If anything, Governor Rick Snyder inhibited any and all responses to Flint, Michigan's health emergency.

Governor Snyder demanded the Emergency Managers to move against any spending that Flint, Michigan could not afford. The idea raw river water would be introduced to the people of Flint is unconscionable. The river has a very long history of pollution, toxic pollution (click here).

Snyder never spoke with the people of Flint or even went to view the river before pushing the Emergency Managers to move against the best interests of the Flint residents. Where Rich Snyder really loses his credibility is to realize the gross neglect of the simplest of details. There were no major effort that needed to take place to realize the Flint River was not an option for drinking water to anything living.

February 15, 2018
By Leonard N. Fleming and Karen Bouffard

The picture to the left is actually of the surface waters of Flint River.

Gov. Rick Snyder (click here) is partly to blame for the Flint water crisis for failing to ensure a rigorous investigation by state agencies and for not declaring an emergency sooner, according to a new report from the University of Michigan.

The declaration from UM’s School of Public Health also casts criticism on the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality for failing to “notify the public of Legionnaires’ disease outbreak and refusing to cooperate with (the Genesee County Health Department)’s investigation.”

The report — funded by the Bethesda, Maryland-based de Beaumont Foundation, five UM public health lawyers and the Network for Public Health Law — said the governor “bears significant legal responsibility” for his role over the state agencies in charge of protecting public health.

“The governor had adequate legal authority to intervene by demanding more information from agency directors, reorganizing agencies to assure availability of appropriate expertise where needed, ordering state agencies to respond, or ultimately firing ineffective agency heads,” the report stated. “But he abjured, either due to ignorance or willful neglect of duty.”...

To the right is the location of the Mott Dam. It is the purple symbol. 

The C.S. Mott Dam just 5 miles (8 km) downstream and west of Genesee forms C S Mott Lake and was completed in 1972 for recreational use. Local attractions along the lake include Crossroads Village, Stepping Stone Falls, and the riverboat Genesee Belle.




Flint is a city in Genesee County, Michigan.

"Eat Safe Fish Guide" (click here) 

The pages to the left and below are from the "Eat Safe Fish Guide." The guide tells consumers how much fish is safe to eat from the Flint River in a single month.

Carp and Walleye upstream of the Mott Dam (on the Flint River) can be eaten four times a month. But, the fish downstream of the Mott Dam, namely Carp, Large Mouth Bass and Small Mouth Bass,  can be eaten very carefully, like, really limited or only six times a year.

The fish in most of the Michigan rivers have limits on how often they can be consumed and how much. 

One might ask, "What's the deal with this rationing of fish caught in the Flint River?" 

Well. 

There are toxins in the river such as PCBs, PFOS (“perfluorooctanesulfonic acid”), and Mercury; or; Mercury in combination with PCBs.

The State of Michigan's Department of Health and Human Services publishes this document. 

The point is the Flint River has been and is still polluted. There has been no real remediation for the pollution. The reason the fish are edible by humans at all is because the DOSES of fish is limited to reduce the danger to those that fish the Flint River.

Now, don't get me wrong there is a big difference between fishing the Flint River with the idea of "catch and release" and eating the fish from the Flint River. Heck, "catch and release" can happen all the time so long as a person wears gloves and washes their hands regularly. Just regular soap, anti-bacterial isn't necessary to avoid the toxins. 

Rich Snyder had and has volumes of information within the very State of Michigan libraries and departments to detail the dangers of drinking Flint River water. There is no excuse. He is guilty of every aspect of crime regarding the Flint River. 

Another number of high school students in the USA dead, huh?

February 14, 2018
By Connie Ogle, Nicholas Nehamas and David Ovalle

He preened with guns and knives on social media, (click here) bragged about shooting rats with his BB gun and got kicked out of school — in part because he had brought bullets in his backpack, according to one classmate. He was later expelled for still-undisclosed disciplinary reasons.

The portrait of Nikolas Cruz, suspected of fatally shooting 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland and wounding 15 others at his former school, is a troubled teen with few friends and an obsessive interest in weapons. Administrators considered him enough of a potential threat that one teacher said a warning was emailed last year against allowing him on the campus with a backpack...

There seems to be an identity issue among these high school killers. The Columbine murderers were member of "The Black Trenchcoat Mafia." Dylan Roof was an avowed White Supremacist and evidently so is Nicholas Cruz. I suppose the young men need to find their masculinity and motivation somewhere, they are unable to justify it themselves.

