Friday, March 25, 2016

So Donald Trump has been off the campaign trail for eight days.

I don't blame him for taking time with his family. The family has received death threats in the past couple of weeks. I don't think the public knows all the concern involved in his campaign. Eric made an appearance lately on FOX I think. He seems fine and fearless. But, perhaps the family needed time together.

But. Then. There is that baby. I hope they are all well and happy..

It's a special moment.

I can't believe the cheering of the crowd didn't scare it. Bernie was great. 

The young people at that rally are absolutely wonderful. They cheer at simple pleasures. They love Bernie Sanders. They hold onto him dearly. I can understand that. They are worried about their future and they don't feel as though they can control how their lives will take shape. 

Young people that incredible with their virtue captured in a moment compliments of a bird will bring interest by parents. If parents realize how vital Bernie Sanders is to the hopes of their children they will vote for him. Those young people in that moment don't realize how powerful they are. Young Americans are great.

By blaming everyone else for his alleged infidelity the suspiicion becomes more clear.

The people want the truth not finger pointing or excuses.

March 25, 2016
By Mary Elizabeth Williams

I understand (click here) the allure of the possible revelation that a world class stone thrower also abides in a glass house. But of all the reasons to be outraged about Ted Cruz, of all the nyah nyah nyah reasons to pick the guy apart, Friday’s explosive claims that the Republican presidential candidate has repeatedly cheated on his wife seem to be wildly missing the point. If you want to take a political candidate down, can it please, in 2016, not be over his private consensual adult sexual behavior?...

The is the presidency of the USA. While the Republican Party could not care less about Ted's escapades, the people in a national election will.

I realize even prostitution doesn't phase the Republican Party that won't hold water in a national election. 


Heath Ceramics and their K studio

Heath Ceramics is probably the one company left that produces dinnerware in the USA.

Over the years they have developed other product lines. Their tile products were some of it's earliest products that lead to dinnerware. They also have a cookware line.

But, this exciting sachet (click here) is made in Michigan. It is a "Made in America" product. The sachets makes a nice gift for the traveler as family or friend.

Congratulations to all involved, including Joel Manby, the CEO of Sea World.

Just some thoughts. What people will learn about Orcas at the new "Sea World Orca Encounter" is that these whales travel in pods. When a single male leaves it's pod they often travel in a two bachelor group. The point is the very fine people that long for the Sea World Orcas to live in the wild have significant hurdles to that end.

"Keiko" (click here) has his dignity in that he tried really, really hard to be autonomous and free, but, he had no real reference points to the oceans. In the end he stranded in a fjord. It was not a failure, it was a learning experience for all involved. 

Any attempt at setting the whales free to open ocean unprotected and without human intervention has to come from a team of PhDs. There is no other option. The Sea World Orcas are bonded to people. Bonding is a gigantic issue for any scientist that wants to set the Orcas into open oceans. 

The Orcas like deep water, but, what these Orcas don't understand is the depth of the oceans and the size of their swimming pool. That is significant and poses a danger to them. It is a lot more than just hunting and eating in the wild. 

Imagine just for a minute being a baby Orca and mom dives to depth. The young learn something. They learn mom is brave and dives for a purpose and they can survive for a short time while at depth, but, surfacing is very important. A female with an infant has a lot of work to do from birth, to them traveling to feeding areas and ultimately males leave the pod while the females breed again. No different than land animals such as the elephant the life skills are learned from the pod.

For the Sea World Orcas they have never had that ocean experience at a young age. There is no way to instill that knowledge. It has to be learned and it has to be learned at a young age.

The exception some might look to is Tillicum. He is a significantly large whale, but, he has been in the ocean. He was not hand raised. However, Tillicum sees Sea World pools and pens as his home and his domaine. He is a very strong and large male and part of that comes from his earlier years in the ocean. He would be hard pressed at his age to find a pod that would accept him or to build his own.

Male whales are interesting. In order to build their own pods, they will steal away an initial female from an existing pod. The two bachelor whales will harass a female at the edge of the pod until she is separated and isolated. They are fascinating mammals. 

Tillicum should be considered retired and allowed to be in a place where he is safe and has his own domaine. 

I want to refer to the Marine Mammal Protection Act (click here). That law worked to benefit the Sea World Orcas and rightfully so. But, to take the retirement of these mammals to the next level and set them free into the oceans can be viewed as wrongful under the law. 

