Sunday, September 19, 2021

Trumpism is about being opportunists. It is not about the country. Trump was the biggest opportunist among them.

And they have the audacity to call it a revolution. There is nothing about the movement that supports that. President Biden is more of a revolutionary than Taylor-Greene ever could be.

  

...The goats came marching one by one, The little one stopped...to bask in the sun....

September 18, 2021


When megafires burn (click here) in unison and harsh droughts parch the West, local governments, utilities and companies struggle with how to prevent outbreaks, especially as each year brings record destruction.

Carrying an unconventional weapon, Ms. Malmberg travels the American West in an Arctic Fox camper, occupying a small but vital entrepreneurial niche.

Ms. Malmberg, 64, is a goat herder and a pioneer in using the animals to restore fire-ravaged lands to greener pastures and make them less prone to the spread of blazes.

She developed the fire-prevention technique in graduate school and is among a few individuals using grazing methods for fire mitigation. It’s a word-of-mouth business, and private landowners and local governments hire her to remove weeds while restoring the soil....

...After the goats digest the brush, their waste returns organic matter to the soil, increasing its potential to hold water. Goats are browsers that eat the grass, leaves and tall brush that cows and other grazers can’t reach. This type of vegetation is known as the fire fuel ladder and leads to wider spread when wildfires spark. More than quell a fire, Ms. Malmberg aims to prevent it from even starting. “By increasing soil organic matter by 1 percent, that soil can hold an additional 16,500 gallons of water per acre,” said Ms. Malmberg. “If helicopters come and dump water on the fires, nothing is done for the soil.”...

Some areas of California have been using the goats successfully on high tops and inclines where people can't get to. They seem to think it is working. The hilltops are where the worst fire spread is occurring. That is also true regarding the Sequoias. The National Park Service might want to invest in a few goats. The urea and droppings leave behind moisture, too.

January 5, 2020
By Megan Manata

California has gone through several difficult fire seasons in recent years. (click here) Now, some cities are investing in unconventional fire prevention methods, including goats.

Anaheim, a city southeast of Los Angeles, has recently re-upped its contract with the company Environmental Land Management to keep goats grazing on city hillsides nearly year-round.

The goats are stationed in places like Deer Canyon Park, a nature preserve with more than a hundred acres of steep hills. Beginning in July, roughly 400 goats worked through the park, eating invasive grasses and dried brush.

The company's operations manager Johnny Gonzales says that Deer Canyon, with its peaks and valleys, is just the right kind of place to use goats for fire prevention.

"This is the topography that poses challenges during these wildfire events," Gonzales says. "And we can go ahead and reduce the fuel loads and take out the invasive plants, and establish the native plants on these banks; you're reestablishing the ecology."

Gonzales says that demand for wildfire prevention goats has soared in recent years.

"It's not an underestimation to say that we got over 100 calls a month from private individuals with smaller parcels, little lots or things from an acre, 2 acres requesting the goats," Gonzales says. "And unfortunately, as a commercial herd, I can't take on all these private lots."...

Where are you now Moscow Mitch? Turn the carbon into bloodless diamonds.

8 September 2021

The world’s largest plant (click here) designed to suck carbon dioxide out of the air and turn it into rock has started running in Iceland, the companies behind the project – Switzerland’s Climeworks and Iceland’s Carbfix – said on Wednesday.

The plant, named Orca after the Icelandic word “orka” meaning “energy”, consists of four units, each made up of two metal boxes that look like shipping containers.

Constructed by Climeworks, when operating at capacity the plant will draw 4,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide out of the air every year, the companies say.

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, that equates to the emissions from about 870 cars. The plant cost between US$10 and 15m to build, Bloomberg reported.

To collect the carbon dioxide, the plant uses fans to draw air into a collector, which has a filter material inside. Once the filter material is filled with CO2, the collector is closed and the temperature is raised to release the CO2 from the material, after which the highly concentrated gas can be collected.

Then, Carbfix’s process mixes the CO2 with water and injects it at a depth of 1,000 metres into the nearby basalt rock where it is mineralised. Carbfix says the CO2-water mixture turns to stone in about two years, and hydride of sulphur (HS2), within four months.

