If I was a candidate for Senate I would be among the first in line to see the exhibit.

Filed to: YOUNG-EARTH CREATIONISM
Yesterday 4:33pm

As you may have read (click here) on the mainpage, the Creation "Museum" in Kentucky was using this Memorial Day weekend to open a new exhibit: a semi-complete skeleton of Allosaurus fragilis named Ebenezer.

As you may have also read on the mainpage, the paleontological profession, in particular the vertebrate paleontological profession, is really interested in figuring out how to balance private and public ownership of fossils.

Obviously you want to know more about the interplay between those two, right? Cool. I'm going to talk a lot about Ebenezer....

For any candidate running for office, it isn't about whether or not the story of Noah's Arch fits into their belief system, but, the fact such beliefs are allowed to exist in private institutions in the USA.

If people want others to exhibit tolerance of their rights, they have to respect the rights of Ebenezer to exist, too. I take it no scientist was called into carbon date all this. The Bakers were allowed to exist, too. Right up to the point they were breaking the law in the name of god. And they have paid their dues to society, too.

There is still nothing implicating Secretary Shinseki.

Asking the Secretary to step down won't accomplish anything. The Secretary needs to decide to ask the President for a Special Prosecutor. The delays are suppose to have been resolved with extending services within the private health care network to existing wait list veterans.

May 28, 2014
By Richard A. Oppel, Jr. and Michael D. Shear

The inspector general (click here) for the Department of Veterans Affairs reported on Wednesday that at least 1,700 veterans at the agency’s medical center in Phoenix were not registered on the proper waiting list to see doctors, creating a serious condition that means veterans “continue to be at risk of being forgotten or lost” in the convoluted scheduling process.

All the while, the hospital falsely reported waiting times that suggested delays were minimal, the report said.

The report prompted several leading Republicans, including Senator John McCain of Arizona, to call for the secretary of veterans affairs, Eric Shinseki, to step down.

“While our work is not complete, we have substantiated that significant delays in access to care negatively impacted the quality of care at this medical facility,” Richard J. Griffin, the acting inspector general for the department, said in an interim report on his investigation into the Phoenix medical center....

The VA hospitals involved were blind siding oversight. How is that implicating the Secretary?

May 28, 2014
By Akesh Houdek

...Improvements in oversight (click here) and auditing are surely part of the solution here, but there's a much more fundamental change that needs to happen: Regular line-level employees who see wrongdoing on the part of their coworkers, or are asked to engage in wrongdoing by their supervisors, need to be able to do something about it without threat of retaliation. Any human endeavor examined closely enough is a disgraceful mess, and most of us know this most directly from our jobs. But we also instantly recognize true malfeasance when we directly encounter it. So, of all the people who were involved or knew about these terrible practices who worked at the VA, why did it take so long for the truth to come out? A recent CNN report quotes Dr. Sam Foote, a doctor who had worked for the VA for 24 years....

...It's telling that Foote went to the press only after retiring. Despite the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989, the federal government during the Bush and Obama administrations has grown increasingly hostile to whistleblowers....

What improvements in oversight, they were erasing the records? It is difficult to make quality improvements when it is criminality one is dealing with.

...workers devised a solution that involved entering information into a computer screen, printing the screen, and then not saving the record....

They may have devised a solution, but, it wasn't legal. How is oversight suppose to pick up delays when all the records were erased except for a stake of papers no one authorized or knew existed. These formulated a solution and never sought approval for their solution. They simply went ahead and did what they wanted to do. This calls for resignations and purging the VA of incompetents, but, it doesn't start with the Secretary. It just doesn't.

Asking Secretary Shinseki to step down would be nothing short of scapegoating. What really bothers me, as this scandal unfolds, is the fact these problems were systemic to include something like 26 other facilities. That systemic problem proves there are deeper problems and it is in the leadership that seems to have gotten their way all to easily for too long. Who are in leadership, friends and family of those calling for the Secretary's resignation. 

The problems have to be solved and it isn't going to happen of Secretary Shinseki is scapegoated for the sake of politics.

Where are the insurance commissioners?

This is the Texas Insurance Commissioner. She isn't going her job.

Texas Insurance Commissioner Julia Rathgeber (click here) listened to testimony at a public hearing on proposed rules for health insurance navigators in Austin on Dec. 20, 2013.

This is a story I heard on the radio the other day and my first reaction was "Where is the insurance commissioner?"

