Snowfall started.

Latitude - 44.7631° N
Longitude - 85.6206° W
Something tells me it is colder than 39 Fahrenheit. I need to take a thermometer outside.

Still daylight.

I'll go back for the thermometer in a few minutes. I actually expected this. I also expect snow this summer at this latitude and longitude. This location has a really interesting location on Earth. It is near Lake Michigan and there is an Arctic flow that come directly over this area.

May 14, 2016
2215.19z
UNISYS Water Vapor Hemisphere Satellite of north and west hemisphere (click here for 12 hour loop - thank you)

There is a slow rotating vortex brings the Arctic air south. The water vapor is primarily accumulated at the ITCZ with some migration north to the western USA, east of the Rocky Mountains.

The folks in the area have been stating this is the second snowless Christmas. The area in the last three years has been slow to warm and then slow to return to cold. The snow started the first week of January. This winter and the one before have been mild compared to three years ago. 

It has never been this sustainably cool to cold in May. 

37 Fahrenheit. The weather station is correct. The snow is melting quickly. The morning doves are out of their nest. I think they are upset by the snow and very cold air. 

Wind out of the northwest at 10 mph
Humidity 53 percent
Precipitation 52 percent

It was a pleasant day today with the sun out and the temperatures in the low to mid forties. People were out enjoying the sunshine. 

Thank you, Pfizer. A stock price of $33.19 is within the reach of most people.

May 14, 2016

Washington  – Pharmaceutical company Pfizer (click here) has announced it is blocking use of its drugs in lethal injections, which means all federally-approved drugmakers whose medications could be used for executions have now put them off limits.
“Pfizer makes its products to enhance and save the lives of the patients we serve. Consistent with these values, Pfizer strongly objects to the use of its products as lethal injections for capital punishment,” the company said in the statement made public on its website Friday.
The company’s announcement has limited immediate impact. Its action is an enhancement of a previous policy that follows Pfizer’s $15.23 billion purchase of Lake Forest, Illinois-based Hospira Inc. last year. Hospira had previously prohibited the use of its drugs in capital punishment, as have several other drugmakers.
Pfizer shares closed even Friday at $33.19....

Literacy Changes Lives (click here)
November 2008 

Don't blame Facebook for those that have captured the affections of its customers.

May 13, 2016

By Ed Finn

The recent scandal (click here) with Facebook's Trending Topics news module goes deeper than the revelation that it was humans all along hiding behind the algorithm. It should come as no surprise that Facebook has bias -- every organization does. It's what you do about the bias, how you attempt to disclose it and manage it, that makes a difference. News organizations have been grappling with that question for a long time, creating formal and informal codes of conduct, oversight systems and transparency rules.

But of course, Facebook doesn't want to be a news organization (or be seen as taking a political stance). As Will Oremus pointed out in Slate, that would be bad for business: people think much more favorably of technology companies than they do of the Fourth Estate. So it should come as no surprise that in reacting to the scandal Facebook seems desperate to avoid looking like a news agency. It stands, according to VP Justin Osofsky, for "a free flow of ideas and culture across nations."...

It is a Wall Street Journal report, so it deserves some scrutiny.

Private Lenders are changing mortgages (click here)

May 13, 2016
As federal red tape has forced traditional lenders to recoil from the mortgage market, private lenders are filling the gap for lower-risk borrowers, reports The Wall Street Journal's Kirsten Grind. But there are repercussions.
That means a small but growing slice of the mortgage market has shifted from mainstream banks to an informal, loosely regulated corner of property finance. These lenders can earn 8% and more on their money—the catch is they must stomach the risk of lending their savings to borrowers rejected by banks.

Red Tape, no difference than Regulation, is a misnomer for the right wing. Here it is again. That entire mess is what caused the mortgage implosion in the first place.

