Who rescues the ejected pilots over domestic waters?

The scene the rescuers found was very dangerous. There was even fuel in the water and they were on jet skies. It takes more than guts to rescue our pilots. It takes bravery.

Supplied photo by D.J. Struntz. Wrightsville Beach fire chief Glen Rogers, far left, and Ocean Rescue director Dave Baker, far right, present EMT lifeguard Kyle Miess and Ocean Rescue captain Jeremy Owens with medals for meritorious conduct during a ceremony Monday, May 30.

On May 6,first responders (click here) charged into a dangerous scene, riding a Jet Ski more than one mile and through floating debris and fuel to be the first to reach the pilot of a Marine Corps jet that crashed off of Wrightsville Beach.  This week, the Wrightsville Beach Fire Department honored Wrightsville Beach Ocean Rescue Capt. Jeremy Owens and EMT, firefighter and lifeguard Kyle Miess with the department’s medal for meritorious conduct.

“Jeremy and Kyle were true to our motto: ‘always willing and always ready,’” said Glen Rogers, Wrightsville Beach fire chief.  “They jumped into action to respond to potentially fatal military aircraft crash. Our nation could have lost another military member. Fortunately circumstances worked out for the best for the pilot and his rescuers.”

After receiving the call at about 4:50 p.m. on Friday afternoon, Owens and Miess left from the station, launched a Jet Ski near Masons Inlet, and arrived at the downed pilot nearly two miles offshore in less than 20 minutes. The Marine Corps Harrier jet pilot ejected before the plane crashed and Miess said he was conscious when they arrived. The Marine Corps said the pilot recovered without serious injury.

Wrightsville Beach Town Manager Tim Owens said the scene must have been “surreal.”

“They went out there and didn’t know what to expect, but they came out with a good outcome,” Owens said. “I couldn’t imagine responding to a scene like that.”...                        

Life's meaning is not about money. 

It is about relationships.

I've never read an obituary that stated "...will be survived by his vast holdings..."

Why is it Wall Street likes to read tea leaves rather than living with the truth?

Oil is to Saudi Arabia like currency is to China. This isn't about money. It is about their national security strategy agenda.

Just because Saudi Arabia is growing economic diversity doesn't mean they are running out of oil.

Now, I know, Wall Street understand population growth. Why would any reasonable person not believe Saudi Arabia needed to grow a diversified economy since people continue to enter the Saudi population through birth alone?

This is where Dick Cheney's friends went completely wrong. They believed they could push OPEC off it's price and force them to give up their customers and then ultimately American oil with new export laws could take over the global oil market.

"W"rong! OPEC is not that stupid. What does that say about the Bush/Cheney Energy report which featured the Caspian Sea?

America's million-billionaires think with greed in their heart. The rest of the world thinks with national strategy, national security, how that is enforced through markets and their place in global markets.

June 2, 2016
By Stanley Reed

Vienna — The new oil minister in Saudi Arabia, (click here) the de facto leader of the OPEC countries, had a message for the global market: Don’t expect us to influence the price of crude oil by adjusting supplies.
“I think managing in the traditional way that we tried in the past may never come again,” the minister, Khalid al-Falih, said on Thursday. “Certainly we will not go with certain price targets.”
The message — which came after the decision on Thursday by the 13-nation Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to maintain high levels of oil production — is central to the changing strategy of the Saudi crude-oil complex. And it could foreshadow a period of volatility for oil prices because OPEC’s policies and the Saudis’ sway have long helped guide the markets.
In a sweeping directive last month, Saudi Arabia set forth plans to diversify its economy, reduce its dependence on oil and pull back on its government handouts. And what Mr. Falih does with Saudi Arabia’s oil — how much the kingdom decides to pump and where the money goes — is the biggest piece of the puzzle....

Rye Hunt's reality changed after taking a drug of some kind. He became paranoid.

June 2, 2016
By Lexi Metherell

Bruno Mouta, the nightclub owner, (click here) said Mr Hunt and his friend stayed at the club until it closed, and then he and several bodyguards walked them back to their hostel.

Mr Hunt vanished after separating from his travelling companion Mitchell Sheppard, 22, at Rio International Airport on May 21.

Police say on the night before he went missing, Mr Hunt and Mr Sheppard took MDMA at their hostel before going to the nightclub Raizes da Lapa, in the Lapa district.

Mr Mouta said he helped translate for the two young men because the bartenders could not speak English.

"I talked to them, and I could see they were like, high and they were not thinking straight, you know.

