It is going to be great.

September 23, 2014
By Carolyn Lochhead

Industrial-scale solar, wind and geothermal projects (click here) could be built within a few miles of national parks in the California desert as part of the Obama and Brown administrations’ efforts to combat climate change, under a mammoth plan released by federal and state officials Tuesday.

Construction of the plants, many of which could cover several square miles, would drastically alter desert vistas near national parks and wilderness areas, according to a draft of the Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, a joint state and federal project more than five years in the making.

But that would be offset by the climate-change benefits of allowing large solar and wind energy plants on more than 2million acres of the Mojave Desert, the report said.

The 8,000-page plan covers 22.5million acres of public and private land in the California desert, and was unveiled in Palm Springs by Interior Secretary Sally Jewell with Sen.Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and top state land management, energy and wildlife officials....

Turning a country's citizens into terrorists isn't necessary. Before the Home Grown Terrorist there was Timothy McVeight.

Deal with it!

September 25, 2014
By Rania Spooner

The Islamic council of Victoria (click here) has refused to condemn the actions of a man who was fatally shot after stabbing two anti-terrorism police, and has hit out at authorities for pre-empting the outcome of investigations into the tragedy.

Council secretary Ghaith Krayem has also criticised the government for adopting an "enforcement" approach to managing the threat of home-grown terrorism, describing underlying issues as social, rather than religious and in need of greater scrutiny....

Anti-government citizens have existed since the beginning of time. By introducing a social paradigm whereby 'certain' citizens are the most dangerous citizens will result in more domestic violence between citizens. It is a very dangerous paradigm. 

I suppose the best thing that can happen is to simply destroy every Mosque and jail every Muslim, right? 

Victimizing a segment of any free society only causes greater discontent within all citizens. These INDIVIDUALS are exactly that and most Western democracies have intelligence to find and route them out. That is how best to handle potential jihadists or suicide bombers. McVeigh was not that far away from being a suicide bomber, too.

The challege of any free country is to regard every citizen as important and vital while finding the criminals that want to do innocent people harm. Actually, I would think jihadists would be easier to find than a McVeigh.

All this paranoia is ridiculous.

These pictures don't tell the story? That's ridiculous.

They took out the jihadist's garage. That was the purpose and they succeeded. You know the garage where all the stolen American vechicles were keep? That garage.

Americans should know this attack on the jihadists' garages cost them twice. First to put the lousy stuff in Iraq and then to destroy it.

Lieutenant General William C. Mayville Jr. talked about the sites that were targeted.

WASHINGTON — The US-led attacks (click here) that began late Monday against terrorist forces in Syria are equivalent to what a senior Pentagon war planner called buying time for ill-prepared allies on the ground to finish the job.
The strikes are designed to weaken the Islamic State’s hold on its Syrian sanctuary so that regional allies such as the Iraqi army and Syrian rebels can take back the large areas of both countries that are now under the sway of the radical Islamic group....

It is so ridiculous to think of putting combat troops on the ground to take inventory of destroyed stolen American hardware. I can see it now, American soldiers climbing through the rubble to find the lousy stuff to count it while the people are so angry they turn IEDs on them.

NO. It won't happen. Satellite pictures better be good enough and realizing the detail that shows, I think we know exactly what is happening on the ground.

September 24, 2014
By Benjamin Weiser

NEW YORK — A Kuwaiti-born (click here) cleric who sat with Osama bin Laden in an Afghan cave hours after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and later became a fiery spokesman for the Al Qaeda leader, was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday by a federal judge in Manhattan.

The defendant, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, 48, who was the most senior adviser to bin Laden to be tried in a civilian court in the United States since the attacks, was accused of giving voice to bin Laden’s recruitment drive for new young suicide bombers....

The War of 9/11 is OVER. The country needs to end the AUMF.

School is not about obedience. It is about learning.

How the learning is achieved in a civilized classroom where diversity of thought is expressed is called TEACHING. There is a reason teachers teach and it is for students to receive information not parochial standards!

ARVADA, Colo. — A new conservative school board majority (click here) here in the Denver suburbs recently proposed a curriculum-review committee to promote patriotism, respect for authority and free enterprise and to guard against educational materials that “encourage or condone civil disorder.” In response, hundreds of students, teachers and parents gave the board their own lesson in civil disobedience....