That seems to be the difference between mass murderers that hunt down innocent people to maim and kill and these murdering idiots.

In realizing that there is a very strong case to remove symbols of hate and antisemitism from the American landscape.

To critic the media at this time is to remind the country that this is the 18th school shooting in the USA according to Bloomberg's political group that reports this mess on a regular basis. I think it was the Washington Post that criticized the Bloomberg Group that three of their accountings occurred either by a single suicide whereby the man was on an abandoned school property and/or other parameters that made the entries more truthiness and not fact. The Washington Post is very set on revealing the truth of any media reporting and that is very important, however, do a few listings mean the accounting in total should be considered in error? I don't think so.

I don't consider any of the reporting, extraneous or not, within the Bloomberg group unimportant. There are dead people, primarily Americans, they occurred in affiliation with an education property and it should be scrutinized. Absolutely. Child murderers could be rehearsing for an actual attack.

The Huffington Post is stating Cruz ties to White Supremacist was loose and nearly unimportant. Really? I don't think so.

White Supremacists are self-avowed and with that comes the understanding if they say they then they are.

I might point to an interest paradigm related to the Roof murders and those in Florida. Both young men were very casual about their plans. Roof was so cold blooded he sat among his victims inside a church for bible study. After he killed nine people, he simply went about his business and was only apprehended when a woman saw him walking down her street.

The very same cold-blooded paradigm occurred in Florida, only this time it was the murderer of children called the police to brag about it and left the scene without a scratch.

It is my opinion, Roof and Cruz were coached. I don't care if they ever attended a Clan meeting, they were coached. They were brought along, even if just the internet, and then turned loose when the time was right for them. I strongly believe Cruz is a mimic of Roof. I also believe men that align any aspect of their identity to White Supremacy are a danger within this country and this goes back decades, SO WHAT IS THE PROBLEM already. If a person is affiliated with an extremist group that is known to be dangerous, receives coaching to murder in any way possible then the White Supremacists are a definite danger to the people of the USA and need to be handled to remove any potential to weapons. The Second Amendment of the USA Constitution does not allow for mass murderers, especially of children, to roam free in the name of the First Amendment.

I disagree strongly that Cruz was mentally ill. If Donald Trump wants to say White Supremacists in general are mentally ill, then keep the guns out of their hands.

I might add, it was the Russians that were the first to arm their soldiers with automatic weapons. The Kalashnikov rifle. That rifle is now a menace to the entire world in the many versions that exist today. It is time the Small Arms Treaty mean something.

Now as to the Russians in Syria. It is related to the Mueller Investigation in a very interesting way.

February 15, 2018
By Maria Tsvetkova

Moscow (Reuters) - About 300 men working (click here) for a Kremlin-linked Russian private military firm were either killed or injured in Syria last week, according to three sources familiar with the matter....

The reporting ranges from 80 dead men to this report of 300 dead Russians. Evidently, Putin has engaged in growing his own Russian Blackwater or whatever Eric Prince is calling his Goons these days.

I have yet to read an accounting of any USA soldiers dead in this confrontation between REGULAR American troops and this private force of Russians. I will assume the Americans walked away unscathed at the moment. 

If one recalls, one of the ambitions of Eric Prince in donating enormous amounts of money to Trump's campaign is to be able to have access to Russia and other countries to train more Good Squads. Prince is the brother of the Education Secretary, what's her name. Let's just imagine for a moment that happened under Trump and this confrontation occurred. What does anyone think would have happened?

Eric Prince is former USA military and has his own "al Qaeda like" training facility.

...Trump transition (click here) told The Intercept that Prince has been advising the team on matters related to intelligence and defense, including weighing in on candidates for the Defense and State departments. The official asked not to be identified because of a transition policy prohibiting discussion of confidential deliberations....

...“Waiting for the numbers to come in last night. It was well worth the wait!!!! #PresidentTrump2016.” Prince’s sister, billionaire Betsy DeVos, is Trump’s nominee for education secretary and Prince (and his mother) gave large sums of money to a Trump Super PAC.

In July, Prince told Trump’s senior adviser and white supremacist Steve Bannon, at the time head of Breitbart News, that the Trump administration should recreate a version of the Phoenix Program, the CIA assassination ring that operated during the Vietnam War, to fight ISIS. ....

My mistake, I gave Betsy too much credit for her age, she is Prince's mother, evidently.

But, at any rate, Eric Prince liked money so much he  was willing to speak to a known White Supremacist Steve Bannon. So, we have to assume the White Supremacists in the USA are advised on military tactics by the likes of Eric Prince. I think that is called treason.