January 1, 2007
No Red Tape Mortgage, (click here) a Sherman Oaks, CA based wholesale Alt-A mortgage lender closed down today after months of struggling in the now defunct mortgage industry.
After the subprime blowout months ago, Alt-A lenders fell under higher scrutiny, and companies like No Red Tape, a small lender compared to national lenders such as Countrywide and IndyMac, simply couldn’t compete, and subsequently got squeezed out of the market.
Recently, Sterling Partners, a Chicago-based private equity firm bought out and took control of the ailing company, along with parent company Metrocities to keep things afloat.
As a result, No Red Tape responded to market conditions by laying off half of their staff, leaving about 50 employees with jobs....

Every political season the moaning and groaning regarding opportunity for wealth comes front and center. The Republican Party always provides simple wars for their electorate, so screaming about regulation and No Red Tape becomes their mark in history. It pays off for the financial sector, Citigroup Amendment is proof.

Will the corruption ever end? That is up to the voters and their determination to fully understand the dynamics involved rather than simple election slogans. Candidates should be prepared to address the slogans with informed dialogue to end this practice. Whether Republican voters are willing to admit it or not, they really don't want 2008 back again. There were Republicans effected, too. They can be reasoned with when the dialogue addresses the facts and emotional attachment to slogans in a country based in 30 second product commercials in their media.

No American wants to be a puppet. Respectful dialogue can be effective.

This is from 2015.

March 16, 2015
By Thomas Warren and Ryan Hadley

While community banks (click here) are eager to provide more loans to drive economic growth in their Main Street communities, and have the ready capital to do so, excessive government regulations, particularly new federal mortgage lending rules, are holding them back. That’s a consistent refrain heard from community bankers, and one that ICBA (Independent Community Bankers of America - click here) has continually communicated to Washington’s policymakers—first after the Wall Street financial crisis, and then since the complex federal ability-to-repay mortgage regulations were initially released more than two years ago....

... In fact, 9 percent of the 519 community banks that participated in the ICBA survey say the mortgage rules—spawned nearly five years ago by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act and put in force in January 2014—have caused them to stop mortgage lending altogether....

Community bankers might be looking for growth opportunity. They have become a good partner to local economies. Their growth demands should be honored, but, there has been exploitation of these banks resulting in their implosion twice in their history; once under H.W. Bush and then again under "W." The regulation of these vital local partners should be heard, but, they need to understand they are the first to implode when a financial disaster hits the USA.

Candidates should have all these financial entities on their radar and not just the egregious "Big Banks." These banks toppled like dominoes in 2008, that is no joke to many of the local economies that also served the greatest stability to that same episode of free and unfettered (otherwise known as financial anarchy) capitalism.

These ambitious community banks could seek review by the Consumer Protection Bureau to provide a case by case decision. It is up to Congress to empower the agency to conduct such reviews.

The US military usually backs the Republicans. This isn't new.

March 15, 2016
By Leo Shane III and George R. Altman

Editor's note: This story was originally published (click here) March 14, 2016, at 7:33 p.m. EST. It was updated to include the survey's methodology.

In an exclusive survey of American military personnel, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders emerged as active-duty service members' top choices to become the next commander in chief.

The Republican front runner Trump was the most popular candidate in a subscriber poll that closed Monday morning, with 27 percent saying they would back the business mogul if the election were held tomorrow. Sanders, the independent Vermont senator, was a close second at 22 percent, besting Trump among Navy and Air Force respondents. (See the service-by-service breakdown below.)...

The new methodology whereby the use of weapons last was developed by General Stanley McChrystal (click here). He would tour towns in Afghanistan without weapons and body armor. He would meet with elders' councils to bring about an understanding between the US military and the innocent civilians frequently caught in merciless Taliban plans. 

So, if the USA military wants to complain about RESTRAINT in using weapons, they can start their dialogue with General McChrystal. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan do not resemble any other war fought before by the USA military including War World II; the wars are now Urban Warfare and very different from standard operations.