Proponents of so-called carbon capture and storage believe these technologies can become a major tool in the fight against climate change.

Critics however argue that the technology is still prohibitively expensive and might take decades to operate at scale....

July Temperature Update: Moscow Mitch's Faustian Payment Comes Due

13 August 2021
By James Hansen and Makiko Sato

July global temperature (+1.16°C relative to 1880-1920 mean) (click here) was within a hair (0.02°C) of being the warmest July in the era of instrumental measurements (Fig. 1, left). That’s remarkable because we are still under the influence of a fairly strong La Nina (Fig. 1, right). Global cooling associated with La Ninas peaks five months after the La Nina peak, 1 on average.

Something is going on in addition to greenhouse warming. The 12-month running mean global temperature (blue curve in Fig. 2) has already reached its local minimum. Barring a large volcano that fills the stratosphere with aerosols, the blue curve should rise over the next 12 months because Earth is now far out of energy balance – more energy coming in than going out....

California is catching the worst of the climate crisis in the USA so far. Drought and destruction by fire. Louisiana comes in a close second.

September 17, 2021
By Nhat V. Myer

Pictures taken (click here) in January 2019, left, and September 2021 show the impact of the California drought on the San Luis Reservoir in Merced County

The California drought (click here) has been brutal over the past few years, but to see just how devastating it has been, you need to see before-and-after pictures side by side.

Bay Area News Group photojournalist Nhat V. Meyer went out to the San Luis Reservoir in Merced County this week and took pictures in approximately the same places that he did in January 2019. The reservoir is one of the largest in California.

The results are startling.

It shows how California’s reservoir water levels are way below what they should be at this time of year. The U.S. Drought Monitor reported that California’s 154 intrastate reservoirs contained 13.8 million acre-feet of water, just 60 percent of average for the date. That same agency said most of California is experiencing exceptional or extreme drought....

The death of Afghans and their children is hardly a new scenario. I can't think of a better reason to leave. The drone strikes. Wasn't there a wedding, too. Something like 20 people including the bride and groom was killed in a drone strike.

No, the picture below is not the most recent dead children from Afghanistan. The USA was long overdue to leave.

A war zone is very bad for children. No all 33 thousand dead are from American friendly fire, but, every one of the deaths is tragic.

The Save the Children Fund

KABUL, 31 Aug 2021 – Almost 33,000 children (click here) have been killed and maimed in Afghanistan over the past 20 years, an average of one child every five hours, Save the Children said as the last of the international military forces pulled out of Kabul on Tuesday....

April 7, 2013


The war in Afghanistan (click here) continues destroying lives, due to the direct consequences of violence and the war-induced breakdown of public health, security, and infrastructure. Civilians have been killed by crossfire, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), assassinations, bombings, and night raids into houses of suspected insurgents.

The United States military in 2017 relaxed its rules of engagement for airstrikes in Afghanistan, which resulted in a massive increase in civilian casualties. From the last year of the Obama administration to the last full year of recorded data during the Trump administration, the number of civilians killed by U.S.-led airstrikes in Afghanistan increased by 330 percent.

The CIA has armed Afghan militia groups to fight Islamist militants and these militias are responsible for serious human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings of civilians.

Even in the absence of fighting, unexploded ordnance from this war and landmines from previous wars continue to kill, injure, and maim civilians. Fields, roads, and school buildings are contaminated by ordnance, which often harms children as they go about chores like gathering wood.

The war has also inflicted invisible wounds. In 2009, the Afghan Ministry of Public Health reported that fully two-thirds of Afghans suffer from mental health problems....

September 17, 2021
By Tom Vanden Brook

Washington - Ten civilians, (click here) including as many as seven children, and no terrorists were killed in Kabul by a drone strike that the Pentagon had hailed initially as "righteous," the Pentagon announced Friday. 

"Our investigation now concludes the strike was a tragic mistake," Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, chief of U.S. Central Command, said Friday.