But, to underscore the Russian deaths, if they had received training from Eric Prince how many would be dead if any and what would be the body count of American soldiers in this encounter. 

Putin pulled Russian fighting forces from Syria and gave these mercenaries a place under the guise of the Kremlin and turned them loose in Syria. It is easy for a Russian President to register mercenary deaths than Russian soldier deaths among the voting Russia public. Needless, to say, the Russian leadership outside the usual folks are not happy that any Russian is dead in Syria when they understood their troops were home.

Slightly changing direction, I want a full PUBLIC accounting of OCO Funds.

February 15, 2018
By Ben Brimelow

A simmering conflict (click here) between Israel and Iran in Syria could have erupted into another regional war were it not for the intervention of Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to an Israeli investigative journalist.

On Saturday, an Israeli air force helicopter shot down what Israel says was an Iranian dronelaunched from the Tiyas Military Airbase in central Syria by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The drone was shot down a minute and a half after entering Israeli airspace, the investigative journalist, Ronen Bergman, wrote in an op-ed article in The New York Times this week....

Given the extremism of leadership in Israel right now, and the fact Jarrod Kushner advocates those positions from the inner circle of the White House, I want to know where the OCO Funds are going.

If Putin didn't step in with Bibi Netanyahu the global community might be looking at a re-ignited Syria without a return of refugees. That said, the fact Putin is in the middle of this mess, only tells me Assad is reinforced in which ever manner necessary by Russia. Is there a concern for Israel, regardless? Maybe. Is Israel facing a confrontation with Iran? I would think that was minimized by Putin, but, there is no way to know for sure that the Ayatollah is obeying every Russia command.

The thing is this: The Shia Crescent extend throughout Syria. It is one of the reasons Syria obtained a destabilizing force after the initial drought drove farmers into the cities. It didn't take long or much force to push Syria into a civil war due to the high diversity of Shia and Sunni in the borders of Syria. There is still borders to Syria, right?

If Netanyahu decides that Russia and Iran are a threat, that won't stop him and if Trump is having a spending spree of OCO Funds to support Netanyahu then the USA and Russia are in a full scale SOMETHING. 

I strongly suggest before these issues get out of hand, President Putin begin a strong campaign for a peace initiative to return the refugees to their homeland and a UN resolution to establish borders that provide a space for everyone. I suggest the Shia Crescent be dissolved and land dedicated to the Shia be provided to prevent further violence. The land for the Shia is already eroded with drought and war, there is no good land in Syria. All the land will have to be rehabilitated and may very well require harnessing dams for flood control and at the same time providing a source of irrigation.

At any rate, if the USA soldiers are in Syria, I have to wonder why. See, Israel under extreme leadership is expansionists and it would be highly advisable for Trump to be moving borders when refugees have not been provided their homelands and way of a return to farming.

While on the topic of mental health...

...this is an unscientific observation, in that, among a small population of homeless people, men are acquiring a schizophrenia.

This population is well cared for by a Methodist ministry. There are no direct medical services available with this ministry. The schizophrenic appearance of the two men in particular occurred over the past year and the outbreak began about six months into the knowledge of their homelessness.

These two men are slight in build, not tiny, but, smaller in stature than other men in the group. There are women in the group and they have not manifested any schizophrenic behaviors.

Height and weight are important for any of these adults. But, in the wild where the homeless live, either the wilderness and/or city streets, men that are smaller than others have problems with assault. It is difficult to say whether these two men were assaulted without detailed conversations. Yes, they are still capable of rational conversations then confronted with same.

The ministry that protects these people will find men come into their open door kitchen for a meal that have been assaulted with bruises about their face, missing belongings and lost eyeglasses. These two men were never observed to have that occur, according to the minister and volunteers.

The behavior leading up to that intrusive schizophrenic behavior begins with isolation to protect from assault. These two men when spoken to are well spoken and able to construct an understanding of social issues when told. There is a television with a news channel playing on most days when there are meals available.

Both these men are somewhere between 35 and 45 and can take care of their personal needs. Even today with such behaviors manifesting they are able to find shelter and food. They do not have relationships and some of the larger men do.

After they isolate, they become silent and far less social and then the behaviors begin. The longer the behaviors are tolerated the quicker they return even after a very sane conversation. The behaviors are a retreat for safety. At least that is my belief.

