...colored dots on this map depict streamflow conditions...

February 26, 2018
10:30 ET

...30 years of record are used....(click here)

How is Congress going to fund this recovery? This is real time data.

February 26, 2018
By John Bacon, Thomas Novelty and Susan Miller

A new storm system (click here) forecast to form in the central U.S. threatened to bring additional weather misery to areas struggling to recover from a relentless series of weekend thunderstorms and tornadoes.

The new weather system will begin a three-day romp through the lower Mississippi and Tennessee Valleys sometime Tuesday, weather.com meteorologist Chris Dolce said.

The map to the lower left are the major rivers of the USA. This does not show all the tributaries leading into the rivers. The real concern beyond the flooding is; if there is this much saturated land low long will it take for the rivers to recede?

"After a few dry days, rain will return to some of the waterlogged cities in those regions, exacerbating the flooding situation," Dolce said.

More than 250 river gauges reported levels above flood stage from the Great Lakes to Texas, Dolce said. The greatest issues in coming days will be in Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia on Wednesday into early Thursday....

There are no inappropriate questions for an Assistant to the USA President.

Ivanka Trump-Kushner is a government employee; there are no inappropriate questions if the material is not classified. The accusation by other women about her father is a legitimate question. What does she know and when did she know it?

I would like to know if any of the women involved in the accusations and quite possibly non-disclosure agreements, went to Ivanka with their complaints and/or evidence?

28 February 2018
By Ashley Coleman

Ivanka Trump (click here) was questioned about the sexual misconduct allegations against her father while in PyeongChang, South Korea for the Olympics

The first daughter said she thought it was 'a pretty inappropriate question' 

'I believe my father, I know my father. So I think I have that right as a daughter to believe my father,' she said

More than a dozen women have spoken out to accuse the president of inappropriate touching and kissing 

More recently, reports have suggested that the president had at least two affairs during his marriage to first lady Melania

Trump has denied all of the allegations against him ...

As a government employee, Ivanka is held to the same standard as everyone else. The sexual assaults that Donald Trump already bragged about could be viewed as legitimate acts against women and illegal. 

Trump’s accusers, (click here) clockwise from top left: Summer Zervos, Kristin Anderson, Jessica Leeds, Rachel Crooks, Mindy McGillivray, Karena Virginia, Jessica Drake, Cathy Heller, Jill Harth, Temple Taggart McDowell, Cassandra Searles, Natasha Stoynoff

Ivanka needs to consult with her attorney and then come forward with any information.

This is the same priviledge Trump believes he has because of his positions within power and his ill gotten wealth. Trump is not supposed to be above the law.

"Dreamers" were given a promise by the USA government at it's highest levels.

February 26. 2018
By David G. Savage

The Supreme Court (click here) handed President Trump a significant defeat Monday, turning down the administration's plea for a quick ruling on the president's power to end special protections for so-called Dreamers.

The court's decision not to immediately hear the administration's appeal could keep in place a legal shield for nearly 700,000 young immigrants for the rest of this year, and perhaps longer....

The USA is still organized under the same US Constitution as when the Dreamers were provided immunity from prosecution due to issues with immigration. It was the duty of the Trump's Executive Branch to further the well being of these important Americans. The Executive Branch is responsible for the people of this country and that is all the people, including children that grew up in the USA and educated here.

For the promise we keep with the Dreamers, the USA is receiving back well educated people capable of work and expanding the stability of the country. If the Supreme Court believed it could settle the pleading once and for all; it would have without delay.

I don't believe I have stated this yet, but, my sincerest sympathies to all the family and friends of those lost or recovering from injuries.

This type of death of young people is unnecessary in the USA. I have tried for over a decade to wake up the legislatures to act to protect people, unfortunately, the NRA is not as worried as I have been and legislators at all levels pander to the NRA and it's ready cash.

Police are allowed to call for backup while they hold their positions if they are out gunned.

Any police officer does not have to enter a situation where they will be killed.
They are nearly required to call for back-up if the situation demands it. The Resource Officer is not guilty of a crime; he did the only thing he could do and took up position near the gunman and waited for back-up. Everyone is allowed to live to see another day.

The problem here is the same as it was in Columbine, the ready availability of assault weapons by average citizens.

February 22, 2018
By Chuck Johnston, Jamiel Lynch and Dakin Andone

Officials (click here) also reported Thursday that surveillance footage from the school shooting was not shown live, as responding officers initially thought.

According to Coral Springs Police Chief Tony Pustizzi, the footage had been rewound, and police were watching it on a 20-minute delay, leading them to believe the gunman, Nikolas Cruz, was still in the building when he was long gone.

