consumer trust in Australia.

We should make it easy for the fast food restaurants. Simply require them to display a flashing red sign stating, "Our foo is high in Calories, fat and incomplete nutrition per meal."

July 7, 2015
By Patrick Hatch

Fast food giant McDonald's (click here) has introduced new menu boards that make it harder to see and compare the calories in its products, disappointing health advocates and potentially breaching food labelling laws.

Old menu boards showed the kilojoules in each product next to its price, but the new boards, which have so far been rolled out in 700 stores across Australia, do not. 

To see how many kilojoules are in a particular hamburger, customers must wait for up to a minute for the animated menu to scroll through each product, bringing up an image of that item and only then displaying its health information. 

The health information for each item is displayed for about seven seconds....

And require real life images be placed on all sandwich wrappers. Like plaque in arteries.

It is summer on a hot planet. What is everyone thinking? One dead and four others seriously injured.

Big Four Ice Caves
FILE IMAGE: After the summer months, the Big Four Ice Caves show what the warm summer days do to melt the Ice Caves. The Big Four Ice Caves trail head is about an hour and a half away from Seattle with a well manicured 2.2 mile roundtrip hike to the Ice Caves. WARNING: Washington Trails Association warns to never actually go into the ice caves because it is very dangerous. (Joshua Lewis / Seattle Refined)
 
July 8, 2015
By KOMO Staff

GRANITE FALLS, Wash. -- Just a day after several tourists (click here) avoided injury in a partial collapse at the Big Four Ice Caves, rescue crews on Monday were once again dispatched to the Snohomish County caves after another collapse killed one hiker and injured four others.
 
Several people called 911 Monday evening at about 5:30 p.m. to report a collapse at the caves, according to Shari Ireton with the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office.
 
The callers said hikers were potentially injured and trapped inside the cave, according to Ireton.
 
When rescue crews arrived at the caves, they found three seriously injured hikers, and one hiker with less severe injuries. One person was killed in the collapse, according to Ireton....