Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Heading into a future of extremes

Chris Mooney has it exactly correct. The longer there are greenhouse gas emissions the more and more extreme the weather will become. Earth is not able to mediate it's heat without the physics of water. The more heat Earth achieves the worse and worse it will become.

Scientists have been heralding the importance of alternative fuels and conservation to preserve the 'green component' of Earth. The other question is how long will the algae of the oceans continue to bloom as the oceans warm?

This is no joke. Earth was once a planet in the middle of it's heat potential. There was warm weather and there was cold weather. Earth had intact ice fields, glaciers and an ice ocean and ice continent that held aged ice that mitigated the heat. Earth is losing it's capacity to cool. As the lose of these means to mitigate the climate become more and more depleted there are severe consequences.

August 20, 2016
By Chris Mooney

With fires, floods and rising seas forcing a village to move, Chris Mooney asks if events this week are a sign of things to come.

In San Bernardino County, California, 82,000 people were ordered to leave their homes on Thursday as an explosive wildfire "hit with an intensity that we hadn't seen before", as one fire official said, and surged across more than 120 square kilometres.
It followed dramatic flooding in Louisiana that the Red Cross termed the "worst natural disaster" in the United States since Hurricane Sandy four years ago. At least 13 people have been killed and 40,000 homes damaged - and those numbers could get worse.
The same week as the Louisiana and California disasters, the Alaskan village of Shishmaref voted to permanently relocate as the barrier island on which it rests is threatened by rising seas.

It all seems more and more of a pattern - from worse than one-in-1000-year floods in South Carolina to 2015 floods in Texas and Oklahoma that scientists later said had been enhanced by global warming....

The funding (click here) for the Antarctica I was viewing has ended. 
Ignorance is bliss to some I suppose, but, it is not the way to maintain climate awareness.
There are other satellites, but, this is ridiculous. These are colleges now left without their own access point. 
August 23, 2016
By Tysin Otto
The populous Asian power, has quietly snuck under the radar of countries being criticised on the international stage, but there is no denying Rio was an absolute stinker for the subcontinent.
A tally of one silver medal and one bronze medal was enough for the country to officially finish 67th on the final medal tally.
But the reading becomes much worse when the medal table is adjusted for population and Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
India's population of more than 1,326,801,000 and haul of two medals places them in last position of the 87 countries to win a medal at the 2016 Games, per capita.
The country's 2016 GDP of more than $US2 trillion, as forecast by the International Monetary Fund, also places India in 87th position when the medal tally is adjusted for total medals won and GDP....
India needs to do more for it's athletes. If it can spend on nuclear weapons, it can first spend on it's Olympic athletes. This is so typical of a class system that does not recognize the importance of good governance and instead instills deprivation and gratitude for the little the people get.
August 22, 2016
By Abhishek Waghmare
India’s last Olympic gold-medal winner, (click here) Abhinav Bindra, recently pointed to United Kingdom’s spending on athletes at the Rio Olympics, emphasising the money needed to convert performance into medals.
An IndiaSpend analysis of spending on Olympics in particular, and sports in general, reveals that India spends roughly a third to a fourth of the money spent by the UK, which won 67 medals, compared to India’s two—and central funding to sports federations is falling.
The UK spends money on fewer athletes compares to India, where spending is diffused among numerous federations and athletes, according to our analysis.
The UK has 18 million people aged between 15 and 35, while India has more than 400 million youth in that age group.
The original story in the Guardian, a UK newspaper, calculated a £ 5.5 million ($ 7 million) investment per medal by UK Sport, a government body that funds and manages Olympic sport....

Did this happen before or after Roger Ailes took a position with the Trump campaign?

August 23, 2016
By Katherine Kruger

Donald Trump’s (click here) newly-minted campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, made clear Monday night that while she doesn’t support personal attacks, she thinks her boss was only hitting back when he accused the hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” of having an off-camera romance.
After Trump took to Twitter to slam Mika Brzezinski as “neurotic” and call her the “very insecure long-time girlfriend” of co-host Joe Scarborough, Fox News host Megyn Kelly recounted how Conway had argued Trump doesn’t employ personal attacks.
“Now, you know that’s not true,” Kelly said on her show.
Conway replied that Trump “doesn’t do it without being attacked first,” a well-worn defense Trump himself has used since his campaign's infancy.
“But does that excuse it? Just today he called Mika Brzezinski neurotic, which is another term, basically, for mentally ill,” the Fox News host responded. “He’s called other female news personalities things like crazy. The man does hurl personal insult....

The ladies should begin their own cable news channel.

They wouldn't necessarily need a studio. They could be among the people, especially during a political season.