"The delay never put us in a situation where any kids' lives were in danger, any teachers lives were in danger," Pustizzi said at a news conference Thursday afternoon.

When officers arrived on the scene of the shooting, he said, they wanted to gain access to the security footage to learn what happened and where the perpetrator could be.

But last Wednesday the footage was rewound, Pustizzi told reporters. At some point, there was a miscommunication and officers believed they were watching real-time footage.

"The issue was more of a communications failure on who was reviewing the tape, letting our guys know that it was a 20-minute delay in what they were reviewing," Pustizzi said....

The delayed recording was a problem, in that misinformation was relayed, but, the students would have been on lock down by then and none in the hallways to be mistaken for the gunman.

...At 3:02 p.m., when the Broward County timeline says Cruz briefly stopped at a nearby McDonald's, an officer says the suspect dropped a bag near a stairwell. Another officer asks if the footage is a recording.

"Yes, sir. It's about a 20-minute delay," the first officer says. "They're following him on video on the camera. They had him exiting the building, running south."

At 3:41 p.m., Cruz was identified and taken into custody.

That was 39 long minutes where Cruz was among the public after his killing rampage. There was at least one mimic that manifested. That is one of the dangers affiliated with mass killings like this. The attack spawns others to act. And the mimic is not necessarily identical to the mass murder, it could simply be a trigger to carry out killing attacks.

 Every law enforcement in the country should move to heightened alert status due to the mimic potential after such a mass murder. The public, as well, should be aware of the phenomena that can occur when these mass murders occur. "See something, say something." The police have stated, any suspicious behavior reported is the right thing to do.

February 22, 2018
By Alex Horton

An alert security officer (click here) at a Southern California high school helped thwart a potential attack Friday, two days after the deadly Valentine’s Day shooting in Florida that left 17 people dead, authorities said.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said they raced to prevent a copycat attack last Friday,...

"Good Night, Moon"

The waxing gibbous

10.2 days old

78.5%

"Widespread Distribution (click here) of OH/H2O the lunar surface inferred from spectral data"

Hydrogen is deposited everywhere, not just the moon, by solar winds. Sol burns hydrogen. Does that mean Mars has H2O, too? If that is the case, then every sun burning hydrogen has a solar system with similar characteristics as Sol.

Mining the moon is not realistic. Just because a few hundred pounds of moon rocks came back with astronauts, doesn't mean a few million pounds is a good idea. The moon is a satellite in balance with Earth's gravity. Go mine somewhere in another solar system.

Occupying and mining Earth's moon is similar to the climate crisis; it involves more than the USA's Wall Street interests.

...“We find that it doesn’t matter (click here) what time of day or which latitude we look at, the signal indicating water always seems to be present,” said Joshua Bandfield, a senior research scientist with the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and lead author of the new study published in Nature Geoscience. “The presence of water doesn’t appear to depend on the composition of the surface, and the water sticks around.”...

This is the year 2018. Small countries like Bulgaria and Croatia are still suffering from a poor reputation. The longer they lack luster, the longer the economies will suffer a real move into growth and economic viability.

The international community needs to take a sincere look at the reasons these countries are still struggling when they are doing everything possible to move into modern relationships. There needs to be real change and growth and a promise of the future.

Russia and China cannot continue to flex their muscles and expect other countries much smaller to recover from eras of conflict. There needs to be global peace and non-proliferation. When these benchmarks are realized the movement for these smaller countries can be realized and any sins of the past gone forever.

International relations in the year 2018 has to include lifting up countries full of desire and economic opportunity. The countries that have committed to climate reform need to be among the first to receive recognition as countries seeking peace and better lives for their people. Climate reform has to take on a meaning that equates to economic growth.

Moody's is right. If a city hasn't prepared for the climate crisis and isn't very green; they don't deserve a good credit rating.

February 25, 2018
By Adam Wernick

The Trump administration (click here) may believe that climate change is a hoax invented by the Chinese, but Moody’s Investor Services is taking it quite seriously.

Moody’s, one of the main agencies that rate the ability of states and communities to pay back money borrowed in the form of bonds, is beginning to consider how well those jurisdictions are prepared for climate extremes and instability. It recently unveiled standards they plan to use to integrate climate risks into their ratings for bond issues.

