Wednesday, December 20, 2017

The Republican Tax Bill needs to be written into regulations. Normally, that does not happen overnight, UNLESS, Mnuchin already has them written and the law was then written to fit the regulations.

That is the only way a substantial tax law can go into effect January 1, 2018 or sooner.

If there are regulations waiting for a law, the Democrats need to investigate that fact.

In regard to Director Mueller; there is no grounds for the political complaints of Republicans.

The GOP's complaints are laying down the reason for Trump's pardons of his family and allies. It has nothing to do with Mueller. Trump even said he is not removing Mueller from the investigation. Trump is demanding his party lay down the ground cover for his pardons.

Dah.

That is funny. Scot Pruitt is paranoid.

I see it a little different. Pruitt can't believe the people he has hated all these many decades know what they know. 

See, if a person actually knows little about his job and practice and simply wants to turn his cronies loose as promised, he would think his office is bugged. Scot Pruitt knows nothing about environmental protection. He assumes everyone else doesn't either. He thinks when he is attacked by the well positioned and strong environmental and conservation organizations it is because they are getting covert information.

It's like the fifth grader trying to figure out how the teacher knows the answers on the test were wrong. If the fifth-grader thinks the teacher is an equal, then how the heck does the teacher know the answers are wrong?

Saying Pruitt is paranoid, is a compliment.

Haley is a puppet

Haley is no different than the Cabinet and Congress; tangled in their puppet strings.

I can't believe this was even breached. There was no way any resolution escalating the tensions between Israel and Palestine was going to become an international policy. It is a darn shame, but, maybe Ambassador Haley isn't qualified for the position. Anger and fomenting hatred is not the characteristics of an ambassador.

December 19, 2017
By Noa Landau

The U.S. vetoed a UN resolution (click here) seeking to reaffirm Jerusalem's status as unresolved, after 14 UN Security Council members voted in favor of the resolution Monday, in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize it as Israel’s capital.

This was the first time the United States exercised its veto power at the UN Security Council since Trump took office.

Following the vote, Haley said called the vote "an insult" and said that it won't be forgotten. She further said about the U.S. veto: “We do it with no joy, but we do it with no reluctance," and that "The United States will not be told by any country where we can put our embassy."...

As if insulting the entire United Nations over Jerusalem wasn't enough, she was screaming about the Iran Resolution as being a fraud because it didn't include a hundred different other issues.

Sorry, she just doesn't get it. Politico had a hissy fit on Obama over Hezbollah, too. Anyone know the concept of history?

By Josh Meyer

In its determination to secure a nuclear deal with Iran, (click here) the Obama administration derailed an ambitious law enforcement campaign targeting drug trafficking by the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, even as it was funneling cocaine into the United States, according to a POLITICO investigation....

When I first read, from more than one source, about Hezbollah's expansion I realized they didn't answer to Iran anymore. I had to read more than one source, because, it didn't make sense. Hezbollah has always depended on Iran for arms and direction for their militia. Hezbollah is Shi'ite and they are firmly anchored in the Crescent.

Iran no longer has influence with Hezbollah. I think it was during the Daesh attacks in the region. Syria. Hezbollah was cut off. Hezbollah was in Lebanon to protect the Alawites. Israel has very tight surveillance of the militias in the region, not just Hezbollah. Israel would bomb munition movements from Iran to Hezbollah, but, now with an international reach, Hezbollah is self-supporting. 

Ambassador Haley needs to read newspapers. Not every aspect of the world comes out of Trump's mouth.

The world, she is a changing. The Lebanese army and Hezbollah. Huh? What? These organizations are pledged to hate each other. What happened? Peace? A common need to survive a hideous regime? I am impressed. Is it safe to call them brothers?

August 19, 2017

The Lebanese army (click here) launched an offensive on Saturday against an Islamic State enclave on the northeast border with Syria as the Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah announced an assault on the militants from the Syrian side of the frontier.

The Lebanese army operation got underway at 5 a.m., targeting Islamic State positions near the town of Ras Baalbek with rockets, artillery and helicopters, a Lebanese security source said. The area is the last part of the Lebanese-Syrian frontier under insurgent control.

The operation by Hezbollah and the Syrian army targeted the area across the border in the western Qalamoun region of Syria.

A Hezbollah statement said the group was meeting its pledge to “remove the terrorist threat at the borders of the nation” and was fighting “side by side” with the Syrian army.

I don't believe The West knows the extent the Middle East has come together to end the violence and protect their faith. Don't get me "W"rong, I don't appreciate the militias turn drug kingpins, but, once they have their territory staked out, Mexico will finally have it's sovereignty back. The drug cartels are no match to Hezbollah.