The couple was expecting their third child without insurance and now the wife had a pre-existing condition. They went to the health care exchanges and didn't quality for Medicaid because Texas refuses the two years of federal payments. So, the husband looked through the exchanges and found a Blue Cross Blue Shield policy for the cost of about $400.00. When the wife then sought pre-natal care they were told their insurance was not accepted.

by CARRIE FEIBEL
May 27, 2014 3:27 AM ET

...And so they dropped their new plan; (click here) they just stopped paying the premium.
They signed on to be in the midwife's care. Nick signed up for a nonprofit, Christian-orientedcost-sharing plan. The Robinsons will pay cash upfront and request reimbursement later....

The couple gave up with an impending birth and took the best road they could find even though it made them uneasy about their choice. They basically had no alternative that fit their comfort zone. There was a Christian organization standing at the ready and helped the couple deliver their child.

The lack of services provided this couple by Blue Cross Blue Shield is not the fault of the insurance company, otherwise, it would be fraud. This is a discontinuity between the insurances and the health care providers. The providers are disregarding the insurance policies they signed onto and leaving the consumer outside the health care system. The providers had no right to turn away a pregnant woman with an insurance policy they are listed as participating in network.

The Texas Insurance Commissioner is looking the other way and it is completely based in politics. There is no enforcement of health care contracts between insurance companies and their providers. The providers are not allowed to cherry pick their customers. The consumers of health care are paying their premiums, finding providers within the insurance network they chose, but, the providers are turning them away.

The Texas Insurance Commissioner is not only ignoring her responsibilities in enforcing contracts to benefit the consumer, she is endangering the lives of innocent citizens of Texas. The consumers are doing what they are suppose to be doing. They are being responsible. It is not their problem. The Insurance Commissioner should be investigated for negligence linked with services provided to consumers by these providers.

This entire circumstance is ridiculous. $400 per month premium, plenty of providers listed, and they refuse the patients while stating there is no hospital accepting the insurance. This is Blue Cross Blue Shield for god sake. Blue Cross Blue Shield doesn't know what it is doing? They fully well know in order to sell health care insurance they have to have providers linked with hospitals where their customers can receive complete services.

Someone needs to do something about this insurance commissioner before people die if they haven't already.

Just because this is Obamacare doesn't mean state insurance commissioners can look the other way because it is politically popular to do so. The insurance commissioners are suppose to be upholding the law, not the GOP doctrine.

"I was suffering from a god complex."

Those were the words spoken by a USA soldier recently returned from Afghanistan.

"I didn't care about being home or going home. I was in control and it was a nothing more than a bad habit."

Two and a half years ago he was on the battlefield in Afghanistan when he had a nervous breakdown. The military immediately removed him to Europe for evaluation. It was decided he could no longer function to carry out daily tasks, yet alone fire a weapon and save his own life or the lives of others.

He was shipped home and spent two years in rehab for PTSD. He only recently was released to return home to his family. And it was only two days ago he told his grandfather visiting for a fishing trip, "I was suffering from a god complex. I believed I had control over all life within my line of sight, including my own. Nothing could hurt me. Being in Afghanistan was where I belonged forever."

Hayden has his own god complex. He needs to put on the uniform and handle the Taliban forever. It might not pay as well, but, the satisfaction to being god far outweighs any tangible items money can buy. Sex is meaningless when he can slaughter an entire village within minutes. Better than sex even.

OMG.

A congressman solicited the parent of a dead student? 

Well. Why didn't he just send two Marines to the door?

I can't believe a congressman snapped to attention for the gun lobby.

I do believe that same Congressman has an obligation to endorse gun control as soon as possible. It would definitely dissolve his obvious guilt to corruption. 

No hand holding by legislators anymore. That was an obvious pandering to prevent political fallout. Legislators are dancing to their own political priorities for votes in the face of obvious tragedy and the facts they refuse to live with. But, they are alive aren't they. They are alive while their constituents are dead. My, my, my.

Stop the gun sales. Judge Scalia has clearly articulated gun presence in the country is limited.

Richard Martinez (center), whose son Christopher was killed in Friday's attack, is comforted by his brother Alan.

The state laws allowing this level of violence to exist are unconstitutional. There isn't anything else to understand. 

Roe v Wade is the law of the land, end of discussion. 

