Remember Cassini?

Cassini (click here) was one of the most ambitious efforts ever mounted in planetary exploration. A joint endeavor of NASA, ESA (the European Space Agency) and the Italian space agency (ASI), Cassini was a sophisticated robotic spacecraft sent to study Saturn and its complex system of rings and moons in unprecedented detail.

Cassini carried a probe called Huygens to the Saturn system. The probe, which was built by ESA, parachuted to the surface of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, in January 2005—the most distant landing to date in our solar system. Huygens returned spectacular images and other science results during a two-and-a-half-hour descent through Titan’s hazy atmosphere, before coming to rest amid rounded cobbles of ice on a floodplain damp with liquid methane.

Cassini completed its initial four-year mission in June 2008 and earned two mission extensions that enabled the team to delve even deeper into Saturn’s mysteries. Key discoveries during its 13 years at Saturn included a global ocean with strong indications of hydrothermal activity within Enceladus, and liquid methane seas on Titan. The mission ended on Sept. 15, 2018....

I was a bit surprised assessment from the Cassini probe wasn't included in this study of Saturn's rings. There is no clear assessment as to where the rings of Saturn originated. What I found curious is there is no mention of Saturn's gravity and whether it plays a part in pulling in space particles that ultimately become a part of Saturn's ring system.

Kasick , the unconstitutional theocrat..

He is another Trump. He brings his personal beliefs to the government. He wants to be president in 2020, so he is courting the extreme right wing for their money and any votes he can win. This will go before the court and most likely the AMA will join any activists because this is the safest procedure for any woman with an unwanted or dangerous pregnancy. 

Women have a right to their bodies and it is time the Republican theocrats stop using their power to undercut women's rights and the US Constitution.

I don't know why he chose the Christmas season to sign the bill. Maybe he thinks it is a sign from God. I haven't seen Kasick walk on water yet. Should be interesting, even Trump can't do that.

December 22, 2018
By Jessica Ravitz

A bill (click here) that would ban the most common abortion method used in the second trimester of pregnancy was signed into law Friday by Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

Senate Bill 145 prohibits the dilation and evacuation (D&E) procedure, in which the cervix is dilated and the contents of the uterus extracted. Though there is no exception in the law in cases of rape or incest, there is one if the mother's life is at risk.

Any abortion provider who defies this law could face fourth-degree felony charges, including prison time and fines.

The Republican governor's decision to sign off on this legislation sparked immediate backlash from abortion rights advocates....

Corporate Welfare

The first awakening as to the low minimum wage and how corporations use the Food Stamp and Medicaid system to supplement their stockholders came with Walmart. Now, it is becoming a real strategy with Human Resource Offices providing counseling to their employees to seek health care and food at government expense. So, the coal companies are getting on the bandwagon to assign the USA government responsibility for THEIR COAL MINER DISEASES. 

Enough is enough.

The coal industry is not Walmart in that there are no deadly side effects from working within their employ. This is an entirely different paradigm that not only attacks the health of the miners from the first day they are employed to the day they die an early death but, to all Americans fighting to bring the climate within a safe range of supporting life. This is just more of the same corporatization of the USA Treasury as if it belongs to Wall Street for their CEOs to covet to add to their strategies.

It is time for this to end. No more corporate welfare and no more Americans jobs that insult the quality of life while shortening life spans of workers and the well being of entire generations.

NO MORE CORPORATE WELFARE!

When a company with 500 employees or more have 10 percent or more of their employees on government programs they need to pay for it.

And for companies like the coal industry that cause human disease, hardship, and death; they have no alternative but to develop a method that they immediately implement to end all side effects of their industry that imperils life. There is no such word as "unattainable" in any legislation going forward.

To be completely honest, the coal industry CEOs should be facing human rights violations at The Hague.

The Republicans have been shoring up the coal industry for years and they never bothered to fix the health problems the industry propagates.

Now, the Republicans are not only promoting a dangerous means of living in coal jobs, they are cutting the monies the coal industry has to pay into the "Black Lung Fund." The cut in this fee will put the diseases caused by the coal industry on the backs of Americans.

Shut the lousy mines down! If the coal industry can't take care of their own problems, then shut them down!

December 21, 2018

By Will Wright

Pikeville - Former Pike County coal miner Kenny Fleming (click here) put his hand to his chest and stopped to catch his breath.

“I get tired just talking,” he said during a recent interview.

Fleming is one of the more than 12,000 former miners who receive benefits from the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund, a program that helps miners afflicted with the deadly and debilitating disease pay for health care and some of their basic living costs.

Amid the largest surge of black lung cases in decades, the fund faces steep cuts that could, experts say, eventually leave miners like Fleming without the benefits they need to survive....

The coal industry is spinning out more and more cases of Black Lung and the industry's answer is to dump the care of those miners and their families on the backs of Americans. If Americans are going to have diminished quality of life for coal miners and the cost of the industry's disease besides, then they have the right to say what happens with the mines and the people effected by this horrible disease.

McConnell and his buddies in the coal industry are shutting down the lifeline to the miners and their families. The Republicans never cared about the coal mine workers, they only cared about their cronies in the back office.

July 9, 2012
By Howard Berkes

Part one of a two-part series.

It wasn't supposed (click here) to happen to coal miners in Mark McCowan's generation. It wasn't supposed to strike so early and so hard. At age 47 and just seven years after his first diagnosis, McCowan shouldn't have a chest X-ray that looks this bad.

"I'm seeing more definition in the mass," McCowan says, pausing for deep breaths as he holds the X-ray film up to the light of his living room window in Pounding Mill, Va.

"The mass is larger and more defined in the right upper lobe," he continues, clinically describing the solid streak that shows up white on the X-ray of his lungs. "If you know white is bad and black is good, I'm in a lot of trouble."...