There needs to be more extensive research conducted through ministries that care for the homeless to provide additional services such as support personal speaking to those with such ACQUIRED behaviors. My concern is that the survival of particular men without PTSD necessarily will become more and more difficult the longer they are homeless. The behaviors become a part of their personality without a challenge to them. When that occurs, my fear, is they will become unemployable and have far worse circumstances than being homeless. 

I think there MAY also be a fear of authority when homeless that will drive these behaviors.

These are acquired behaviors and pretend behaviors. This, so far is exclusive to these men and there is no such behaviors among the women who may or may not be attended to by a man/men.

Good news out of Russia, the people are concerned about the loss of Russian lives in Syria.

Russian leaders outside the usual folks are speaking up and want accountability. This is refreshing. One of the aspects of the OCO (Overseas Contingency Operations) funds that concerns Americans a great deal is the idea the president has a private military operation. That is not acceptable. It is why the US Congress is lawfully required to commit to any war after 90 days of any use of the US military. 

It would seem as though Russians are viewing the involvement in Syria the same way. I had thought there was an annoucement as well that Russia was leaving Syria (click here), with Turkey entering the fight. With this new confrontation between the USA and Russia forces all kinds of questions arise and it presents a much larger problem, in that, how far is a confrontation going to go with two major powers? 

February 13, 2018

By Ivan Nechepurenko

...And some individual Russians (click here) have begun speaking out. Aleksandr Ionov, a Russian businessman working in Syria offering security and other services, said he estimated after conversations with associates in several private military organizations that more than 200 Russians might have been killed.

Mr. Ionov said not all those killed were Russian: Some of the paid fighters came from other countries that were once part of the Soviet Union. “More than 200 is the current estimate, we cannot know the exact number yet, but most of them were Russian,” he said in a telephone interview.

Mr. Ionov said he was speaking out because he wanted any Russians who were killed to be officially recognized for their sacrifice.

“The truth has to be told,” he said. “If people died, then this should be recognized and respects should be paid to people who fought against terrorists.”

He called on the government to give a fuller version of events, adding, “People are outraged because they want to know the truth.”

Mr. Ionov was not the only one speaking out about Russian fatalities. Aleksandr Averin, a member of the Other Russia nationalist party, confirmed that Kirill Ananiev, a party member who left for Syria about a year ago, had been killed in the airstrike, noting that there were other “substantial losses....   

This isn't good. The White House is blatantly protecting itself with misinformation while there is testimony happening in Congress. That is more than an oops.

Sarah, get a clue. Trump is not a good boss if he is CYAing all the time, demands loyalty and allows professionals to be unprofessional with minimally ethics violations.

February 14, 2018
By Aaron Blake

The White House (click here) is flailing with the Rob Porter scandal right now. And Tuesday afternoon laid that bare.

Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was peppered with questions after FBI Director Christopher A. Wray earlier in the day seemed to contradict the White House’s timeline. But while her answers might have explained what Wray said, they conflict with what the White House said previously.

In Wray’s testimony in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee, he said the FBI had closed its handling of Porter’s background investigation for a security clearance in January. Wray said: “What I can tell you is that the FBI submitted a partial report on the investigation in question in March, and then a completed background investigation in late July; that, soon thereafter, we received request for follow-up inquiry, and we did the follow-up and provided that information in November; and that we administratively closed the file in January.”...

Intelligence agency offices need to assess any holes in security and close them. Get out the concrete barriers and don't think twice.

My first instinct is to worry about mimics. Other than that, this attack is among the most stupid attacks I've ever seen. You mean there is still something left of the vehicle? I think the NSA saw this coming and decided it would fail, so why turn out the big guns.

What did they think they were doing? The driver survived it, huh? That was compassionate. But, there is always intelligence to gather when attackers are taken alive.

What went on? The vehicle's frame appears bent. It was obviously rammed in the middle. So what was the chase like? Do tell.

February 14, 2018
By Doug Stanlin

Authorities are investigating (click here) a possible shooting Wednesday near the entrance to the super-secret National Security Agency in Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C., according to media reports. One suspect was reportedly in custody.

Video from the scene showed a black SUV with bullet holes in the windshield crashed into barriers near the NSA gate. 

WBAL reports that three people were wounded in the incident and a suspect was apparently in custody. WBAL also reports that none of the injuries appeared to be life-threatening....

This is the suspect? This is it? My, oh, my. What could have prompted such hatred? Well, the protections work. The security has been challenged and it can now be assessed. The attack is making the agencies better as I write this.

Computer balloting is not secure.