U.S. forces launched the strike after they had tracked a white Toyota Corolla for eight hours and deemed it an imminent threat, McKenzie said. There had been more than 60 pieces of intelligence at the time that indicated an attack was coming, he said. As many as six Reaper drones had followed the vehicle, he added.

The strike occurred on Aug. 29 near the airport during the final, chaotic days of the U.S. evacuation of civilians and military retreat from Afghanistan. The military claimed at the time that the strike prevented "multiple suicide bombers" from attacking Hamid Karzai International Airport. The statement from U.S. Central Command said the attack had targeted "an imminent ISIS-K threat" and that explosives were being loaded into the vehicle when the Hellfire missile struck it...


 

The Manatee needs to be relisted as endangered. The habitat MUST be rehabilitated.

September 17, 2021
By Amy Green

The vast majority (click here) of manatee deaths have been in the Indian River Lagoon, a biological diverse east coast estuary that has been plagued with water quality problems and widespread seagrass losses.

The manatee was too weak to swim. (click here)

She lay still in a medical pool at a SeaWorld rehabilitation center, only lifting her whiskered snout every so often to breathe. Her snout rested upon a pipe to make the effort easier. Her body was slender, hardly that of the chunky manatee—a relative of elephants—that she should have been. Her underbelly was concave. The manatee was near death from starvation.'

“You are looking at the body shutting down. You’re looking at the body eating its own fat reserves. You’re looking at the body doing a lot of things to try to save the core,” said Jon Peterson, vice president of zoological operations at SeaWorld, who supervised the manatee’s care along with the veterinary staff. “When that goes on, would that be discomfort? Absolutely. Would that be painful? More than likely.”

Peterson called the manatee No. 37, because she was the 37th manatee to be rescued this year from Florida waters. She weighed 1,170 pounds, up to 630 pounds less than she should have at 12 years old. Her recovery would be long and grueling if she survived....

Is there something wrong with that? Child care. Family leave. Climate change provisions. What is wrong with that?

August 9, 2021
By Kelsey Snell

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., (click here) has released the text of a $3.5 trillion budget framework that is meant to give Democrats the opportunity to approve major federal investments in child care, family leave, and climate change provisions without support of congressional Republicans.

In a letter sent Monday morning, Schumer told Democrats that the goal is for committees to write legislation to fulfill the spending targets by Sept. 15.

"When we took the majority in the Senate earlier this year, the American people entrusted us with a great responsibility: to make their lives better," Schumer wrote in the letter. "I am happy to report that we are making great progress towards that goal."...


It isn't going well for the General.

General Sherman is the largest tree in the world. It has been in our country's care taking. The Park Service and the National Forest Service have worked really hard to clean up the ground of any ignitable litter and wrapped The General in fireproof blankets. The ancient grove has trees older than the birth of Jesus. Most are well over 2000 years old, nearly 3000 years old.

September 17, 2021
By Paul Rogers

Firefighters on Friday (click here) were able to keep a slowly advancing wildfire away from the most famous grove of giant sequoia trees at Sequoia National Park, the Giant Forest, which is home to five of the world’s 10 largest trees, including the largest of them all, the General Sherman Tree.

But as fire crews and park lovers focused attention on that iconic area — where some of the massive trees had been wrapped with fireproof aluminum blankets — nearby flames were already burning into different groves of ancient sequoias with trees at least 200 feet tall and 2,000 years old.

One grove on fire 30 miles to the south in Sequoia National Forest, Long Meadow Grove, was visited 21 years ago by former President Bill Clinton when he signed a proclamation establishing Sequoia National Monument at the area’s famous “Trail of 100 Giants.”

“These groves are just as impressive and just as ecologically important to the forest,” said Tim Borden, sequoia restoration and stewardship manager at Save the Redwoods League, a San Francisco environmental group. “They just aren’t as well known. My heart sinks when I think about it.”...

 

The current USA NATIONAL BUDGET has been politically coined as Tax and Spend Democratic priorities that everyone should fear. Really?