Fixed-income expert Andrew Teras of Breckenridge Capital Advisors in Boston says this is just the beginning of a movement within credit rating agencies and financial advisors. “In many places across the country, a credit rating is an important thing,” Teras explains. "It allows cities to access the capital markets or borrow for infrastructure projects at a reasonable interest rate. The rating agencies are telling us that we are starting to move to a point where they may take action — that is, lower your credit rating — if you are not attuned to these risks. So, this could be pretty significant going forward.”...

If a trusted judge's book is about the country's policies, plagiarism can be a big deal.

February 22, 2018
By Mico Tatilovic

One of Croatia’s top judges (click here) is hitting back at the country’s national research ethics panel after having been found guilty of plagiarism. Miroslav Šeparović, president of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia, announced last week that he has filed criminal complaints against all five members of the Committee on Ethics in Science and Higher Education (CESHE), after it concluded that Šeparović’s 2013 doctoral thesis about children’s rights in EU and Croatian law contained repeated instances of “incomplete and opaque citations” of other people’s work.

Šeparović confirmed to Science that he is suing the CESHE members—as a private citizen, not in his capacity of a judge—for misusing their positions and overstepping their jurisdiction, which his own court limited last year. “I am not happy for having to sue, but I have had no alternative,” says Šeparović, who says he seeks to “protect my right to honor and reputation.” Šeparović says he filed the charges on 28 November 2017, days after CESHE ruled against him, and decided to make them public last week after the committee’s unpublished report leaked to the press. Šeparović’s legal team has also called on the CESHE members to resign immediately....

Some travel locations are being viewed as "the last chance to experience due to the climate crisis."

25 February 2018
By Helen Zhao

Some bucket-list trips (click here) may be more about anticipating the destination's demise than yours.

Certain countries susceptible to climate change have seen a spike in travel interest over the past year, according to a new report from travel insurance comparison web site Squaremouth. People may be advancing their plans to see these places in all their current glory, they note.

The report is based on data Squaremouth collects when people input their destination and trip costs into the site to compare policies.

For example, interest in the Maldives — an island chain southwest of India that is fighting rising sea levels — jumped 68 percent from 2016 to 2017. In comparison, Squaremouth's 20 most-traveled destinations saw an average increase of 15 percent in the same time period.

Unfortunately, travel insurance doesn't cover climate change, said Carolyn Leckie, director of marketing for Squaremouth.

But other factors, such as the cost of the trip or the remoteness of the destination, could make it worth assessing travel insurance needs for these possible "last chance" trips.

September 9, 2018

Will the last person to leave Croatia (click here) please turn the lights out! Croatia is getting smaller, and no I don’t mean physically, it population is shrinking faster than a man’s private regions in a cold Adriatic Sea.

The exodus that was forecast when Croatia became a full member of the European Union in July 2013 seems to be coming true. Droves and droves of people are leaving in search of a brighter future in richer EU members. Germany, Ireland and Sweden are the leading destinations for Croatian ex-pats. The devastating statistics show that since the last census in 2011, more than 200,000 people emigrated from Croatia, out of which 30 percent from Slavonia, or 70,000 people.

And to make matters worse, as if the figures weren’t bad enough already, the majority of people that are leaving are young, well-educated professionals, exactly the kind of people that Croatia needs to help build a stronger and healthier future. Young doctors, young businesspeople, entrepreneurs, scientists, dentists, teachers, lawyers have all been attracted to the brighter lights of Berlin and Dublin.

This exodus of the talented youth, tomorrow’s backbone, is a clear picture that that something has to be done, as opposed to the current strategy of burying our heads in the sand collectively and hoping for the best. Even the Croatian President came out this week to criticize the government for not doing enough to protect our tomorrow and to create employment opportunities....

Croatia's Pearl of the Adriatic has promise (click here)

This is real. There is a perfume named for a Croatian Park.

Those who fall in love (click here) with one of Croatia’s most visited national parks can now take away a lasting reminder – Plitvice perfume.

“DId you know that there are over 50 types of orchids in the Plitvice Lakes area, so many of which are in the beautiful jungle where people do not go? Did you know that there are over 1400 plant species and subspecies here? In addition to the eternal beauty of the lakes and waterfalls this was the inspiration to create a unique souvenir dedicated to the splendour of one of the most beautiful parks in the world – the Plitvice Lakes Perfume,” the creators said. 

Plitvice National Park (click here)

With the new focus of the USA Interior Department, the perfume for sale would be "Eau de Petroleum."

Why isn't there a Croatia riviera?

Trade (click here) is significant for Croatia’s economy; the combined value of exports and imports equals 100 percent of GDP. The average applied tariff rate is 1.3 percent. In general, government policies do not significantly interfere with foreign investment. The banking sector is relatively well developed and open to competition, but the number of nonperforming loans has increased in recent years. Financial-sector privatization has progressed well.