September 17, 2017
By Pam Fessler

One of the public's unanswered questions (click here) about Russia's attempts to break into election systems last year was which states were targeted. On Friday, states found out.

The Department of Homeland Security said earlier this year that it had evidence of Russian activity in 21 states, but it failed to inform individual states whether they were among those targeted. Instead, DHS authorities say they told those who had "ownership" of the systems — which in some cases were private vendors or local election offices....

Americans also know they can trust the FBI. I rather the mechanical voting machines. They were clean and accurate and easy to use. What could be better?

I think the 'fear factor' in American elections can be handled as well. The intelligence services spoke to the electorate before the 2016 elections about the issues concerning Russian involvement in the election, but, the underlying momentum overpowered those warnings. I think it prudent the intelligence agencies have a better relationship with the electorate, including, an announcement about their activities linked to the change in momentum of the Clinton campaign by James Comey.

There needs to be standards set and carried out at least weekly for national security issues during elections. These standards should result in minimally a weekly announcement. These announcements should come from a national security person and carried by all media networks. If there is weekly propaganda, it can be diffused and RETURNED to the facts stated by the agencies. It is important Americans have good information going into the voting booth, (as well as a voting booth that is secure and works) and not inflammatory information. I think most Americans would want that. 

September 19, 2017

...According to the FBI, as many as 39 states had their election systems scanned or targeted by Russia. There's no evidence of votes changed. But given the stakes, some state agencies that run elections are trying to curb any further interference prior to mid-term elections in November.

Their tool of choice: Ensuring systems can't be hacked, and if they are, making those breaches immediately obvious. To do this, some are taking the unusual move of rewinding the technological dial, debating measures that would add paper ballots — similar to how many Americans voted before electronic voting started to become widespread in the 1980s. 

A week ago Virginia announced it would no longer use touch-screen-only voting machines after a hack-a-thon in Las Vegas showed how easily they could be breached.

States with electronic-only voting machines want to add a paper back-up that would mandate, for every electronic ballot cast, creation of a paper version that could be counted, and presumably, not easily altered. ...

When it comes to temporary national security clearance, Donald Trump is not doing his job.

Mr Porter is proof that the Trump White House is out of control and keeps people within their inner circle they like regardless of the findings of intelligence agencies otherwise.

Trump is not doing his job.

Look, this is a president that invited Russians into the White House for a meet and greet the day after he fired the Director of the FBI. How is it the Russians pull up to the White House and are waved in by Trump without the Secret Service to stop them? 

Rob Porter? Even if he were Russian he would have been provided tempory clearance (which turns into permanent clearance) because he is was part of the Trump cabal. Trump's family is not supposed to be working with him. That is prohibited. If Trump can't function without his family because he doesn't trust anyone else, then he is incompetent. Trump is breaking the USA laws over and over and Congress sits on their hands or worse.

(2)“public official” (click here) means an officer (including the President and a Member of Congress), a member of the uniformed service, an employee and any other individual, in whom is vested the authority by law, rule, or regulation, or to whom the authority has been delegated, to appoint, employ, promote, or advance individuals, or to recommend individuals for appointment, employment, promotion, or advancement in connection with employment in an agency; and

(3)

“relative” means, with respect to a public official, an individual who is related to the public official as father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, first cousin, nephew, niece, husband, wife, father-in-law, mother-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, stepfather, stepmother, stepson, stepdaughter, stepbrother, stepsister, half brother, or half sister

(b) 

A public official may not appoint, employ, promote, advance, or advocate for appointment, employment, promotion, or advancement, in or to a civilian position in the agency in which he is serving or over which he exercises jurisdiction or control any individual who is a relative of the public official.... 

That is the law and Trump is completely disregarding law of the USA. Trump is breaking the law. That reality has nothing to do with the Russian probe, but, no one does a darn thing about it.

A year has gone by and the people that were with Trump from the beginning still don't have nationals security clearance. That is illegal. It's ridiculous.

Sanctions

Why not Russia?

Why Itan?

I would love to know what Russia has on Trump. He was in Moscow and was playing with prostitutes. We all heard about the golden showers. Are all the women from that day still alive? 

When it comes to Iran, at one point Chancellor Merkel was lobbying the members of the P5 + 1 to draw up new sanctions against Iran. Iran had done nothing wrong. Merkel was attempting to find sanctions that would be okay with Trump. Within a couple weeks she gave up and the original agreement still is honored by most of the participants to the agreement.