"They were under effect of a kind of drug, I don't know which one.

"So, they started to see things and they thought everyone there was staring at them, that everyone there wanted to kill them.

"They were really terrified, especially the one who is missing."...

This isn't really a surprise, is it?

Prince's Death Certificate (click here)

Anyone with some kind of degree of wealth is open to predatory drug dealers. Prince was no different. He had dollars tattooed to his face just like every other celebrity that has succumbed to the temptation of needing less and less sleep to produce more and more music.

The trouble here is that the artists sincerely loved their work and no cost was too great. The entertainment industry needs to investigate itself and end the presence of drugs within reach of their people. There is no indication USA law enforcement can be effective, especially if their dogs are off limits to fentanyl laced heroine. Someone needs to do something, otherwise the industry is going to continue to lose their people. Urine drug tests for everyone along with contracts that demand sobriety and a drug free lifestyle.

It was admirable to realize the porn industry cleaned up the danger to their people when HIV started to threaten lives and careers. If the porn industry can defeat HIV/AIDS, the entertainment industry can do the same thing with opioids. (click here)

There is plenty of help to conquer this problem and there should never be drugs in concert halls. Such elements in a concert hall defeats the idea of predictable behavior of the crowd and their safety is compromised.

ACE insures entertainment venues. (click here)

Abu Zubaydah won't enter the court room and Hassan Guleed was stopped from talking about his treatment. Why? Why can't they talk about their treatment?

What is the military base hiding? There should not be any prisoner treatment the USA should have to hide.

Why aren't the defense attorneys standing up for their clients? The court is the only place these men can verbalize their complaints that have a somewhat neutral interest in those facts. What is affecting their behavior that would impact the hearings? I would think the judge would want to hear it.

The truth about the detainees treatment can only be a good way for Guantanamo to vent the truth. If the commander disagrees with the prisoner's edition of his treatment, the commander could easily refute it. I don't see that any of this should be a secret.

The USA has been through all this mess. There were changes made to the methods of treatment of detainees or prisoners. We have to go through it again?

June 2, 2016
By the AP

Guantanamo Bay Navel Base, Cuba — A Somali prisoner (click here) at Guantanamo Bay told a military judge Thursday that he has experienced what he believes are intentional noises and vibrations inside the high-security section of the prison known as Camp 7, echoing a defendant in the Sept. 11 war crimes case who has alleged he is the victim of deliberate attempts at sleep deprivation.
Hassan Guleed, an alleged member of East Africa al-Qaeda making his first appearance in a U.S. court since his 2004 capture, portrayed sounds and vibrations as well as chemical odors in testimony at the U.S. base in Cuba as "a kind or pressure" intended to make detainees cooperate with authorities. He contrasted it with other forms of abusive treatment that he and others experienced while held by the CIA in overseas prisons before being taken to Guantanamo.
"We have mental torture in the Camp 7. In the black site there was physical..." Guleed started to say when prosecutors and the judge cut him off to keep him from discussing details about his confinement that are classified as secret....

Hillary Clinton Foreign Policy

There are no real surprises. She is rock solid and reliable in her policies and positions. However, I think that are two weaknesses she needs to be ready for and one strength she needs to repeat often when appropriate.




Weaknesses:

The right wing will attack her on Daesh / ISIS in Libya.

The left wing will attack her on drones.

Strength:

The country needs to hear more about women in our military and sexual assault. That sexual assault doesn't end for women when they leave the military. They are open again to it when they use their GI Bill to educate themselves at colleges and universities to enter the rest of her life with a good job with good pay.

Minnesota believes the science.

They have to continue to fly. That pollen is vital to life.

March 20, 2016
By Josephine Marcotty

Investigators from the state Department of Agriculture (click here) confirmed, in effect, what beekeepers have been saying for years: Even when used according to law, the most widely used class of insecticides in the world are acutely toxic to honeybees under routine circumstances.
In the first test of a landmark environmental law, Minnesota has compensated two beekeepers whose hives were severely damaged last spring by toxic dust that drifted off the fields of a neighbor planting corn.
Investigators from the state Department of Agriculture confirmed, in effect, what beekeepers have been saying for years: Even when used according to law, the most widely used class of insecticides in the world are acutely toxic to honeybees under routine circumstances.
Even more importantly, said state Sen. Rick Hansen, the finding marks a precedent in the ongoing national fight over the controversial group of insecticides called neonicotinoids, which have been implicated in the decline of bees and other wild pollinating insects....

