It is all about money. Pro-Life has nothing to do with this.

BY MARY WISNIEWSKI

Mon Dec 2, 2013 4:05pm EST

(Reuters) - The Michigan legislature (click here) will consider a proposal this week that, if enacted, would make it the ninth state to prohibit insurance companies from offering abortion services unless women pay an extra fee in addition to the usual premium.

The proposal will go before the majority-Republican legislature as a petition organized by Right to Life of Michigan, an anti-abortion group, that was approved on Monday by the Michigan Board of Canvassers.

Under Michigan's constitution, the legislature could approve the proposed "Abortion Insurance Opt-Out Act" by a simple majority vote that does not require the signature of Republican Governor Rick Snyder....

The wealth merchants within the Michigan Legislature is finding yet another reason to cause an increase in the cost of living for women. This has nothing to do with a validating fact. The Michigan Republicans have no study by the insurance industry or otherwise that states the Opt-Out Rider for Abortions actually prevents abortions. This is just an excuse for the Wealth Merchants to increase their bank accounts.

This is a perfect example of Populism that deceives the public.

H.R. 6563 (112th): Veterans Jobs Corps Act of 2012

Rand Paul doesn't have to lecture the American people, he needs to do something other than make excuses.

The idea Detroit is suppose to give discounted taxes to businesses means prolonged fiscal problems. The only thing I agree with is the fact no one has come up with a plan. The Mayor and Council's hands are tied and have no real legislative initiative to recover the City of Detroit.

Free Trade/Enterprise Zones have been tried elsewhere and they don't encourage growth. North Carolina has two Free Trade/Enterprise Zones, one at each end of the state, near Raleigh and Fuqay and the other near Winston-Salem. There zones are primarily about foreign trade. They really aren't places where employment take place. When Senator Paul states Detroit needs Free Enterprise Zones, he is lending his support to wealth and not very much employment.

"...one on unemployment for 4 weeks or 99 weeks which one would you hire? The employer nearly 100% always says they will hire the one with 4 weeks unemployment..."

Senator Senator Rand Paul took office January 3, 2011. The bills that he wrote were all extremist bills. They seek to deconstruct the US Constitution.

1. S.15 : Regulations From the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2013

2. S.81 : Default Prevention Act

3. S.82 : Separation of Powers Restoration and Second Amendment Protection Act of 2013

And on and on and on and more of the same.

Congressman Ed Markey had been in the House for many, many years and a wonderful representative of his Massachusetts district. He was running for the Senate in 2012 and won his race. But, while he was running he didn't ignore his responsibilities in the House. So, in September of 2012 he submitted a bill he wrote:

H.R. 6563 (112th): Veterans Jobs Corps Act of 2012 (click here). It was referred back to committee after Representative Markey attempted to open it for a vote.

Now, one could say the current Senator Markey was grandstanding for the sake of his election, but, don't the Republicans grandstand all the time. So, the point is mute. But, let's see if jobs for veterans is really needed.

Posted by Brad Plumer on November 11, 2013 at 11:30 am

Veterans Day is, (click here) of course, a day to honor and remember those who have served in the military. But it's also worth noting some of the steep challenges that many American veterans have faced in recent years on returning home.

This chart from the Council of Economic Advisers shows that the unemployment rate for recent veterans remains incredibly high — around 10 percent — and remains noticeably higher than it is for non-veterans in the same demographic group:...

What the now Senator and Former Congressman Markey's bill, HR 6563 was vitally needed. We have veterans at their wits end without having employment and the bill was specifically to support them.

The difference between Senator Paul and Senator Markey is completely obvious and I should not have had to point to it. Senator Markey's bill had a purpose. I have yet to hear or read anything of Senator Paul's that does. Who do you want in office in the USA Senate. A Senator that plays politics endlessly without accomplish anything except inflammatory speech? Or do you want a Senator that actually writes bills about sincere problems that exist in the USA?

Do you know what these Senators make? Their pay rate. 

Now, who do you want in office in the USA Senate?

If Senator and then Representative Markey was able to pass his bill there is a very good chance the Congress would not need to extend unemployment yet again! 

If Senator Paul is sincere about limiting an arbitrary 26 weeks of unemployment, then he would have already solved the problem so any extension would be unnecessary and the US unemployment rate might be 1 or 2 percent lower. 