Now, why would Chancellor Merkel give up trying to find a second set of sanctions against Iran tha Trump would approve of?

Because Trump wants a war in the Middle East. It looks as though with American soldiers killing Russian, he just might get it. A war would settle land disputes, If there ever was a wide spread killing field, there would be genocide of smaller groups of people. No doubt in my mind.

We saw what Daesh did. How much of the killing Daesh carried out was genocide? I am quite sure there are some. We got lucky with the Yazidis (click here). 

But, as to the sanctions against Russia and Trump lack of enforcement of them; he isn't doing his job. He just isn't. I know most Americans see the presidency as a pinnacle of a career of some sort. But, the truth is while the presidency of the USA is interesting, it is the place where law passed by the legislation is carried out. In other words, the presidency has orders to follow. Trump is not doing his job. Just that simple. There is every indication he is sabotaging the laws passed by the legislature, when it comes to Russia.

Like I said, Greenland is melting and Antarctica is calving huge ice sheets into the windward drift.

August 30, 2017
By Rob Jordan

A new analysis of drought in Jordan (click here) – one of the world’s most water-poor countries – suggests that without alternate water sources, better land use and improved water-sharing agreements, the country could face a future of potentially disastrous droughts. The research, which was the first to analyze several types of drought and to take into account land use changes in upstream Syria, could inform water policies in other arid countries with shared rivers....

This is exactly what happened with Syria. There was extensive drought, the farmers could no longer supply food to the cities and went to the cities to live and find work. With the influx of people into the cities religious differences were exaggerated as competition for work and living space became more evident. 

We cannot afford to have this tragedy occur in Jordan. If there is little water to find, there should be a consideration for a desalination plant. No different than Saudi Arabia. But, foremost Jordan should expect a plan from the USA to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions. It is a moral issue.

There is also this:

13 February 2018
By NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Global sea level rise (click here) has been accelerating in recent decades, rather than increasing steadily, according to a new study based on 25 years of NASA and European satellite data.

This acceleration, driven mainly by increased melting in Greenland and Antarctica, has the potential to double the total sea level rise projected by 2100 when compared to projections that assume a constant rate of sea level rise, according to lead author Steve Nerem. Nerem is a professor of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, a fellow at Colorado's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), and a member of NASA's Sea Level Change team.

If the rate of ocean rise continues to change at this pace, sea level will rise 26 inches (65 centimeters) by 2100 -- enough to cause significant problems for coastal cities, according to the new assessment by Nerem and colleagues from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; CU Boulder; the University of South Florida in Tampa; and Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. The team, driven to understand and better predict Earth's response to a warming world, published their work Feb. 12 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences....

This is a wake up call to mayors of all coastal cities. Globally. The temperatures will increase as well without ice structures able to mitigate the heat caused by greenhouse gases.


That melting includes Sibera as well. All the ice structures are disappearing.

Dead Russians at the hand of USA troops. This is getting to be a huge mess with no resolve for the refugees.

There are increasing tensions in the Middle East between the USA, Israel, Syria and Russia. People need to pay attention, Prime Minister Netanyahu is being investigated for corruption. (What Israeli Prime Minister isn't investigated for corruption?} Perhaps, Arlal Sharon. I think he was at one time, too, but nothing came of it. I miss him. I miss the late Arial Sharon. I think he was a great man with good visions for Israel.

But, the point is if Netanyahu is being investigated for corruption, there is more incentive to war to prevent any prosecution going forward when a War Hawk is in control. Pure speculation. 

But, it is time to pay attention to the abandonment of any potential for peace in the Middle East. The abandonment is being replaced with salvoes of war. The King of Jordan should be an interesting person at this point. 

I think King Abdullah II has the greatest and most impartial view of the Middle East. He is important and can be a peacemaker. I think if he speaks out to end tensios it should be respected. Jordan is suffering under the weight of refugees already and a war would only add to that reality when Jordan was looking forward to people returning home with the destruction of Deash.

Tillerson is due in Jordan tomorrow. (click here) I think it is appropriate the King of Jordan express his disappointment in escalating tensions and be cautious about changes to any "Memorandum of Understanding" between Jordan and the USA. I don't see why anything has to change in any agreement between Jordan and the USA until the Middle East is enjoying peace and prosperity.

King Abdullah II has extensive knowledge of the Palestinian plight. He can be a great asset to peace.

Where is the proof by the White House of Sarah Huckabee's statements which implicate the FBI is an unreliable agency?