It would seem as though Croatia has the greatest asset in their coastline. Why isn't tourism including the luxury of a beach retreat.

 Croatia tourism. (click here)             

Grid parity is a new way of measuring progress.

February 14, 2018

By Mike Scott

As the amount of renewable energy (click here) in global electricity networks continues to surge, a new question arises – when will renewables become the dominant source of energy?

A new report, the Lloyd’s Register 2018 Technology Radar, examines this issue and also looks at which technologies are likely to have the biggest impact in different countries and what are the key drivers and barriers to success.

A survey of 800 key industry figures found that China would be the first country to achieve grid parity, in 2022, followed by Spain and the United Arab Emirates two years later in 2024. This is the same year that Germany and the UK are expected to see grid parity for wind power, followed a year later by Denmark and the USA. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) said recently that clean energy sources will be cheaper than fossil fuels by 2020....

February 22, 2018
By Hina

Zagreb - The Croatian government (click here) on Thursday has adopted a plan for the use of funds from the sale of greenhouse gas emission allowances at auction in Croatia in 2020, projecting total revenue from trading in greenhouse gas emissions at 867.5 million Knua.

The plan was adopted to ensure proper and effective use of funding for the implementation of measures to alleviate climate change and adjust to it in accordance with the Air Protection Act.

Just to reflect on what our reality would be like with hydroelectric power dominating the world;

- if the USA had eliminated coal and replaced it with hydroelectric power, how much of the world would be facing drought now?

- would the focus on water have taken shape sooner?

- would the impetus to the Syrian war have occurred?

- would California be facing the fires it is today?

One has to realize the greed that occurred in the USA when greenhouse gases came into focus as a concern for Earth's viability.

If the USA sincerely lead on climate, would the plutocrats be undermining the morality of the USA today? Would 2007-8 have happened? What was the reaction of Wall Street since 1960 due to the rising concern of climate? What does that say about the USA?

It is time the USA return to morality as a focus to it's politics, not greed. It is long overdue.

When greenhouse gases first became a concern, I fully expected hydroelectric power to replace coal almost immediately.

Greenhouse Gas Trends and Projections for Croatia (click here)

Croatia was among the countries with decreasing emissons between 2009 and 2010 (-1.6%). The total energy consumption in 2010 was 2.6 percent lower than in the previous year. This reduction is the results of decreased consumption of liquid fuels (14.9 percent) and imported electricity (11.8 percent). It is also due to increase in hydro power utilization (by 17.5 percent from the previous year) and larger consumption of fuel wood and other renewables. Due to decreasing of economic activity within 2009 and 2010, cement production was decreased by 23 and 26 percent, respectively. Whereas the ammonia production in 2010 was 17 percent higher in comparison to 2009 and nitric acid production was 29 percent higher as well in 2010 in comparison to 2009. The level of emissions from the latter sub‐sectors strongly depend on consumer’s demand for particular type of mineral fertilizer at the market.

Croatia has a very long coast.

If Croatia were 100 people

90 would be Croat

 4 would be Serb

 1 would be Bosniak

 5 would be other

Of that 100 the religious demographics are:

86 Catholic
  4 Orthodox
  2 Muslim
  4 Atheist
  4 Other

Croatia has 4.17 million people, with a per square kilometer density of 77 citizens.

Croatia is 56,594 square kilometers (21,851 square miles, slightly smaller than West Virginia) 

Given the size of Croatia, the landscape is considerably diverse and made up of fertile and mostly flat plains in the north, and low mountains and highlands along the coast. 

The Dinaric Alps and a few smaller mountain ranges (Velebit and Velika Kapela) slice through the country, with the highest point rising to 6,005 ft. (1,831m). 

Along the Dalmatian coast, as well as on most of Croatia's offshore islands, the land is hilly, rocky and steep. 

Natural water sources are numerous, and the country's biggest lake, Lake Vrana, extends over 12 sq. miles (30 sq. km). 

However, the Plitvice lakes are the most famous, and are composed of a group of 16 different small lakes connected by waterfalls. 

Europe's second largest river, the Danube, forms the far northeastern border with Serbia. Other major rivers include the Drava, Krka and Save.

Spoken language: Croatia

Currency: Kuna

It is Sunday Night

Zlata Stefanova, (click here for Facebook) from Rijeka, has been voted as the 2013 Most Sexiest Croatian, by portal Kult in their traditional annual awards.