I would like to see General Stanley McChrystal make himself available to the USA military and his former soldiers to perfect the art that accompanies Urban Warfare. Call it advising if he likes. Maybe the soldiers need lessons on diplomacy as well as those of the battlefield. The soldiers should not be struggling to hand their battlefield and all the dynamics that accompany it. 

When it comes to voting for a woman President, there may be an issue with the current problems of sexual assault. The former Secretary Clinton should be touring the military bases as well as every primary stop.

May 13, 2016
By Dan Eliot

Peterson Air Force Base, Colo. -  Air Force Gen. Lori J. Robinson (click here) on Friday became the first woman to lead a top-tier U.S. warfighting command when she took over as leader of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command in Colorado.
Robinson — one of just two female four-star generals in the Air Force — was installed during a ceremony attended by Defense Secretary Ash Carter; Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff; and Canadian minister of defense Harjit Sajjan.
During the ceremony at a hangar at Peterson Air Force Base, Carter praised Robinson as a strategic thinker capable of making split-second, life-and-death decisions....

If the Clintons' have incredible wealth they are certainly handing over a goodly amount to the country.

Income Taxes paid by Hillary Clinton (click here)

"Network" another Paddy Cheyefsky film.

If a comparison is being made to a Chevefsky film of "Money Monster," it should be a great and historic hit.

Jody Foster should make herself available to interviews in promoting the film. She should seek equal time in the media.

Citizen's United started this. It declared war on the American middle class and poor. There is no end to the threat and now even Comey is seeking to stop the filming of police in their arrests of citizens. Where does it stop? Even with recordings we have yet to see any mass incarceration of police. Maybe it's will be soon if the FBI demands to end the First Amendment.

Here we go with further issues with control of the media at FOX.

Wall Street is not a symbol of wealth, it is the organization that demands wealth. Supposedly Democrats have a Wall Street fixation because of the movies about Wall Street like "The Big Short," etc. Funny thing though, those are stories that are fiction. I don't recall any of those films being called a documentary.

May 13, 2016
By David Sims

Money Monster (click here) wants to be a film straight out of the ’70s, a snarling satire of media mores and capitalist villains, shot through with the profane fury of a Paddy Chayefsky (click here) script. At best, it’s a star vehicle from the late ’90s, a creakier, simpler tale of a hostage crisis at a facsimile of CNBC’s Mad Money, tied to the backs of two marquee idols—George Clooney and Julia Roberts. As its tense studio antics unfold, though, the sad truth becomes apparent: Money Monster is a movie-star vehicle that isn’t giving its movie stars anything to do....

"The Hospital" by Paddy Chavefsky.

First Amendment Mr. Comey. How can I tell it is an election year?

The Director of the FBI wants to control the media now. Yes, it is the media, journalists use their own phones all the time. There is no way Mr. Comey or any other police is going to control the media.

It is a new reality for police officers. We all value them and their personal professional cameras help defend them as well.

When realizing how lopsided prosecutions are to imprison our minorities, maybe we need video and audio in prosecutors offices.

May 11, 2016
By Eric Lichtblau

Washington — The director of the F.B.I. (click here) reignited the factious debate over a so-called “Ferguson effect” on Wednesday, saying that he believed less aggressive policing was driving an alarming spike in murders in many cities.
James Comey, the director, said that while he could offer no statistical proof, he believed after speaking with a number of police officials that a “viral video effect” — with officers wary of confronting suspects for fear of ending up on a video — “could well be at the heart” of a spike in violent crime in some cities.
“There’s a perception that police are less likely to do the marginal additional policing that suppresses crime — the getting out of your car at 2 in the morning and saying to a group of guys, ‘Hey, what are you doing here?’” he told reporters.
Mr. Comey was wading back into a dispute from last fall that pitted him against some of his bosses at the White House and the Justice Department and one that roiled racial tensions over confrontations between police officers and minorities....