We can dream, can't we?

September 14, 2012
By Lawrence Downes

Congressional Republicans, (click here) resolute in their commitment to deny the Democrats anything that looks like an accomplishment in an election year, have spent the week obstructing passage of the Veterans Job Corps Act of 2012. It’s a perfectly inoffensive bill from Senator Patty Murray, the Washington Democrat, meant to increase hiring and job training for veterans, especially those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan....

...I’ll let the Republicans explain.

Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma says it is dishonorable and cowardly to help veterans find jobs when there are more important things (what?) to do. Perhaps forgetting where he worked, he denounced the legislation on Wednesday as a “political exercise” and a waste of time, since the House wasn’t going to pass it anyway. (If that’s going to be the standard, the Senate might as well shut off the utilities.)

“Where is our honor? Where is our valor? Where is our sacrifice?” thundered Mr. Coburn, immediately after suggesting that the bill cost too much.

Rand Paul of Kentucky went further, saying he would block the bill until Pakistan freed Shakil Afridi, the doctor who helped the United States find Osama bin Laden. He also wants to halt all American aid to Pakistan until Dr. Afridi is released. If that halts American aid to veterans, too bad.

“I care deeply about the veterans . I care deeply about housing and helping the veterans who have fought for their country. But this is about whether we as a country and the American taxpayers will be asked to send good money after bad to allies that are not acting like allies.”

It’s only “about” that because of Mr. Paul. This ought to be about jobs for veterans....

This bill devolved to be an obstruction issue. The Democrats weren't suppose to pass bills. And then Senator Paul turned the bill into a foreign diplomacy issue. ????????????  What has that got to do with jobs? If Senator Paul wants to pass a bill about Shakil Afridi, he was welcome to do it. 

The poor excuses of the Republican Party are many in obstructing job bills for the country. They turn everything into rhetoric. They aren't doing their jobs and they are getting away with it, while the people of the USA struggle to find their footing either after 2008 or after returning from war. 

The extended unemployment benefits are very helpful when people are retraining for jobs that are available. 

Karzai's meeting in Iran should come as no surprise or consequence.

Shortly after Hamid Karzie became President of Afghanistan he asked for a joint meeting between Iran, the USA and himself. Bush said no. This is simply a delayed agenda by Karzie. It is not sinister and it is not new.

In case no one noticed the two countries share a border.

by EYDER PERALTA

December 07, 2013 8:00 AM

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel (click here) landed in Afghanistan Saturday for a surprise visit with the troops.

Despite the fact that the U.S. and Afghanistan are at odds over a security agreement that allows U.S. troops to remain in the country past 2014, Hagel has no plans to meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has refused to sign the security agreement....

12-08-2013 15:10 BJT

KABUL, Dec. 8 (Xinhua) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai (click here) left for Iranon Sunday, a statement released by his office here said.

"President Hamid Karzai at the invitation of his Iranian counterpart Dr. Hassan Rohani left for Tehran this morning," the statement said.

During the one-day visit to Iran, matters pertaining mutual cooperation including enhancing bilateral relations between the two neighboring nations will come under discussion....

The Arctic is far warmer and it is causing a crash of it's ecosystem. Don't tell me the temperature isn't warmer. We are seeing the loss of multiple year ice in the Arctic Ocean.

Morning Papers - It's Origins (click here)

Hoot, Hoot?

What is wrong with this picture?

Snowy owls are heading south throughout the Northeast, including this one photographed on Dec. 3 at Presque Isle State Park's Gull Point near Erie, Pa. (AP Photo, Erie Times-News | CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE)

Snowy Owls are not usually seen on beaches with sand an pebbles.

Are they the new Goose?

By Arlene Koch
December 09, 2013 at 5:00 AM, updated December 09, 2013 at 5:08 AM

...What's happening is called an irruption, (click here) meaning a large migration of a species moves temporarily into areas where they're not normally found. When it comes to snowy owls, there's no way to positively predict when this is going to happen, although there are a lot of theories as to what causes it.

There's a long accepted belief that snowy owls move south in winters when the lemming population in the high Arctic is low. But not everyone agrees with that. Others postulate that these owls move south in big numbers even when lemming numbers are good because an abnormally high number of young have survived and they and other predators are competing for winter food. And still other ornithologists think weather has something to do with a mass movement even though these owls live and breed on a treeless tundra as far north as you can go.