Jim Yong Kim of the World Bank made a very interesting observation.

The highest temperatures of Earth on record has now continued since November of last year. The heating of Earth is now record setting on a continual basis.

That is a climate crisis. 

It means the residual ability of Earth's ice structures can no longer overcome the solar radiation from Sol.

Maryland has a respected status in outlawing neonicotinoids.

April 8, 2016

By Natasha Geiling

Bonnie Raindrop (click here) has been beekeeping for just nine years, but that’s been more than enough time to see the precipitous decline in bee populations that has been plaguing Maryland. Last year, according to the USDA, Maryland beekeepers lost 61 percent of their honeybee populations, which is two times higher than the national average. Over the last five or so years, Raindrop herself has witnessed crushing losses in her own hives, fluctuating between 50 and 100 percent.

Which is why Raindrop is so happy that the Maryland legislature has started to take notice. Thursday night, the Maryland House and Senate agreed upon and jointly passed a final version of the Maryland Pollinator Protection Act, which would eliminate consumer use of neonicotinoids, a widely-used class of pesticides that has been shown to negatively impact honeybees. If the bill — which now goes to the desk of Maryland Governor Larry Hogan (R) — is enacted into law, it would make Maryland the first state in the country to codify such protection for honeybees at a statewide level.

“Maryland’s [pollinator] losses are really staggering,” Tiffany Finck-Haynes, a campaigner at Friends of the Earth, told ThinkProgress, noting that “sustainable” bee losses are considered to be around 10 to 15 percent of a colony — significantly less than what Maryland has been experiencing....

...Economic Value (click here)
Honey bees are the most economically valuable pollinator worldwide, and many high-value crops such as almonds and broccoli are entirely reliant upon pollination services by commercial beekeepers. Globally, 9.5% of the total economic value of agricultural production for human consumption comes from insect pollination – in 2005, this amounted to just under $200 billion.
The value of crops pollinated by bees in the U.S. alone was estimated at $14.6 billion in 2000 – that figure has since grown....

Another tasar death of an unarmed person, Ollie Lee Brooks.

I find it astounding that police can walk into a motel's office and search a guest register without a judges' warrant.

June 2, 2016

By Paighten Harkins

A 64-year-old man died (click here) at a hospital Saturday after officers pepper sprayed and Tased him during an arrest attempt at an east Tulsa motel.

Ollie Lee Brooks was pronounced dead at Oklahoma State University Medical Center after an ambulance transported him from the Super 8 Motel at 1011 S. Garnett Road, according to a search warrant affidavit.

Officers went to the motel at 6:19 p.m. to search the register for guests with outstanding warrants, police spokesman Leland Ashley said. They found that Brooks — who was wanted in Okmulgee County — was staying there....

Every American citizen can appreciate financial laws. The safe guards are not just for the middle class.

May 31, 2016

By SEC

Washington, DC  - 

The Securities and Exchange Commission (click here) today charged a Nashville, Tenn.-based investment advisory firm and its owner with scheming to collect extra monthly fees from a pair of hedge funds they managed.

Examiners in the SEC’s Atlanta office detected the misconduct during an examination of Hope Advisers Inc., which is owned by Karen Bruton.  The SEC alleges that in order to circumvent the funds’ fee structure under which the firm is entitled to fees only if the funds’ profits that month exceed past losses, Hope Advisers and Bruton have been orchestrating certain trades that enable the funds to realize a large gain near the end of the current month while basically guaranteeing a large loss to be realized early the following month.  Without the fraudulent trades, Hope Advisers would have received almost no incentive fees since October 2014. 

“We allege that Hope Advisers and Bruton disregarded investors by engaging in a pattern of deceptive trades so they could continue earning large incentive fees,” said Walter Jospin, Director of the SEC’s Atlanta Regional Office.

Hope Advisers and Bruton have consented to an interim order that restricts them from accessing $7 million of their own investments in the funds, prohibits them from collecting any further fees unless they satisfy the high water mark in the funds’ fee structure, and restricts them from taking additional investments in the fund.  Without admitting or denying the allegations, Hope Advisers and Bruton also are preliminarily enjoined from violating the antifraud statutes of the federal securities laws....

The fun just never stops.