The law is to protect them and to remove them from cruelty. PhDs will have to oversee any efforts to set them free and quite frankly I can't think of one that would take this effort that far. There are too many factors. But, the people who see morality differently are welcome to try, but, first ASK the law if their venture to release the whales is within the parameters of it. Cruelty is the primary word and if releasing them is cruel the law will not back the effort.

Kindly remember, these Orcas are oriented to human beings and their behavior. That won't necessarily leave them in the open ocean. The whaling ships are still out there and they do hunt Orcas. Sending them into the oceans is an incredibly complex problem.

Again, congratulations to all and to Sea World for finding a path without cruelty to these magnificent mammals. Good luck!

Oh. These are not one night stands either.

March 23, 2016
By J. R. Taylor

Presidential candidate Ted Cruz (click here) is trying to survive an explosive “dirt file” on the finger-wagging conservative senator!
And the new issue of The National ENQUIRER — on newsstands now — reveals how the reports say the staunch Republican is hiding FIVE different mistresses!
“Private detectives are digging into at least five affairs Ted Cruz supposedly had,” claimed a Washington insider.
“The leaked details are an attempt to destroy what’s left of his White House campaign!”
The ENQUIRER reports that Cruz’s claimed mistresses include a foxy political consultant and a high-placed D.C. attorney.
There are also whispers of other intimate late-night sessions Ted has had in Washington — and even a wild sex worker makes the cut!
Get the full list of ladies in Ted Cruz’s Mistress File — only in the new National ENQUIRER, on newsstands now!

The women need to come forward and speak to the public. They have a right to know the facts. If this is pure skeptical scandal then the National Inquirer needs to apologize to the candidate and those that support him.
The National Enquirer states it has names. This should be forthcoming.

CWB honorees Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi speak onstage during attends The New York Women's Foundation Celebrating Women Breakfast at Marriott Marquis Hotel on May 14, 2015 in New York City.

March 25, 2016
By Jena McGregor


Fortune Magazine (click here) released its third annual list of the World's Greatest Leaders, and for the first time, the list of 50 CEOs, heads of state, activists and other leaders is nearly half women - there are 23 this year, compared with 15 last year and 19 in 2014.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is No. 2 on the annual ranking, followed by Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the National League for Democracy in Myanmar.
Three other women round out the top 10, including Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary for the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (No. 7), Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (No. 9) and Sheikh Hasina, the prime minister of Bangladesh (No. 10).
While the magazine doesn't offer an explanation for the growth in women on the list other than to note "there's a noticeable groundswell behind women fighting to advance other women," the women on the list come from many fields, including social activism (Black Lives Matter co-founders Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi at No. 27)...

Europe would not be having their problems today if there was no Iraq war.

The fact is under George W. Bush there was an illegal war that spawned Daesh. It is difficult for a dedicted Republican news media to confess it. There is one reason Daesh has been successful and that is because they are the old Saddam Ba'athists with enough training to carry out an assault.

This is not an election dialogue, the facts have existed a while now:

"A Bitter Legacy: Lessons of De-Baathfiction in Iraq" (click here)

The issue with Libya is a civil war. When the USA intervened with the Libyan civil war it was to stop an entire region's population from being wiped out. The USA wasn't about to enter a civil war in Libya. Eastern Libya had a population of over 2 million people. The global community could not look the other way. It was not the USA that carried out the mission of mercy, France responded as well. This was a moral obligation of the USA and France.

Debaathification was not just a fancy word, there were assets attached to it as well as a funding from taxpayers in the USA Coalition.

This report summarizes the structure and impact of de-Baathification from 2003 to 2011. It gives unique insight into de-Baathification’s goals, framework, impact, and problems. It includes a focused look at de-Baathification in Iraq’s Ministry of Finance from 2003 to 2006 and summarizes seven key lessons for policy based on significant field research makers in other countries. 

The report is done between 2003 and 2009, plus research done outside of Iraq in 2011 and 2012. Research included unprecedented access to staff and materials at the Higher National de-Ba’athifi cation Commission (HNDC). The study’s authors have gone to great lengths to obtain and verify the information published in this report. Iraq’s intense political and physical conflict, however, means that many frustrating gaps exist. Nonetheless, this is a uniquely detailed resource for all those who wish to understand what happened with de-Baathifi cation and why.

Debaathification in Iraq was a FUNCTION, not a name. Baathification spawned Daesh. There is no mistake about that. This isn't propaganda, there are facts easily referred to.

This is how ridiculous and petty North Carolina has become.