October 1, 2017

Beirut: Lebanon’s Hezbollah (click here) accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government on Sunday of pushing the region to war in Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, and said nowhere in Israel would be safe if such a conflict were to erupt.

Tensions have risen this year between Hezbollah and Israel, which last fought a major conflict in 2006. Israel has said it would use all its strength from the start in any new war with Hezbollah.

In a speech to followers, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said the Israeli government did not have “a correct assessment of where this war will lead if they ignite it”, and did not know how it would end.

“They do not have a correct picture about what is awaiting them if they go to the idiocy of this war,” Nasrallah said....'

I think I agree with Nasrahhal. The Trump administration doesn't have a clue. There has been a paradigm change. Probably a major paradigm shift. Russia probably had a hand in it. I can't say what occurred with Hezbollah is wrong. They were fighting for their lives. I congratulate the leaders in the Middle East. They did it. They found the strength within their people to fight a war that would bring about the end of the most deadly regime in centuries. I don't think any other dictator can claim the death rate of Daesh.

If Daesh brought the Middle East together and Isreal still lives by it's political hubris, that is a darn shame. Evidently, the Middle East is in step with the lives of their people and Israel let a huge paradigm shift simply slip past their intelligence. Or, at least, realized it and knew it would not promote Israel's political agenda. I am sure Israel could write a very interesting history of what occurred with Daesh. But, it won't admit it.

Look. The USA has been looking the other way with Afghanistan's Poppy Culture. EVEN TODAY, under Trump the poppies are growing like weeds. Don't start the high and mighty stuff in the United Nations. The USA Republicans are pathetic.

HELLO! HALEY! The Middle East just fought a war. You know, guns, bombs and all that stuff. There are frequently paradigm shifts after such events. It wasn't a world war, OBVIOUSLY, but, it was a darn deadly war. They worked together and saved their people. That is not a small achievement. Honestly.

Republican Senators Celebrate Tax Vote (click here). Pure hubris. No substance, simply political hubris.

Now is the time to be more vigilant than ever to increases in homelessness.

May 23, 2017
By Douglas Rice

President Trump’s 2018 budget (click here) for the Department of Housing and Urban Development(HUD) proposes deep cuts in rental assistance for families and other aid for the nation’s poorest urban and rural communities, which would shrink the supply of affordable housing and increase homelessness and other hardships across the country.

Overall, the President requests $40.7 billion for HUD programs in 2018, $7.4 billion (15 percent) below what policymakers recently approved for 2017.....

It is a dangerous time for the poor, homeless, children, disabled and the elderly.

March 16, 2017
By Alastair Gee

While much of the attention (click here) given to Donald Trump’s budget proposal has focused on dramatic cuts at the Environmental Protection Agency and the state department, amid the many cuts in the plan is the elimination of the US Interagency Council on Homelessness (Usich).

In addition, Trump’s budget would cut billions of dollars of funding for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which helps provide low-income housing.

Diane Yentel, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, warned in a statement that the proposal contained some of the deepest housing cuts since “President Reagan dramatically reduced funding in the early 1980s. Reagan’s deep spending cuts ushered in a new age of homelessness.”

In an interview, she said the reductions might result in 200,000 low-income people no longer receiving rental assistance, putting them at risk of losing the roofs over their heads. About 550,000 people were experiencing homelessness on one night in 2016....

It is Putin's Revenge. The Republicans proudly state their tax scam removes the federal government from the states. Well, it should be interesting to find out what Post-USA looks like when the federal government implodes of it's own budget and national debt.

Putin would love to see the fifty states floating alone. Post-Soviet Russia may come to pass with the Post-USA.

This is the difference between a "Plutocratic Regime" and a government of, by and FOR the people.

20 December 2017
By Julian Robinson

The EU's top court (click here) has ruled Uber is a taxi service and should be regulated like a taxi company rather than an app
The case, heard in Luxembourg's European Court of Justice, is yet another blow for Uber, which has drawn the fury of taxi drivers and officials around the world for flouting local regulations.

But the US-based company has insisted that the ruling, issued after a case brought by a taxi drivers' association in the Spanish city of Barcelona, will not affect its UK operation.

It comes the same week as one of its drivers admitted to the murder of a British embassy worker coming home from a night out in Beirut, Lebanon....

Uber and the rest, including AirBNB, are devastating to any society. It CHANGES language. Uber is not a RIDE SHARING SERVICE. It is a taxi service disseminated among any person in the land. There is absolutely no quality control or accountability. Lawsuits and class action lawsuits abound in the land of Uber, but, the consumer has sacrificed a great deal, especially when it comes to consumer safety.