August 23, 2016
By Paul Farhi

...Tantaros, (click here) who had appeared on “The Five” and other Fox shows as a conservative commentator since 2010, echoed some of Carlson’s claims in her complaint, which was filed Monday in New York State Supreme Court.

Tantaros said it was routine practice for Ailes to call women, including her, into his office and ask them to turn around “so I can get a good look at you.” She said that he asked her whether she planned to marry and have children and said that he had made off-color jokes about his own marriage on several occasions. At one point, she said, he speculated about what she would look like in a bikini and asked her about the sexuality of “Five” co-hosts Dana Perino and Greg Gutfeld.

The complaint also said that Fox host Bill O’Reilly had made unwelcome advances toward her.

“Ailes did not act alone,” the lawsuit said. “He may have been the primary culprit, but his actions were condoned by his most senior lieutenants, who engaged in a concerted effort to silence Tantaros by threats, humiliation and retaliation.”...                     

Any scandal will do.

The USA State Department and the FBI has cleared the emails and have no reason for any action. Now, the US House has gotten there hands of thinks yet unread by the American people and they are willing to spend millions and millions more on political priorities, namely to defeat Secretary Clinton in her election bid to the Presidency.

Secretary Clinton has a very long history of service to the USA at many different levels of government. She has been in service to the American children long before she entered politics. I am fairly sure I know who she is and her character.

What never enters the discussion are the multitudes of trumped up scandals about them and their use of power. There isn't a library big enough. I am sure the authors made a lot of money, but, I am quite confident generosity from the sale of their books to the poor never was realized.

The Clinton Foundation has been in existence since President Bill Clinton finished eight years in office. Why does it exist? Not because just the American people dearly wanted President Clinton to remain active, but, the entire world did. THE ENTIRE WORLD. That is not an exaggeration. Ask the late President of North Korea who he would rather deal with in any talks and he would always say, "Clint-on." No word of a lie. The North Korean nuclear seals were firmly in place when President Bill Clinton served the American people. 

The Clinton Foundation is vital to the global network. The poorest of countries are welcome. The Clinton Foundation seeks to resolve the status of disadvantaged people by bringing donors, grants and loans together to solve an important problem. It works. Is the work controversial? Is that really a question? Donald Trump is calling for a special prosecutor. MORE USA TREASURY MONEY WASTED ON POLITICAL ASPIRATIONS.

I would like to know how many lives were saved, how many countries were served, how many wars averted and how many countries appreciated the USA due to the Clinton Foundation. I suppose the foundation could make the controversy end by moving it's office to Europe, but, why would we want a former President of the USA to leave in order to continue his work. That is not the case with President Carter or either of the Bushs. And it might be interesting to note none of them are under scrutiny or demanding a special prosecutor. 

The Clinton Foundation does what governments can't, they reach across all venues of funding to solve problems. The former president and former secretary earn their money the hard way, they earn it. They worked in government and when not serving in office they made speeches and met donors and friends at dinners. They carried out their lives open and above board without any cabals to serve them while in power. 

These scandals trumped by the Republican party and those Republicans in the US House are nonsense. They have always been nonsense, they are nonsense today and they will be nonsense in the future.

Why can't a country appreciate a Rhodes Scholar (click here) and talented man that builds consensus and minimizes his influence in agreements made between parties he is able to bring together. 

Former President Bill Clinton is a man of peace. He believes in his ability to understand the strife of Americans and foreign countries and their people. There is nothing wrong with that and there is a lot right with that. After his second term in office his spouse and later his daughter would help him achieve incredible cooperation between parties no one other than he could dream of bringing consensus to solve problems. 

The Clinton Foundation is vital to many problem in the world. It is not a clearinghouse for corrupt cash. I though that was exclusive to offshoring and Panama. There is no reason for the foundation to end it's work. The world would be the worse for it. That is probably what bothers Republicans the most. There might not be another Saddam to scapegoat for the next oil invasion.

August 23, 2016
By Michael A. Cohen
I’m fairly sure (click here) that when William Shakespeare penned the phrase “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” he did not have in mind the constant cycle of scandals that envelop Bill and Hillary Clinton. But the phrase easily applies.
When it comes to the Clintons, the most mundane actions can be raised to the specter of national outrage, because of the appearance, but not actual incident, of impropriety.
Take, for example, the imbroglio over newly released e-mails regarding interactions between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department when Clinton was secretary of state. These exchanges, primarily between Clinton’s assistant Huma Abedin and Clinton Foundation top honcho Doug Band, have become Exhibit A in efforts to brand Clinton as a corrupt figure and the Foundation as a pay-for-play operation. The evidence, however, speaks to a different reality....