May 31, 2016
By Jeff German

The administrator (click here) of two Las Vegas surgery centers pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court to embezzling $1.3 million from physicians who invested in the clinics.
Robert Barnes, 50, who ran the Surgery Centers of Southern Nevada and other entities for the physicians, pleaded guilty to one felony count of embezzlement in connection with health care.
He remains free and has agreed to pay restitution to the clinics. His sentencing is Sept. 1
According to his plea agreement, Barnes gambled away $515,000 in casino cash advances he obtained with company credit cards. He also bought a $38,000 diamond ring with company credit cards and spent another $45,000 on personal travel and entertainment.
The $1.3 million was stolen from the clinics between 2010 and 2013, the indictment alleges.

The clinics, one on West Twain Avenue and another on Burnham Avenue, began to struggle financially in 2010, the indictment states....

I just loved this "Google Doodle." Lotte Reiniger is among the Who's Who of animation art.

June 2, 2016
By Adam Boult

Lotte Reiniger (click here) the German film-maker who brought a European slant to the traditionally Asian art of silhouette puppetry, would have been 117 today.

Born in Charlottenburg district of Berlin in 1899, Reiniger started experimenting with shadow puppet productions while still at school, making her silhouettes act out scenes from Shakespeare to entertain her schoolmates...

Donald Trump's business supporters are leaving the family.

Yesterday the reality of "Cadillac" as a former golf advertiser was made clear. Major supporters of the Donald Trump Empire are getting nervous and moving to other venues, including Mexico.

This ad is from the NYT's front e-page. The reaction by Cadillac from yesterday is notable.

GM needs to provide new insight to the American public. There is more reason for GM to be proud and reassured in their place on the American landscape. Why?

It isn't because the company is supporting a golf outing in Mexico, it is because of the long and sustaining relationship with the American people.

June 1, 2016
By Edward A. Sanchez

During this election season, (click here) the topic of manufacturing and the gradual migration of manufacturing jobs out of the U.S. over the past 20-plus years the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has been in effect has been a lightning-rod issue for voters and presidential candidates alike. However, the migration of jobs back to the U.S. appears to be happening on its own, regardless of which way the political winds are blowing -- or perhaps because of them. Automotive News reports that General Motors is planning on moving some production of the 1500-series Crew Cab trucks from its plant in Silao, Mexico, to its plant in Flint, Michigan. The Flint plant primarily builds the 2500 and 3500 HD series Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra trucks.

If GM were to transfer all of 1500 truck production to Flint, that would leave Silao Assembly without a vehicle to build. GM also operates engine and transmission plants in Silao. That prospect is unlikely following an announcement from GM in 2014 that it was planning on investing $3.6 billion in its production facilities in Mexico through 2018. However, a specific plant-by-plant allocation of those investments was not given....

GM IS COMING HOME !!!!!!

US Senator Sanders has compelling funding.

I sincerely believe the funding Senator Sanders receives moves his campaign forward more than any poll. The funding is a poll all to itself.

The Sanders campaign funding is a rolling total of his support. I am quite sure there are many donors that have reached their limit over the past year. Realizing how the funding continues to build is to realize the growing grassroots support he has.

Senator Sanders' grows his funding with every state he enters to win delegates. He leaves maxed out donors behind on a time line that continues to defy any campaign funding ever witnessed before. These is not continual funding by the same donors. His funding is built on new supporters as time goes by.

It is incredible to realize what kind of funding will occur if he were a national candidate. All those maxed out donors could do it all over again. That is an incredible amount of national support for Senator Sanders. Part of the reason the campaign continues to believe the national election can be theirs is because of the growing donor class. Their donor class is unique and spans diversity and socio-economic dynamics of the country.

I think it is completely reasonable to believe Senator Sanders will continue to campaign up to the national convention and into the national election. He wants to change the way the USA conducts politics. He wants his agenda respected for the benefit of the American people. He won't be silenced for some time. He is dedicated to the values he has carried as his personal brand for the entire length of his political life. There is no other word to describe him, "Amazing."

June 1, 2016
By Yamiche Alcindor

Spreckels, Calif. — Bernie Sanders (click here) signaled Wednesday that he would continue his presidential campaign beyond the California primary next week, saying he had the money to keep running until the Democratic National Convention next month.

During a news conference while campaigning in California, the Vermont senator said he already had plans to host events in Washington next week and to lobby superdelegates to withdraw their support from Hillary Clinton and back him instead. He added that he felt confident he can win California’s primary on Tuesday and that Mrs. Clinton was campaigning in the state because of polls showing the two locked in a tight race there. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll released on Wednesday shows the race in a statistical tie.

“We have absolutely the financial resources that we need to run a very, very strong campaign here in California and in the other states and in D.C. and Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands and throughout the rest of the campaign,” Mr. Sanders said....