All that is unconstitutional is meaningless political hubris causing deaths and oppression among the American people.

Governors that have signed unconstitutional bills should be impeached and/or replaced. They are incompetent and nothing more than political puppets for cronies and the funding that accompanies gutless government.

The Governors have pledged to uphold the law and they aren't. They should be vetoing this bills. 

Governor Brown needs to set the example and end the sales of guns to citizens until there are complete reassurances this level of violence won't happen to California communities again. 

Gun violence is replacing other forms of violence. It is far more lethal than other forms of violence. The deaths by gun violence is out of control. It is the obligation of the government to protect innocent citizens. Gun presence in society has never been demonstrated to end senseless deaths and/or gun violence. This is an emergency in this country and it needs to be handled by the California Executive Branch. 

The gun market is saturated in the USA. If someone wants to purchase a gun there are plenty for sale.

There is no effective way to control gun violence except by controlling guns. Those demanding the free flow of guns also have a problem with the free flow of cattle. They are anarchists. Their hideous priorities are killing innocent people. 

Those hideous priorities have infected this nation through political propaganda by right wing media. Those hideous priorities have been dressed up as if the entire country will be taken over by a dictatorship. The only dictatorship existing in the USA is the gun lobby and the causalities are real.

The casualties include not just Americans, but, Mexicans as well. It can be stated the American Gun Lobby causes government instability and anarchy at the American border and into Mexican cities. 

Guns give soldiers a fighting chance while they expect the assault by the enemy, but, Americans are not soldiers and they don't want their streets turned into a war zone. The average American citizen even when provided a gun for their own protection will never be that good a shot nor have the ability to read minds to know when the unexpected will happen. There is just no way and the future requires all of us to realize the denser a population the more likely the deaths will escalate simply by the density alone. This is a ridiculous paradigm and has no place in the future of this country.

President Obama's strategy to win the war in Afghanistan needs to be reviewed. It is wasting the assets of the USA and causing the death of soldiers that serves no purpose. He might want to call in Condi Rice. Bush did and they dreamed up "The Surge" to justify war, death of soldiers and useless spending.

There is no debate about the lethaity of guns in the American culture.

As a matter of fact, as guns have become more available murders by gun violence has become the dominant method of homicides.

The First Lady's school lunch reforms have been invaluable to our children.

David Jackson
USA TODAY 5:47 p.m. EDT 
May 27, 2014

WASHINGTON – First lady Michelle Obama (click here) stepped into the political/policy arena Tuesday, criticizing House Republicans over a plan to permit exceptions to new federal nutrition standards for school lunches.

"This is unacceptable," she said while meeting with an invited group of school nutrition officials. "It's unacceptable to me not just as first lady, but also as a mother."

Citing the rising incidence of obesity among children and adults, the first lady said "the last thing we can afford to do right now is play politics with our kids health" and "now is not the time to roll back everything we have worked for."

House Republicans said the proposal -- part of an Agriculture Department appropriations bill -- would be a temporary, one-year waiver for schools that are having financial trouble meeting the new food standards....

There is no need for a waiver. Waivers are considered important when government standards change and there are substantial inventories that have to be dispersed. In carrying such waivers it makes it easier for businesses and/or government agencies, such as schools, to implement change effectively with all profits realized from old inventories.

School lunch programs are subsidized to provide nutrition for our nation's children. School lunches have to be prepared fresh everyday. The inventories for the preparation of school lunches are not more than a week in planning and ordering. There are not large frozen storage facilities where large amounts of any agricultural commodity is kept for schools. It isn't practical and it is expensive for a school system to implement any such storage facility. Commercial storage holding any agricultural commodity has many, many private industry customers that are not government subsidized where their inventories can be sold. As a rule if there are agricultural inventories stored for a year, it is breaking the law.

This is from "Shelf Life Advice."

By John Gregerson

Jul 03, 2009

Apples ripen quickly at room temperature. (click here) If you plan to eat them within a day or two, they'll be fine on the counter. Otherwise, refrigerate them in a perforated plastic bag. If possible, store them in the back of the refrigerator. If purchased in good condition, apples should last 3-6 months in a refrigerated environment....

When US Congress adds such instruments of cronyism into vital legislation to protect our children it is pure, unadulterated corruption. I demand Congress to remove the corruption from this legislation, our children are not 'chips in the big game.'

Our children are innocent. They deserve the protection the First Lady asks for on their behalf. 