Uber also breaks the law and races forward taking profits from taxi services only to change when a judge finally passes a sentence.

I will never use Uber, Lyft or AirBNB. They are dangerous and counterproductive to the American economy. We have seen law enforcement haul the mentally ill and now murderers into the prison system after committing crime, compliments of Uber. Uber and the rest are a Wall Street assault against 'the commons' and places a very dangerous element among the people.

In the name of what seems like an answer to organized taxi services that may be expensive; a computer took over. It is the attack of the machines to harness whatever wealth exists among the citizens of the USA. Ready for this? North Carolina lists Uber as an antidote to unemployment. NC has put innumerable independent taxis out of business. So, while NC believes it is cutting the cost of state unemployment recommending Uber to solve all ills, it creates unemployment and bankruptcy among it's existing economy. Ever wonder why the south has such impoverishment? It is because the computer is king and people be damned.

The North Carolina legislature has to be voted out of office.

January 26, 2017
By Adi Gaskell

Oxford Martin School’s Carl Benedikt Frey (click here) burst onto the public stage back in 2013 with a paper highlighting the risks various professions faced of automation in the coming years.

He has returned this week with a new paper that is no less contentious. It examines the impact Uber has had on the income of taxi drivers in a range of U.S. cities.

Despite widespread protests against the sharing economy platform, the analysis revealed that the impact was muted. For instance, whilst it typically resulted in a fall in income of around 10% among salaried drivers, it resulted in a 50% rise in the number of self-employed drivers in a city.

The authors believe their study represents the first serious look at the impact of sharing economy platforms such as Uber on jobs.

“Uber is the flagship of the sharing economy,” Frey says. “But what our study shows is that even in one of the sharing economy’s most exposed industries, traditional jobs have not been displaced.

"The effects are complex; while some have seen a loss in income, Uber has created more jobs than it has destroyed, demonstrated by the staggering expansion of self-employment following its introduction.”...

Uber is not sharing squat. Do Uber drivers receive stipends to improve the safety of their vehicles? No. Does Uber have an allowance for depreciation so it's drivers can replace their aged vehicles? No.

The PROPER use of Uber is to sell the technologies to Taxi Services to provide an automatic link to a licensed taxi service and move transportation quicker. But, to turn a computer application loose among the people is nothing but exploitation. Uber has no costs, except, to support the app. The idea of a computer application replacing an entire aspect of an economy is nothing short of moronity.

For as long as I can remember, including childhood, I was captivated by the constellation "The Seven Sisters."

The Pleiades, (click here) also known as the Seven Sisters, is the nearest star cluster to Earth situated between 434 and 446 light years away. The cluster is the source of the names of each of the sisters in The Seven Sisters series.

The Pleiades is positioned near the shoulder of Taurus (The Bull), the larger constellation to the right of Orion’s Belt. Each of the stars is over 100 times brighter than our sun, and the human eye, from any country on the globe, can see at least six stars, with a seventh which varies in brightness and is not always visible – the reason for this fluctuation in brightness is still unknown. Some people with exceptional eyesight claim to be able to see up to 20 stars in the cluster without the aid of a telescope.

There are thought to be as many as 1000 stars in the cluster, the core of which spans 8 light years in diameter. The cluster is dominated by ‘hot blue stars’ which have formed within the past 100million years and astronomers believe that the cluster will survive for another 250million years.


The Seven Sisters is a B Type star cluster. It is helium based and blue. It has a short lifetime as suns go. 

Sol, our sun, is a Type G star.

...Compared (click here) to hotter and brighter OBAF type stars, G type stars radiate more light towards the infrared end of the spectrum. For G-type stars, the spectral lines are characterized by the presence of many neutral and ionized metallic lines (iron, calcium II, and sodium) and weak hydrogen lines. Main-sequence G stars have surface temperatures of 5,250 to 5,950 K and around 66 to 150 percent of Sol's luminosity. G-type dwarf stars appear to have between 0.85 to 1.1 Solar-masses, which indicates in theory that these stars may spend from 15 to as few as seven billion years in the main sequence fusing core hydrogen (more from CSIRO Australia)....

The real task of those seeking a new home planet is to find one with the characteristics of Earth. Then find a path to that planet that will not burn human beings to a crisp.

The idea human beings are becoming Martians serves what purpose? The expense in developing a life support system that will last on the Martian environment while attempting to pollute Mars with an Earth climate doesn't have an end game. There is no new permanent home for Earthlings.

Mars shares the same sun as Earth. When the light goes out on Earth, the same happens on Mars. All that adventure to Mars seems silly to me. There is no advancement of the species to survive and bring it's Noah's Arch. There needs to be a real purpose to achieving space travel and not simply 'we done it.'