Ukriane finds support for peace from the people of Moscow

I betcha you thought this was a picture of New York City and the Climate marchers. Right? Nope.

Demonstrators clash during an anti-war rally and march Sunday in downtown Moscow.Thousands marched through central Moscow to protest the fighting in Ukraine. (Pavel Golovkin/Associated Press)



September 21, 2014
By Karoun Demirjian

MOSCOW — A march for peace (click here) in Ukraine drew tens of thousands to downtown Moscow Sunday in a show of protest against Russia’s involvement in the conflict.

The demonstration drew a mixed crowd of old and young, families and organized factions, who walked the route chanting songs and slogans — the most common being a simple, “No to war.”

“This march is to show the people that there’s quite a number of people who are against the war and don’t think that most Ukrainians are fascists,” said Mikhail Garder, 28. “The government knows that. The people don’t.”...

I want to have friends in Russia!!!!!!!!!!!!

I want to "Friend" Russians on Facebook!!!!!!!!!!!!

Vladimir are you paying attention. The Russians are great people and I love them. Get over yourself!

There is a difference between a Russian and a Russki. Vladimir I am on the verge of believing you are more a Russki from The Cold War than a man that thinks!

Russians need to STICK TOGETHER, the prisons are going to be very oddly overcrowded while there is no one in their homes. The global community can demand fairness for human rights, don't stop now!

Vladimir you keep up you isolation and Russia will be poorer than Germany after WWI. Stop this!!!!

Yes, Vladimir I am a subversive, ask the FBI they will tell you!

Oh, the USA military?

Yeah, well I stated my position on that before. I don't like repeating myself.

Let's put it this way, when Republicans run up against any regulation that would cost them money they ways say the goal of the regulation is UNATTAINABLE.

Yeah, unattainable.

That is the word the US Legislature needs to come to understand in regard to war.

The money.

Did a decade of war in Iraq work? No.

Did a decade of war in Afghanistan work? No.

Did losing over 50,000 Americans in Vietnam work? No.

How much money was spent on those three wars? 

Now. Why not simply spend it on Homeland Security? I think the White House is short on staff and the unemployment rate in Washington, DC is still 7.4 percent.

End of discussion.

Where is the National Guard when the people need them?

In case anyone missed the proceeding from Climate Week, tune into The Weather Channel. 

I never thought I'd see the day The Weather Channel (click here) would be covering the United Nations. They covered it all. I applaud them. I understand they even covered Secretary Kerry meeting with business leaders yesterday. 

On Monday morning El Paso, Texas had received 4 to 5 inches of rain. The streets were flooded and lives put in danger. Citizens were saving each others' lives as the National Guard in Texas is guarding the border from immigrant children.

September 22, 2014

Flash flood warnings (click here) were reissued Monday afternoon as a new round of heavy thunderstorms developed over the El Paso, Texas, metropolitan area, where flash floods earlier in the day turned deadly. By Monday night, numerous roads were flooded in the Las Cruces area. 

Earlier Monday, a cluster of heavy rain parked over the north side of El Paso and triggered deadly flash flooding. 64-year-old Consance Manzanares drowned Monday after her car was trapped in a canal by flood waters, KVIA reports.  

At least two water rescues were performed, according to the El Paso Times. Portions of Hondo Pass, Railroad Drive, and Fairbanks Drive were impassable. Rocks and other debris littered parts of Fairbanks Drive with water reaching up to the wheel wells of at least one vehicle, according to KFOX-TV.  Floodwaters reached the front entrance of El Paso Community College. 

Earth has a new ambassador.

The change in CO2 emission by the USA is less than 10% while Russia and Europe have decreased their carbon emission by greater than 50%.

Interactive map (click here)

The third world needs help in changing their emissions. Where is the First World in it's priorities?

A majority of Americans know the climate crisis is real today and in the future.

September 22, 2014

By Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Anthony Salvanto and Fred Backus

Ahead of the U.N. Climate Summit at the United Nations (click here) this week, most Americans say global warming is having a serious impact now or will in the future, and 54 percent think it is mostly caused by human activity -- the highest percentage in CBS News/New York Times Polls.

Forty-six percent say global warming is a problem that is having a serious impact now, while another 28 percent think it will have a serious impact sometime in the future. About a quarter don't think global warming will have a serious impact at all. These views have changed little in recent years....