"I am ready for the sky to blow..."
 

War on the climate.

And he is still in the saddle?

Rove is still trying to sell his ? expertise ?

...“People don’t like people who have it sort of already made, they want to see a scrapper, they want to see a fighter,” Rove said. “ and tend to look at alternatives.”…And if it looks like you are the candidate, then people tend to pick at your faults

  “In American politics, there’s a sense you want to be new, you don’t want to be too familiar, you want to be something fresh, you don’t want to be something old and stale,” he said.

Really? Does Rover ever listen to his own words? I doubt it because if he did he'd realize what a complete dolt is sincerely is.

Bill can't have a third term. He might want to consider being Secretary of State if he isn't too busy being "First Man," But, he isn't allowed to have a third term. 

People don’t like people who have it sort of already made

You mean like Jeb Bush. Because I can tell you EXACTLY what any Jeb Bush presidency would be like and trust me, the USA doesn't want it.

they want to see a scrapper, they want to see a fighter

You mean like "W." The USA can't possibly survive another "W." The cost at the end of the scrapper's term nearly killed us the first time.

and tend to look at alternatives

Like the 22 debate Republican Party nomination process? Those are alternatives? I don't think so. One Republican is like another Republican is like another Republican. There is a buyer's warranty with every Republican to keep the perverted base happy. Guns, God and no tolerance of difference.

And if it looks like you are the candidate, then people tend to pick at your faults'

The Republican bases it's party platform on 'expect faults.' I could not mean that more. When incompetency shows up within the ruling power of the RNC there is always rhetoric to support THE DENIAL of corruption and idiocy in the party. "Good job, Brownie."

The Republicans have more exceptions to the rules than there are rules. Anyone honestly following right wingers know they lie like rugs. 

So, fine faults? That is all there is and in order to find faults in Democrats there either has to be sex exploits dredged up by right wingers or they have to be the focus of hate by right wing media for the sake of ratings. The right wing media not only lie like rugs they back it up with propaganda.  

there’s a sense you want to be new, you don’t want to be too familiar, you want to be something fresh, you don’t want to be something old and stale,” 

This is the biggest joke yet. Let's see something new? Romney? No. McCain? No. Gingrich? No. "W?" No, that was Bush 2. Bush 1? No, that was the complete loss of the USA economy and let's face it the Bush Empire was built after the ambassadorship to China, right? If any family dynasty wants a solid record on how to destroy the USA economy from the White House, the Bush's have the answer.  Nixon? No. Tricky dick? 

Let's see, something new? Kennedy? Yes. Civil rights? Yes. Clinton? Yes. Return of economy? Yes. Obama? Definately new. Hillary Clinton? First woman in the White House. Sounds new to me. 

You haven't got what it takes, Karl. You need to face the fact Karl. You ain't got what it takes Karl. You just don't. And quite frankly neither do your candidates, but, the money to date has washed Republicans clean for image building. Amazing.

Obama wants 9,800 troops in Afghanistan after 2014

NO!

...'spend political capital'...

May 26, 2014

RE “MERE disagreements no excuse to dump graduation speakers” (Editorial, May 17): Your support for Condoleezza Rice (click here) as commencement speaker at Rutgers shows a shocking sanitizing of her history before the Iraq War. After more than a decade of journalistic investigation into that war, I doubt a “reasonable” person would consider Rice’s actions a subject of “mere disagreement.”

As secretary of state under George W. Bush, Rice, along with Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, helped deceive the American people into supporting the attack on a country with no connection to 9/11. Her famous statement that “we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud” was based on no evidence that Iraq had nuclear capability or the ability to use it against its enemies. It was one of several war-mongering deceptions the administration used to sell the war.

Your editorial states that she has an instructive story to tell, including her climb to power against gender or racial barriers. But it would be more instructive to learn how the Bush administration’s deceptions prevented thousands of young American and Iraqi women from ever having a chance to rise to power.

David Riese

Where do Republicans believe their political capital gives them the right to rewrite history?

Thursday 4 November 2004 13.08 EST 
 theguardian.com
By Simon Jeffery

Re-elected US president George Bush (click here) today said he intended to spend the "political capital" he earned campaigning for the White House.
In his first press conference since the election he acknowledged he had to "explain the decisions I make" but said he had every intention of following through with a second term agenda stretching from an overhaul of the tax system to "spreading freedom" in the Middle East.
"The people made it clear what they wanted," he said. "I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and I intend to spend it."...