Now, we are talking about the budget and the Republicans as Moscow Mitch has stated want to shut down the government because of the PRIORITIES of the $3.5 trillion price tag. It has nothing to do with the cost, but, everything to do with the fact, this budget helps the Middle Class and Poor. That is what Moscow Mitch and his US Senate Republicans are belly aching about. And when Republicans are crying "Tax and Spend Democrats," chick livered Machen does the exact same thing. If Moscow Mitch was on board so would be Manchen.

You understand all this boys and girls. This is not rocket science. This is math. Addition and subtraction, except, for interest rates which does require a different formula.

In fiscal year 2015, (click here) the federal budget is $3.8 trillion. These trillions of dollars make up about 21 percent of the U.S. economy (as measured by Gross Domestic Product, or GDP). It's also about $12,000 for every woman, man and child in the United States.

So where does all that money go?

President Biden's FIRST BUDGET is 0.3 trillion less than Obama's in 2015. And what do we know about the Obama White House and the National DEFICIT? We know that President Obama lowered the NATIONAL DEFICIT every year he was in office after he rescued the USA from the Great Recession.

And where exactly does the money come from?

Now what does that say?

Corporate America? Most of the money comes from corporate America where they are making the billions and trillions, right?

WRONG!

Of the money collected by the IRS, the MAJORITY of the money is from the Middle Class in the way of individual income tax.

$1.48 trillion is from individual income taxes.

Some corporations pay taxes, but, they aren't the biggest of corporations.

$342 billion from corporations .

Now, if the Middle Class and individual income taxes are paying into the USA Treasury, don't you think the people should be benefitting from these taxes? I do.

And if you thought spending under President Obama was high, that ain't nothing compared to the money Repubilcans would spend AFTER they provided the largest tax cut to the wealthy and corporate America in history. They NEVER scaled back the spending, they increased it.

February 12, 2020

President Trump's Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 (click here) budget calls for about $3.2 trillion in net deficit reduction over the next decade by our estimate, including nearly $2 trillion in cuts to discretionary spending. The Administration cites the need to restrain spending as its way to address our unsustainable debt trajectory. Yet, since President Trump's election in 2016, total spending has grown by nearly $800 billion – from $3.85 trillion (20.8 percent of Gross Domestic Product) in 2016 to $4.65 trillion (21.0 percent of GDP) in 2020....

It is all Republican double talk. They say one thing and do another. Republicans lie to the public in their POLITICSPEAK and then stab Americans in the back to carry out the biggest spending programs in history. The reason it goes mostly undetected is because the majority of Americans don't see it. The Republican cronies only see it, so it is very stealthy.

So, when, Moscow Mitch cries and cries about coal and tax and spend Democrats, kindly remember THE TRUTH. Republicans waste money on cronines that Americans never see, yet it is the individual paying the taxes.

Listen closely to Moscow Mitch. He has been saying the same old words over and over.

He and others like him have delayed in every way action by the United States of America to end the use of petroleum industry products and endorse a better and more efficient electric grid and electric cars as well as mass transportation. Just look at the hostility against Amtrak by the Republicans to realize how much they hate the lower Middle Class and Poor.

No one is proposing an energy tax. Moscow Mitch is making OLD arguments that have nothing to do with today's circumstances. An energy tax will result in more cost to consumers and every Democrat knows it. There was a proposal by a group to pay the consumer for the increase in taxes passed on to them.

 

The climate crisis is as bad as it is today because of corporate propaganda that also was used by politicans.

September 18, 2021
By Morgan McFall-Johnsen

Ben Franta (click here) is trying to collect every climate-related ad the oil and gas industry has ever produced.

Franta, who is pursuing a law degree and PhD at Stanford, is among a small cohort of researchers who track fossil-fuel industry propaganda. These historians, social scientists, and activists have documented the extent to which major oil companies knew their products were changing the climate as early as the 1960s, and how they poured tens of millions of dollars into sowing doubt about the science through the 1990s.

"Not to get too tin-hat-y, but once you start to see these ads over and over again, you see the common elements arise," Franta told Insider.

So it was clear to him that around the year 2000, fossil-fuel companies changed marketing tactics. After decades of denial, they pivoted to blaming the climate crisis on you and me....

I am tired of hearing the US Seante bantar around the fact there is a $3.5 trillion budget. 

So, what!