March 25, 2016
Concord, N.C. -- A North Carolina (click here) man says he was arrested for failing to return a VHS tape that he rented in 2002.
James Meyers says he was driving his daughter to school Tuesday when a police officer pulled him over for a defective tail light.
He says the officer told him there was a warrant out for his arrest from 2002, because Meyers had rented the movie "Freddy Got Fingered" starring Tom Green and never returned it.
Meyers says the officer let him take his daughter to school and go to work, as long as he promised to turn himself in to the police department later that day....
Pretty soon, North Carolina will declare the air as a natural resource and bill NC citizens for breathing.

Tom Greene won't be having many customers for their video rentals after this. There is no excuse for using law enforcement for a video cartridge. This is nonsense. I am sure there are late fess for the tape. Tom Green could charge tardy customers late fees to the cost of replacement for the tape. This is grossly inappropriate use of a law enforcement agency. This is a financial exchange and nothing more. This is harassment. Customers that don't return video tapes should not have a police record for the mistake. 

RT may have revealed the reason for the suicide bombers.

Trucks with oil products cross the Syrian-Turkish border. 

24 March 2016


The stream of accusations (click here) is growing against Ankara over illegal oil trade and support of Islamic State, with politicians and experts calling for Turkey to be held accountable for its actions after a new batch of evidence gathered by RT.
Former UK ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford, has described as “very convincing” a report aired by RT which features piles of oil accounting papers left behind by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) fighters.
“There was plenty of evidence even before these latest – very damning – revelations that Turkey was up to its neck in support for collaboration with Islamic State,” he said....
Is Turkey actually paying for the oil? Besides that Daesh may be carrying out suicide bombing as pressure on Turkey to continue it's oil sales. Turkey should not be paying them a dime. The attacks have to end with intelligence. But, if Turkey is going to carry out business with a genocidal terror organization, it is only asking trouble for it's people.


...Pentagon officials said that the cost of the F-35 program has actually fallen in the last two years by $12.1bn. The full cost for the US government between now and 2038 is down to $379bn, or around $12.7bn annually, for 2,457 aircraft.


The US Department of Defense said it estimates that "the F-35 fleet will cost around $1 trillion to operate and support over its lifetime, which poses significant long-term affordability challenges for the department."

The USA military doesn't want the jet. This jet is nothing but pork and the program needs to end.

That one trillion is in addition to the production costs. $1 trillion on today's dollar to OPERATE and support the fleet.

FOX News purports lies as the truth.

Former President Clinton said, "The past eight years have been terrible..."

Jimmy Kimmel had the former Secretary Clinton on his show and brought up the statement. She explained it. 

FOX News today showed clips of both Clintons and went on to state the Clintons hate President Obama. That is manipulation. FOX cannot change the facts to suit their whims.

FOX News should have invited the former President Clinton on the show and then level their accusations to him and allow his answer. But, to take an accusation out of the thin air and state it is the truth is simply manipulation for their political directives. It is another advertisement for Republicans free of charge.

Jimmy Kimmel engaged the former Secretary Clinton and didn't didn't find an accusation out of thin air.

A trillion US dollars spent on a jet fighter that can't protect it's pilot, yet alone it's country.

25 March 2016


The F-35 multirole fighter (click here) won't be close to ready before 2019, the US House Armed Services Committee was told on Wednesday.
The aircraft, which is supposed to reinvigorate the American military's air power, is suffering numerous problems, largely down to flaws in the F-35's operating system. These include straightforward code crashes, having to reboot the radar every four hours, and serious security holes in the code.
Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon's director of operational test and evaluation, reported that the latest F-35 operating system has 931 open, documented deficiencies, 158 of which are Category 1 – classified as those that could cause death, severe injury, or severe illness.
"The limited and incomplete F-35 cybersecurity testing accomplished to date has nonetheless revealed deficiencies that cannot be ignored," Gilmore said in his testimony....
...He reported that around 60 per cent of aircraft used for testing were grounded due to software problems. He cited one four-aircraft exercise that had to be cancelled after two of the four aircraft aborted "due to avionics stability problems during startup"...

The USA cannot hang it's national security on the F-35. Congress needs to end the funding.
FOX News is not running for office. That is the heart of the problem. 24/7 FOX News creates spin as if it is fact. They insult elected government officials of the Democratic party. It is slanted and inaccurate, but, purports the information as the truth. 