February 13, 2018
By Ellen Nakashima and Shane Harris

FBI Director Christopher A. Wray (click here) on Tuesday contradicted the White House’s account of when the bureau informed officials about the status of a senior aide’s security-clearance investigation.

White House officials said that they were first contacted in the summer by the FBI about senior aide Rob Porter’s clearance. They also said that the investigation was never completed and that they did not know the extent of the allegations against Porter. He stepped down last week after accusations of spousal abuse by his two ex-wives.

But Wray, testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the FBI submitted a partial report on his clearance in March (2017) and that the investigation was completed in July. Soon after, he said, the FBI received a request for a follow-up, which the bureau completed and provided in November. The FBI closed the file in January and then earlier this month, Wray said, the bureau received additional information and “we passed that on as well.”...

Everyone knows the recent information coming into the White House today is about the domestic abuse that was made aware to the public. There is no classified information coming into the White House. Sarah Sanders is propagandizing the idea there is new information coming into the White House. The FBI would not lie to the public, the congressional committees and while the FBI completed their investigation in July, obviously the Executive Branch does not believe the intelligence gathered. 

Only now when the truth is placed on Social Media is the Executive Branch receiving 'new information." I think this is a methodology of the current administration. They don't want to receive information from the FBI that is valuable. Trump didn't take intelligence information seriously when he was a candidate. I think the dismissive culture still exists and this is case in point. The Trump White House puts their own priorities first and if it means maligning the intelligence agencies, then so be it. Sanders statements today validates that point of view.

The rail infrastructure needs elevated high speed rail.

It is nice to say people will have a choice in self-driving cars. I am not stating it is right or wrong, but, such a national system a huge cyber network has to work all the time around the clock without errors. The security of these needed networks will be under attack all the time.

Advanced rail is a better investment until the self-driving cars are proven to be completely safe. That is not the case right now. The number of self-driving cars are few. The needs for an entire country of self-driving cars is a dreamscape that seems extremely unlikely to me. The rails are here, now and can be a real asset to regional and national transportation.

February 12, 2018
By Michael Friedberg

Several recent railway accidents (click here) may have struck fear into the hearts of passengers — but the next one could cripple our economy as well. And the deteriorating and outdated infrastructure along the Northeast Corridor rail system means that, sadly, that next disaster is just around the corner.

The Northeast Corridor’s 457 miles of railway — connecting major cities from Boston to Washington, D.C. — is the nation’s most economically critical stretch of infrastructure. These railways enable hundreds of thousands of workers to get to work each day, as one-third of all jobs in the region (that's 7 million jobs, all told) are located within five miles of a rail station. Those workers alone contribute over $50 billion annually to the American economy;altogether, the region would be the fifth-largest economyin the world....

The cabals I know exist are not organized in a White Supremacist meeting.

The cabals I know exist aren't necessarily friends, they don't get invited over each others homes for the holidays, although they might in a co-worker relationship, they are primarily at the county level of government and are held together by a common thread of religious persecution. 

I mean you know the law is imperfect and there are criminals living in society among us that should be in jail or worse. Right? I mean that is common knowledge, right?

These people believe they are plagued with others that are not Christian and evil. This is the real permanence of the Bush God Culture. It is real and it is carrying out their own idea of justice. Absolutely.

In the case of the Governor that was a political cabal that played the hand that was available to them in a game worse than poker. Poker has odds, this level of corruption is guaranteed.

Oh, minorities? "Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha goin' do when they come for you?" Sheriffs aren't any good unless they can solve the crime, ya know?

Are American sheriffs better than sheriffss any place else?

That is what Sessions is saying. He is saying Common Law (the Republicans' Common Sense) is better in the USA than any other country.

Sessions is trying to say the Anglo-American basis of law that sheriffs supposedly practice is better than any other law anywhere. This is all part of the dogma that comes along with Republicans. In other words, sheriffs are elected and they carry out common law practice in law enforcement. It is another way of saying anarchy is best unless there are some deplorables in the town; namely those with different skin color. You have to buy into this mess to understand it, okay?

Common law is ancient law and has been practiced globally since the beginning of time. So, are there sheriffs in other places? Sure. Part of what is wrong with the ISI in Pakistan is the influence the lcoals carry to law enforcement.

A sheriff by any other name is an elder in most cultures where law is disseminated among the people. So, in places like Afghanistan, one of the hurdles for the USA military was making friends with tribal elders. They were the law.

So, the idea there is a sheriff elected by the people to carry out the will of the people is not new, it is not exclusively Anglo anything and it is not at all Americans. Americans adopted such practices from England where the Sheriff of Nottingham was a living horror.