The only reason it is an issue is because Moscow Mitch McConnell is trying to make the OLD argument that Democrats are tax and spend. That is just so old.

 

I don't want to hear it. Women are told all their lives that their bodies are more valuable than any other aspect of life.

This is some of the best Capitalism has to offer.

 "Money" by Cardi B

Look, my bitches all bad, my niggas all real

I ride on his dick, in some big tall heels
Big fat checks, big large bills
Front, I'll flip like ten cartwheels
Cold ass bitch, I give broads chills
Ten different looks and my looks all kill
I kiss him in the mouth, I feel all grills
He eat in the car, that's meals on wheels (woo!)
I was born to flex (yes)
Diamonds on my neck
I like boardin' jets, I like mornin' sex (woo!)
But nothing in this world that I like more than checks (money)
All I really wanna see is the (money)
I don't really need the D, I need the (money)
All a bad bitch need is the (money)
I got bands in the coupe (coupe)
Bustin' out the roof
I got bands in the coupe (coupe)
Touch me, I'll shoot (bow)
Shake a little ass (money)
You get a little bag and take it to the store (store, money)
Get a little cash (money)
You shake it real fast, you get a little more (money)
I got bands in the coupe (coupe)
Bustin' out the roof
I got bands in the coupe (brrr)
Bustin' out the roof (Cardi)
I gotta fly, I need a jet, shit
I need room for my legs
I got a baby, I need some money, yeah
I need cheese for my egg
All y'all bitches in trouble
Bring brass knuckles to the scuffle
I heard that Cardi went pop
Yeah, I did go pop (pop)
That's me bustin' they bubble
I'm Dasani with the drip
Baby mommy with the clip
Walk out Follie's with a bitch
Bring a thottie to the whip
Is she fine or she thick, goddamn
Walkin' past the mirror, ooh
Damn, I'm fine (fine)
Let a bitch try me, boom
Hammer time, uh
I was born to flex (yes)
Diamonds on my neck
I like boardin' jets, I like mornin' sex (woo!)
But nothing in this world that I like more than checks (money)
All I really wanna see is the (money)
I don't really need the D, I need the (money)
All a bad bitch need is the (money)
I got bands in the coupe (coupe)
Bustin' out the roof
I got bands in the coupe (coupe)
Touch me, I'll shoot (bow)
Shake a little ass (money)
You get a little bag and take it to the store (store, money)
Get a little cash (money)
You shake it real fast, you get a little more (money)
I got bands in the coupe (coupe)
Bustin' out the roof
I got bands in the coupe (brrr)
Touch me, I'll shoot (bow)
Bitch, I will pop at your pops (your pops)
Bitch, I will pop on whoever (brrr)
You know who popped the most shit? (Who?)
The people whose shit not together (okay)
You'da bet Cardi a freak (freak)
All my pajamas is leather (Uh)
Bitch, I will black on your ass
Wakanda forever
Sweet like a honey bun, spit like a Tommy gun
Rollie a one of one, come get your mommy some
Cardi at the tip-top, bitch
Kiss the ring and kick rocks, sis (uh)
Jump it down, back it up (ooh, ayy)
Make that nigga put down 2K
I like my niggas dark like D'USSÉ
He gonna eat this ass like soup (ayy)
I was born to flex, diamonds on my neck
I like boardin' jets, I like mornin' sex
But nothing in this world that I like more than Kulture
All I really wanna see is the (money)
I don't really need the D, I need the (money)
All a bad bitch need is the
K, K, C (woo!)
Money
(Money)
(Money)
(Money)
(Money)
(Money)
(Money)

Goldman Sachs farms out their executives for the specific reasons this is happening, to protect what otherwise is unethical practices.

Carlyle?

Really?

May 26, 2021

The energy funds of private equity firm (click here) The Carlyle Group have underperformed the Pitchbook private equity benchmark, and its NGP funds all posted negative returns as of 4Q2020. Carlyle’s extensive exposure to oil and gas assets resulted in losses in 1Q20. For example, Chesapeake Energy filed for bankruptcy shortly after Carlyle dumped its stake after losing most of its value.