When I heard those words, my first reaction was, the election no longer matters, the right wing will simply do as they please to satisfy their cronies and disregard the American people. I was proved to be correct when Bush then immediately turned to the Social Security System to attempt to tap it for $2 trillion US for the purpose of privatization. 

There is no such thing as political capital that will carry anyone into permission to overrun the people of this country.

When Ms. Rice came forward to speak at a commencement which defines the future projection of a graduating class she was counting on the fact no one remembered the atrocities of the White House administration she was a participant. Once again Americans were faced with this discounting of reality known as 'Right Wing Political Capital.' 

This idea right wing politicians are untouchable entities of power from the day they enter office because it is important to 'the politics of the nation' is the biggest myth this country relies on to call itself a two party system. There are no two parties anywhere on the landscape. There are the Democrats willing to take up the liberation of citizens forced to the fringe and there is the party of Wall Street. The Republicans are no more about small business than they are about immigration. They are no more about freedom than the latest Voter ID laws to control the outcome of their power brokering. 

There is no two party system in the USA, it is the Democrats vs Wall Street. When a right winger like Ms. Rice comes forward to speak it is an attempt to push back the disgustingly corrupt image of her party and not to bring a message graduates want to hear or a message the rest of the country wants to hear. It is for sound bits and the casting of political images completely affront to our democracy.

The American people can no longer isolate issues into right and left wing. There are profound problems facing the USA and any attempt at image making needs to be put in check when it is matched with the depth of corruption of the Bush/Cheney White House. 

The UK moved it's concern for women and girls out of the bedroom and into the kitchen.

Woman cooks dinner for her family on traditional open fire in Gujarat, India. Picture: Romana Manpreet/Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves.

Lynne Featherstone, UK International Development Minister said: (click here)

The health of millions of girls and women in developing countries is damaged every day by exposure to smoke from traditional cooking practices. The innovative research for which the UK government and Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (click here) have been recognised will improve women’s access to clean energy and quality of life.

The Climate Week Awards, held in London yesterday, celebrate the UK’s most effective and ambitious organisations, communities and individuals and their efforts to combat climate change....

WHO estimate 4.3 million HAP (Household Air Pollution) Deaths Each Year

The World Health Organization (WHO) (click here) just released its 2012 estimates of the global burden of disease from air pollution and reports that globally, 4.3 million deaths were attributable to household air pollution (HAP) in 2012, almost all in low and middle income (LMI) countries.  The WHO reports that the South East Asian and Western Pacific regions bear most of the burden with 1.69 and 1.62 million deaths, respectively.  Almost 600,000 deaths occur in Africa, 200,000 in the Eastern Mediterranean region, 99,000 in Europe and 81,000 in the Americas. The remaining 19,000 deaths occur in high income countries....

Rachel Carson, a national hero.

Born: May 27, 1907 in Springdale, Pennsylvania

Died: April 14, 1964 in Silver Spring, Maryland

Books: 

Under the Sea-Wind (1941)

The Sea Around Us (1951)

The Edge of the Sea (1955)

Silent Spring (1962)

The Sense of Wonder (posthumous, 1965)

Rachel Carson, (click here) writer, scientist, and ecologist, grew up simply in the rural river town of Springdale, Pennsylvania. Her mother bequeathed to her a life-long love of nature and the living world that Rachel expressed first as a writer and later as a student of marine biology. Carson graduated from Pennsylvania College for Women (now Chatham University) in 1929, studied at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, and received her MA in zoology from Johns Hopkins University in 1932....

Rachel Cason was a woman employed by the US Bureau of Fisheries as a Marine Biologist and a graduate of John Hopkins University. She was unafraid of opinion and acted in a benevolent role in the USA to bring about awareness of an alarming truth she was witnessing in the waters and across the lands of the country she loved.

She was more than concerned regarding the outcomes of the country's natural resources. She was finding chorinatedhydrocarbons and organophosphates to be a danger to the country's lands and it's people.

She affiliated with a wildlife illustrator, Bob Hines, and the movement changed to an understanding by others. His influence would take place with illustrations of birds. His illustrations were wonderfully accurate valued by Audubon as well as USFWS (click here).