If the former President Clinton wants to spin a pitch for political gain, that is not news except for the fact or spin. FOX News should report the spin and not play it's own politics to defeat anyone but Republicans.

That is not unbiased information to the public. The USA political system is placing heavy fines to candidates because of the intense pressure on them by FOX News. FOX contributes to the Citizen's United paradigm by spending every minute of everyday dedicated to promoting Republican candidates. FOX News propaganda is a 24/7 campaign donation to the Republican Party. There are limits to such donations, unless of course FOX is going to convert to a superpac. That would mean FOX can't have contact with any candidates.

FOX News is violating the public trust.
March 25, 2016

A top Environmental Protection Agency official came under heavy fire Tuesday when Republicans at a congressional hearing accused the agency of failing to protect Flint, Michigan from their water being poisoned by lead.Earley, who served as Flint emergency manager from September 2013 through January 2015, says that for months after the April 2014 switch he believed information he was receiving – some of it scientifically complex – was accurate. Children, pregnant women and people with certain health problems have been told to consume only bottled water, and many others are following that advice. In testimony before a congressional committee on Tuesday, Susan Hedman said stories in The Huffington Post and other outlets misrepresented her actions as the EPA administrator for the midwest region.Gov. Rick Snyder and Gina McCarthy, an administrator with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, are due to testify at that one. It has also led to several lawsuits in state and federal courts, and federal and state investigations.”It’s nearly unbelievable how many bad decisions have been made”, he said. Top Fed official: April rate hike could happen....

Many people of Flint do not have disposable income to purchase bottled water. When any agency realized the poisons in the Flint water should have sought an emergency and brought clean water to Flint. Similar episodes in recent USA history brought clean water in tankers. That was never provided by the state of Michigan.

The citizens of Flint could not afford the waters bills, yet replace it with bottled water. The circumstances of homeowners in Flint is completely hideous when it comes to the quality and affordability of the water. If I didn't know better I would say the citizens of Flint were deliberately squeezed with a city bill that would bring about foreclosure.

It all sort of fits together. Selling the pipeline. Untreated water. Expensive city water from the Flint River. There is every indication the residents of Flint should have sold their homes by now or given their homes to foreclosure. Why end the use of water of the Flint River when people are moving out? 

Once major sections of the city were vacated, the land could be auctioned for taxes/water bills. The community  could be rebuilt to high end home purchasers who can afford high end water bills after the pipelines were replaced by contractors set to make a good profit.

But, the best news is that Flint would solve it's debt problems and all would be right with the world.

When is the US State Department bringing Americans home?

They are being set up by the North Korean government for serious sentences. Do I have to paint a picture?

March 25, 2016
By Jack Kim and James Pearson

A Korean-American man (click here) detained in North Korea has confessed to stealing military secrets and plotting subversion with South Koreans, the North's official news agency and foreign media reported on Friday.
North Korea, which has been criticized for its human rights record, has in the past used detained Americans to extract high-profile visits from the United States, with which it has no formal diplomatic relations.
Kim Dong Chul, who has previously said he was a naturalised American citizen and was arrested in North Korea in October, admitted to committing "unpardonable espionage" under the direction of the U.S. and South Korean governments and deeply apologised for his crimes, the North's KCNA news agency said.
"The extraordinary crime I committed was defaming and insulting the republic's highest dignity and its system and spreading false propaganda aimed at breaking down its solidarity," KCNA quoted Kim as saying....

Oh, yeah, right; infortainment. The best idea to achieve an election that works for the country.

"If there were more Democrats in the Congress, the USA would look like Belgium." 

Really?

One word answer: "Iraq."

Iraq started all things possible for the Ba'athists.


And President Obama doesn't know how to react to terror?

September 8, 2002
By Bill Adair and Stephen Hegarty

Sarasota -- Andrew Card (click here) stood at the doorway to the Sarasota classroom and decided to do something White House staffers rarely did: interrupt President Bush during a public appearance.
Bush had just sat down to hear schoolchildren read a story, but Card needed to tell him that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center.
The TV cameras were trained on Bush, so Card knew he had to choose his words carefully. He needed to capture the seriousness of the situation, but he didn't want the president to turn to him and start a conversation on live TV.
The White House chief of staff decided on two sentences -- one to state the facts and a second to convey the seriousness of the incident. He strode into the room, leaned down to Bush's ear and whispered:

"A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack."

How is it FOX gets away with nothing but contrived political ranting? The only news today without spin is a car that feel out of a parking garage with it's diver.