Libya or Iraq, which will it be?

Every known terrorist organization has at one time or another has called for a global attack on whomever. That hasn't happened. 

There is no reason to believe that will ever happen. The numbers of followers just aren't there. The fact of the matter is a few attempts may occur for instilling fear, but, no country will have the population succumb to these extremist organizations.

The missiles are similar as Bush's missiles for Shock and Awe, but, the manned jets didn't go first. There are one of two scenarios here. 

That missiles will result in destruction similar to Libya or set the stage for invasion waiting at the border. In the case of Iraq it was the Kuwait border. This time who knows.

But, if President Obama lives up to his word there won't be an invasion into Syria. If he doesn't than it will be nation building and the USA will be in an expensive and forever war. Either way I am not impressed. It was staged to appear to be as though other nations were taking on the security of their region, but, this is no indication of that at all.

Syria's civil war was not a threat to the USA and I don't care what anyone says otherwise.


September 22, 2014
By John Irish and Lamine Chiikhi

(Reuters) - A French national was kidnapped in eastern Algeria (click here) on Sunday, France's foreign ministry said, and his kidnappers issued a video threatening to kill him if Paris did not halt its intervention in Iraq.

The Caliphate Soldiers, a group linked to Islamic State militants, published a video on the Internet soon after the French ministry's announcement on Monday, claiming responsibility for the kidnapping and showing a man who identified himself as Herve Gourdel, 55, from Nice in southern France.

The group said it would kill Gourdel if Paris did not halt its intervention in Iraq.

The French foreign ministry later confirmed the video was authentic....

This is Greenland's ice sheets darken from arctic and subarctic fires.

Dark ice is helping Greenland’s glaciers retreat. (click here)

The dark color alone absorbs heat and increases the ice melt. This is part of the negative feedback loop we should all be very worried about.

This study is the first crowdfunded investigation of Greenland.

There is no ambivalence anymore.

This weeks climate conference organized by the United Nations isn't about deny the science or believing in it. It is about the science and the facts and for those who understand the implications of the science and the facts. 

Believers don't really exist in the movement of awareness. It isn't about believing, it is about KNOWING.

Deniers aren't anyone, except, those that rather not understand. 

Arctic sea ice coverage (click here) continued its below-average trend this year as the ice declined to its annual minimum on Sept. 17, according to the NASA-supported National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Over the 2014 summer, Arctic sea ice melted back from its maximum extent reached in March to a coverage area of 1.94 million square miles (5.02 million square kilometers), according to analysis from NASA and NSIDC scientists. This year’s minimum extent is similar to last year’s and below the 1981-2010 average of 2.40 million square miles (6.22 million square km).

"Arctic sea ice coverage in 2014 is the sixth lowest recorded since 1978. The summer started off relatively cool, and lacked the big storms or persistent winds that can break up ice and increase melting," said Walter Meier, a research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

“Even with a relatively cool year, the ice is so much thinner than it used to be,” Meier said. “It’s more susceptible to melting.”...

"Morning Papers - Its Origins" (click here)

The Rooster

"Okeydoke"

"Today is a great day to be an environmentalist!"

We have been incredibly successful to bring so many people together for confront governments to greedy and to politically attached to greed to actually cause harm to their citizens.

I am proud to be an environmentalist today. We are magnificent!

What can I say? The entire country was robbed of our democracy by the legislature passing simple document to authorize forces to wage a war.

Bin Laden should have been dead at Tora Bora. The soldiers and intelligence had his voice on their radios. They should have been allowed to kill him. 

When Don Rumsfeld sent in Daisy Cutters into the mountains it wasn't intended to kill anyone. It was to raise the doubt as to whether or not bin Laden was dead.

The reason the US House went on leave for two full months until after the November elections is because they ran away from responsibility. They were no more interested in rocking the vote than if the moon was made of green cheese. 

The US House didn't want to even speak the word AUMF. They didn't want to talk about immigration reform. They don't want to talk about women and sexual assault or domestic violence or contraception. 

They don't want to talk about guns. 

All they wanted to do is sneak into town, pass a continuing resolution and authorize Obama's counter-terrorism strategy and then sneak back out of town. No one liners. No gotcha moments. No speeches on the House floor. Just put their tail between their legs and leave. 