In her reality of the loss of wildlife was also the reality to Bob Hines the subject of his art was also in danger of disappearing. The cause of which became "Silent Spring" actually found these wonderful Americans. The overwhelming reality existed in order to have it manifest in their work.

Their professional ethics came to bear, but, there was also a great ethics; the ethics of living and valuing life over all else.

It could be said Rachel Carson's career occurred at an incredible time of awareness. The American society realized it could accomplish anything, but, it was also still engaged in the 'ethics of morality' and how ambitions of wealth and power could destroy the very world it enjoyed to thrive within.

Her value of life and the beauty of the natural world she found herself as an expert brought forward a woman patient with the existence of corporate America, but, willing to put education of the public above the priority of 'profits first.' She believed Americans loved the land as well as the wealth of the country's potential. She also knew Americans had to find a moral content that would set aside wealth over life. Ultimately, Rachel Carson would succumb to cancer two years following the publication of Silent Spring; further testament of the reality she carried to Americans and asked them to hold as their own.

I don't know where it all got so lost in the USA. Rachel's value of life is the place where all countries belong. Life is important. The wealth of any one person or group of persons cannot be tolerated when it causes the loss of life of others. Today we face the challenge of the entire of humanity in realizing their precious Earth has lost it's balance. It is a new dynamic to countries used to commanding the land and it's occupation by citizens. Now, countries have to come to terms with their own vulnerability in ignoring a vital message that has been on going since the 1960s. 

Rachel Carson lost her life while bringing forward her knowledge to empower Americans to take on the challenge of a morality which put profiteering on the back shelf to save their own lives. That challenge for Americans still exists today. If she were alive today, Rachel would carry the message the IPCC carries to all of us today, "We live on a planet far to challenged to maintain it's atmospheric balance and Earth's benevolence no longer exists. All countries need to pay attention to the future of Earth, but, those most responsible for past grievances need to carry the return to a balance of the atmospheric Earth."

The gun density and violence lust in the USA is striking abroad.

8:18 AM Monday May 26, 2014
By Harrison Christian  

A New Zealand woman (click here) has been caught in the middle of a murderous rampage in the US that claimed six lives and left her neighbour with gunshot wounds.

Elliot Rodger, 22, went on a killing spree near the campus of the University of California, Isla Vista Santa Barbara on Friday night.

He then crashed his BMW with a fatal gunshot to the head.

Hawke's Bay woman Amelia Lyons, 22, was walking home from work when Rodger left his apartment ahead of his rampage.

..."My neighbour was actually shot. It's crazy that it happens on your doorstep - hard to believe that this sort of stuff goes on.

"It's very sombre here now. In this bright, upbeat town everyone's been calling their parents reassuring them they're okay."

She described Isla Vista as a sunny, upbeat town, where young students looked forward to a bright future.

"This kind of thing does not happen [here]."...

...Earlier, Alan Shifman - a lawyer who represents Peter Rodger, one of the assistant directors on The Hunger Games - issued a statement saying his client believed his son, Elliot Rodger, was the shooter. It was unclear how the son would have obtained a gun. The family is "staunchly against guns" and supports gun-control laws, Shifman said....


The Hunger Games was the first of it's kind in showing young people mitigating the near annihilation by nuclear holocaust for their society. The triology has a following. This affiliation of the movies with actual violence will probably increase that following. The problem I have with this is the increase in 'these type of films.' 

Recently, "Divergent" was released. It is another group of young people against the system. And it is also a trilogy.

While rebels play well for story lines in movies, the films making their way into mainstream appreciation is more than worrisome. These young people are the generation exposed to September 11th. The idea their lives were a fight for survival everyday is obvious in these films. After all they were taught terrorists exist everywhere including in the air you breath with WMD.

In the Hunger Games there is no way out. Those pitted against each other are on display to the bitter end in a theater like setting.

I remember a critic stating "It is a picture where young people viciously kill each other. There is something wrong about that." I agree.

These movie trilogies are a complete departure from the fantasy and fun of Harry Potter. He was a hero, too. He was up against a mad man and not his peers or a society gone wrong. But, Harry shunned violence and sought only to live in a world of peace and sanity.

I am confident Mr. Rodgers is completely devastated by the actions and death of his son. He and his family have my complete sympathies, this can't easy. 

"Good Night, Moon"

Waning Crescent 

8 % Full

26.9 days old

Meteor expert Bill Cooke, (click here) head of Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Interesting the e-cigarette is occurring where the original cancer sticks were king.