Snowy owls are currently being found in every northeastern state and even in some southern ones. Six of them have been sighted at the Syracuse, N.Y., airport alone. In New Jersey, they're scattered up and down the coast, and no doubt there are some unseen inland. The most astounding statistic I've seen so far came from the island of Newfoundland, where 138 were found in one day....

The real questions is want happened to the lemming and vole populations in the Arctic and is the Snowy Owl becoming Threatened or Endangered in the normal range?

...A snowy owl's preferred meal is lemmings (click here) —many lemmings. An adult may eat more than 1,600 lemmings a year, or three to five every day. The birds supplement their diet with rabbits, rodents, birds, and fish.

These magnificent owls sometimes remain year-round in their northern breeding grounds, but they are frequent migrants to Canada, the northern United States, Europe, and Asia. Lemming availability may determine the extent of southern migration, when owls take up summer residence on open fields, marshes, and beaches....

This is a 2012 report which states Lemming populations may be crashing with maximum numbers changing to every 8 years than every 5 years.

...In some regions, (click here) however, the cyclic pattern is changing, especially the cycle duration. On Wrangel Island, northeast Russia, the period between years with peak densities has increased from five years in the 1970s to close to eight years in the 1990s and 2000s...

The third graph shows a consistent decrease in the Snowy Owls preferred diet, namely the lemmings. Snowy Owls are raptors. They hunt like Eagles do. 

The reason for the decrease in lemming population needs to be investigated. And the Snowy Owl population now in their very southern range has to be discerned to know if birds usually seen in their southern range are not the ONLY owls left. It could be that a large population with ever increasing numbers of Snowy Owls now in their southern range may be crashing with their food source.

Surprise, surprise; it is climate. The QUALITY of the SNOW TEMPERATURE determines population. Warmer snows result in predator success while cold snows results in Lemming success.

...Wet snow helps predators (click here)

Nils: When they crash, they crash to very low densities and they crash most likely because of the predator population building up. So they crash to very low levels and it takes time for them to build up. And to build up very high densities, they need a period in which they are free from heavy predation and that's what they get during the snow, during the winter period, and it takes three to four years to build up such a population.

But in the mid ‘90s, all this was gone and what we found in this paper published in Naturewas that the snow had changed from being soft and dry to being wet. Hence, the lemmings could not build up....

The Snowy Owl has very few predators, arctic foxes, corvids and swift-flying jaegers; as well as dogs, gray wolves and avian predators. While these predators do have an effect on the number of Snowy Owl in the arctic, it doesn't mean they are very successful. Snowy Owls will protect their nests from predators and they are very successful in doing so.

As a keystone species it controls the populations of other animals in the ecosystem.

It is a keystone species. It is a predator. A keystone species is like a keystone in the center of an arch. The arch collapses without the center stone.

Unfortunately, this movement of the owls and the deteriorating ecosystem that supports the Lemmings is a very big deal. Very big. 

"Good Night, Moon"

First Quarter

Waxing Cresent

45% Full

6.9 days old

• By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
• 12/8/2013
• Catholic Online

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The MX-1 vehicle (click here) is too small to accommodate a human being. A U.S. spacecraft hasn't made a controlled landing on the moon since Apollo 17 left the lunar surface on Dec. 14, 1972. 

The moon dirt that Gene Cernan, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin once trod was rich in titanium, platinum, and other rare elements. Moon Express says they intend to mine the moon. 

"We call it the iPhone of space," Bob Richards, co-founder and CEO of Moon Express says. The "microlander" can deliver up to 130 pounds of cargo to the surface of the moon. That handy bottle in your bathroom - hydrogen peroxide, will power the craft. While unusually small, the MX-1 will act as a sample return vehicle or a "space-tug," Richards says. 

"It's very small. You and I could put our arms around it," Richards said. It's stripped-down size will allow Moon Express to plan missions for a fraction of what it would cost a superpower, such as the United States or China.

The MX-1 vehicle is too small to accommodate a human being. A U.S. spacecraft hasn't made a controlled landing on the moon since Apollo 17 left the lunar surface on Dec. 14, 1972.

No Space Wars, okay? The United Nations is prepared for Space Treaties. They should be started already. If governments can get along in the Arctic Ocean and Antarctica and the oceans of the world, they can do the same thing in space.