The United States of America is in the worst constitutional condition I have witnessed in my lifetime and dare I say the history of the country.

Secretary of Homeland Security and former Department of Defense (“DoD”) General Counsel Jeh Johnson said in a speech in late 2012, war should “be regarded as a finite, extraordinary and unnatural state of affairs” that “violates the natural order of things.”13 In Johnson’s words: “Peace must be regarded as the norm toward which the human race continually strives."

We should make that as an amendment to the USA Constitution. Unless the AUMF is repealed this country is never going to stop engaging in war.

The administration of George W. Bush destroyed this country, not 9/11. One attack on the USA would never do what "W" has done to us.

Now, we know why the US Senate didn't care about the nomination of Secretary Johnson, he speaks and spells the word Peace. That is just no in the Senate's purview these days, except for Senator Sanders.

The primary mission of the Bureau of Counterterrorism (CT) (click here) is to forge partnerships with non-state actors, multilateral organizations, and foreign governments to advance the counterterrorism objectives and national security of the United States. Working with our U.S. Government counterterrorism team, CT takes a leading role in developing coordinated strategies to defeat terrorists abroad and in securing the cooperation of international partners.

See I thought The State Department being the pivotal government department with all these nations, considering this is a matter of military action, was something knew.

No.

The Bureau of Counterterrorism is in the State Department.

We are not only going to war endlessly with the AUMF, we are even planning future wars.

...Department designation of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (“FTOs”), (click here)  the proposal would have Congress enact a new blanket framework statute authorizing the use of military force against as-yet-undetermined future terrorist organizations, and delegate to the Executive Branch the authority to designate those organizations against which such force may be used if and when the relevant criteria are met. If press reports are accurate, the Hoover paper is but one of a number of competing proposals that have been circulated in favor of a “new”—or, at least, expanded—AUMF.12...  

The AUMF is the Counterterrorism DOCTRINE for the USA. So, when President Obama states this is not a war, but, is counterterrorism, that is because the AUMF enforces his actions.    

The article appears in Wikipedia. Evidently, the agreement that draws the lines for land was a secret. It was drafted previous to the defeat of the Ottoman Empire during WWI.

I don't think IS is actually of any religious order or has the consent of god to undo what The West and Russia has done here, but, if the land divisions don't work without a dictator, then it needs to be rethought.

There is a reason why these sort of land arrangements were used and why the land continues to be coveted by other countries.

The United Kingdom is only 94,058 square miles. That is more or less the size of Oregon. The current population of the UK is 64.1 million. Now, it is fairly easy to imagine if the people of the UK demanded forty acres and a mule, it just wouldn't work out. To compare Oregon's population is only 3.899 million people. It is amazing the UK even has farmland, yet alone expect to feed everyone within that country.

So, what do small countries like the UK and France or Spain or Italy do when it comes to feeding it's people and creating an economy? They look outside their borders. 

British Petroleum is operated from London. It's origins begin in Iran in 1909. When the Brits go to war to protect their interests, that is a very different meaning than when "W" says it. The Brits literally receive their national treasury income from holdings of many types outside of their sovereign borders. When the USA goes to war it is for cronies of Wall Street like Halliburtion and Bell Helicopter.

With that sort of explained to an understanding of a country's survival, the UK and France were very interested in taking colonies in North Africa. 

At the time of WWI Canada was still a British province. All the Central Powers fell, except, for Germany. But, Russia and the USA were on the same side of the fight as they were also in WWII.

So, still today there are certain resentments regarding the occupation of lands. With BP these days, they more or less hold leases to their product sources. Countries are better defined and their borders more secure. They don't simply disappear off the map like they used to with any war. 

But, this is the grudge IS carries today toward every other nation, peoples or religion on this green Earth. 

They won't continue to succeed. They are loyalists to a vacuum. They are pretty terrible folks. There isn't anything from turning guns on each other, except, their allegiance to Bagdadi. He doesn't have anything to offer them, except, what they steal and then provide as bounty to his warriors. The Greeks and Romans did that. They bought their loyalty from their people and their armies. Tribute and Dole. Tribute is the money received and Dole is the monies handed out. Eventually, the Dole runs dry and the rest is history.