Why is it Wall Street has no more of a conscience today than then?

May 23, 2014, 11:15am EDT 
Updated: May 23, 2014, 1:43pm EDT

Amy Dominello Braun and Katie Arcieri 

Triad Business Journal

Winston-Salem-based (click here) Reynolds American Inc. will add more than 200 jobs at its Tobaccoville Manufacturing Center in Forsyth County to expand production of its VUSE e-cigarette.

Reynolds American Inc. President and CEO Susan Cameron and Gov. Pat McCrory made the announcement Friday morning in Tobaccoville.

Winston-Salem-based Reynolds said it would be making a "multi-million dollar investment" in advanced manufacturing equipment at the 2 million square- foot Tobaccoville manufacturing complex situated on a 614-acre site. About 70,000 square feet within the 2 million-square-foot facility will be dedicated to VUSE production....

You would think the candy manufacturers would take some pride in their names and how it is used to market the Pre-K e-cigarette market.

Children's Brands In Fight To Keep Names Off E-Cigarettes (click here)

by  MICHAEL FELBERBAUM

Posted: 05/25/2014 6:14 pm EDT  

Updated: 3 hours ago

 

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Owners of brands geared toward children of all ages are battling to keep notable names like Thin Mint, Tootsie Roll and Cinnamon Toast Crunch off the flavored nicotine used in electronic cigarettes.
Now the owners of those trademarks are fighting back to make sure their brands aren't being used to sell an addictive drug or make it appealing to to children.
General Mills Inc., the Girl Scouts of the USA and Tootsie Roll Industries Inc. are among several companies that have sent cease-and-desist letters to makers of the liquid nicotine demanding they stop using the brands and may take further legal action if necessary.
The actions highlight the debate about the array of flavors available for the battery-powered devices that heat a liquid nicotine solution, creating vapor that users inhale. The Food and Drug Administration last month proposed regulating electronic cigarettes but didn't immediately ban on fruit or candy flavors, which are barred for use in regular cigarettes because of the worry that the flavors are used to appeal to children....
 

E-Cigarettes: A $1.5 Billion Industry Braces for FDA Regulation (click here)

By Megan McArdle  

February 06, 2014 

 

...The effects of inhaling nicotine vapor are not totally understood, but there is no evidence to date that it causes cancer. Experts and logic seem to agree that it’s a lot better than setting chopped-up tobacco leaves on fire and inhaling the nicotine along with thousands of combustion byproducts, some of which are definitely carcinogenic. Because cancer is the main drawback of smoking for a lot of people, the delivery of nicotine without lighting a cigarette is very attractive. And because it produces a wispy vapor instead of acrid smoke, an e-cigarette lets you bring your smoking back indoors, where lighting up in an enclosed space is no longer socially, or legally, acceptable....

"War is over if you want it."

The United States and it's allies are always longing for peace. That is not new. The USA and it's allies never stop seeking to protect precious freedom.

Will there ever be complete peace?

Yes, I believe there will be. It is important the USA engage in a conversation and social enthusiasm for peace and neutrality. There is nothing wrong with that. The world is far smaller than it was in 1935 or 1941.

Did we ever believe we would be seeing the positive investigation of the Higgs Boson? The beginnings of the universe is closer and closer to being understood.

The internet has closed misunderstandings between nations unlike my father or mother would ever believe possible. 

We are closer than we have ever been to actual peace, but, there are still speed bumps that can derail the entire hope for our children. I sincerely believe the world has the capacity to stop hostile ambitions and realize without a planet their ambitions are completely meaningless.

The preparedness for the USA and it's allies is important, but, it should never put peace aside as the most important reason for freedom. 

The USA and our allies have to realize the deep abiding respect needed for citizens that defend our country, however, to continue to treat our military as disposable toys whenever a President wants to run convenient wars for profit is extremely expensive to our soldiers, their families and ultimately our children who will be paying their disability insurances for generations to come.

War is expensive. Loss of life is only part of it. Halliburton and all the profiteers within the Bush Administration have long since past and gone on to greener pastures, but, the people of this country are still paying the war debt and the debt to the soldiers that fought in the war of profit. 

It is time to take neutrality seriously and reach for the golden ring no matter how much Putin hangs his hat on nationalism and China can't seem to get their border surveys correct.

We can actually do this.