In the USA there are good sheriffs and there are bad ones. The bad ones are elected repeatedly, like Arpaio, because of "the badge" and the faith the people put into that badge. So, how can a bad sheriff be elected over and over again? They do basic law enforcement and the corruption is never detected.

The minorities in the USA know all to well how they become the subject of law enforcement and end up convicted of crimes they never committed. In a conversation with a southern lawyer, he told me the word misdemeanor is becoming meaningless. 

He was a county prosecutor for five years and he stated the cases he is now defending in his civilian defense practice would have never been brought to court in the first place when he was a prosecutor. He said innocent people are finding themselves facing a judge and don't know why. He also said there are many people convicted fo misdeameanors and it is becoming common place. Not that people aren't angry about it, but, it simply doesn't matter in society most of the time.

He blamed extremist politics on the victimization of basically innocent people. He also stated elected officials will abuse the rights of the public in order to be elected. He has more and more of it over the years. He has a vibrant practice and most of his clients are found innocent. He also said a citizen has to have patience with "the system" in order to be found innocent. That might mean jail until trial or high bail amounts, too.

My point is this: Jeff Sessions is not only stupidly talking to pander to extremist voters, but, he is enforcing corruption.  I know people who have faced these corrupt practices and their plight. I was happy to see addressed by Cenk Uygur. I believe Governor Siegelman.

See, the acceptance of corruption becomes a way of life, UNTIL, it suits the best interests of those that want power. I think Governor Siegelman addresses that clearly in that the governance he had was not necessarily of his making and he was caught up in a process that worked against him simply because he was Governor and made an appointment that was repeated many times before him.

This stuff is scary, but, I know it's real. I know cabals exist in this country and innocent people suffer because of it. This level of corruption cannot continue to exist because when good people are elected, they find themselves nothing more than pawns in a game of control by those with money.

So, Sessions? He is nothing more than a cog in the corrupt mechanism of the GOP. He was successfully kept at bay for a long time, until Trump decided Sessions was his minion.

This the USA. DO NOT LOOK THE OTHER WAY BECAUSE SOMEONE IS FLYING A FLAG AND STANDING DURING A NATIONAL ANTHEM. This is real.

Let me point to a few things about the White Supremacists in the USA.

To begin, Jeff Sessions is a known racist. He is a White Supremacist. That is a fact. He attends their meetings and makes speeches to them. The most recent that I am aware of was in California within the past year. Steve Scalise attends the meetings of White Supremacists in Europe.

Question: Realizing the US Republicans rely on White Supremacists to win their elections does anyone actually think they will impeach a White Supremacist president?

But, as to Jeff Sessions, I want to point to his stupidity in treating "The Sheriff" as a unique invention of Anglo-American law enforcement.

Question: What are the words for "Sheriff" around the world? Mostly, was the SS a Third Reich sheriff? 

The problem with having Republicans elected to office that are stupid is the problem. They don't know anything about leadership, compassion, their place in government or how to govern. But, the worst part is Sessions says stupid stuff like this and the entire world knows he is not only a racist, but, totally absorbed in his electorate base of people who vote with their skin color rather than their ability to address their own best interest. 

Got that? I am always interested when racism is overt as with Sessions, but, the most interesting part is what he or any White Supremacist says, because it is always stupid, ie: Trump, the bankruptcy president billionaire plutocrat. By the way, when looking at the electorate of the Republican Party there are a high percentage that have declared bankruptcy and renamed their businesses without blinking an eye. Bankruptcy to people like Trump is a tool, not a problem thrust upon them by irreverent Wall Street.

12 February 2018

By Alex Kaspark

...I want to close (click here) by reiterating my deep appreciation and profound thanks to the men and women of law enforcement […] and I want to thank every sheriff in America. Since our founding, the independently elected Sheriff has been the people’s protector, who keeps law enforcement close to and accountable to people through the elected process.

The office of Sheriff is a critical part of the Anglo-American heritage of law enforcement, we must never erode this historic office, I know this, you know this, we want to be partners, we don’t want to be bosses, we want to strengthen you and make you be more effective in your work....

I want the swastika banned from public view, including tattoo parlors. It is a symbol of hate without any sincere use otherwise. No different than the Confederate Flag off public lands and sequestered only to appropriate museums, the swastika needs to be eliminated. It is not an American symbol. The swastika is an expression of anti-semitism as well. That meaning is built into it.