The family that test and vaccinates together, stay together.

May 10, 2021
By Carolyn B.Johnson

The Food and Drug Administration (click here) cleared the first coronavirus vaccine for emergency use in children as young as 12 on Monday, expanding access to the Pfizer-BioNTech shot to adolescents ahead of the next school year and marking another milestone in the nation’s battle with the virus.

The decision that the two-shot regimen is safe and effective for younger adolescents had been highly anticipated by many parents and pediatricians, particularly with the growing gap between what vaccinated and unvaccinated people may do safely. Evidence suggests that schools can function at low risk with prevention measures, such as masks and social distancing. But vaccines are poised to increase confidence in resuming in-person activities and are regarded as pivotal to returning to normalcy.

“Adolescents, especially, have suffered tremendously from the covid pandemic. Even though they’re less likely than adults to be hospitalized or have severe illness, their lives really have been curtailed in many parts of the country,” said Kawsar R. Talaat, an assistant professor of international health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “A vaccine gives them an extra layer of protection and allows them to go back to being kids.”...

"Morning Papers"

The Rooster

"Okeydoke"

Russia and China should be held responsible for profiting off others' suffering. There is a reason these communist countries ignore calls for peace, climate, and international peace. It is called PROFITS.

May 9, 2021
By Lee Brown

Wild images show thousands of assault weapons, (click here) machine guns and sniper rifles the US Navy says it found on a sailing ship believed to be bringing them from Iran to support the war in Yemen.

The guided-missile cruiser USS Monterey discovered the weapons hidden aboard a dhow, a traditional Mideast sailing ship spotted in the northern reaches of the Arabian Sea off Oman and Pakistan, the Navy said Sunday alongside images and video of the arsenal laid out.

The huge cache was found below deck, most wrapped in green plastic, officials said of the two-day operation that started Thursday.

It included nearly 3,000 Chinese Type 56 assault rifles, a variant of the Kalashnikov, as well as hundreds of other heavy machine guns and sniper rifles, the Navy said.

There were also dozens of advanced, Russian-made anti-tank guided missiles, and several hundred rocket-propelled grenade launchers and optical sights for weapons, according to the Navy....

These are not minor weapons. Russia and China got away with it under the previous administration. It is time for the global community to act as one and end the export of weapons by Russia and China. Global embargoes on all raw materials imported by Russia and China that produce these weapons should be sanctioned. The soldiers on the USS Monterey saved lives, why didn't Russia and China care more for the thousand upon thousands that would have died?

Thousands of illicit weapons are displayed onboard the guided-missile cruiser USS Monterey.

"Good Night, Moon"

The new

28.0 days old

2.5 percent lit

22 April 2021
By Jacinta Bowler

Update (22 April 2021): (click here) Since we first wrote about the Moon Trees, interest in these wonderful living relics of the Apollo era has renewed. Now, the Royal Astronomical Society and the UK Space Agency have begun a quest to search for these trees across Britain.

According to a recent BBC Radio 4 program, around 15 of these trees were planted in the UK. However, any records of how the seeds may have arrived in the country are nowhere to be found.

"Space has a wonderful way of inspiring people. We saw that excitement when space saplings grown from the seeds from Newton's apple tree were planted on our soil," says space exploration expert Libby Jackson from the UK Space Agency.

"I'll be interested in discovering if any of the Moon seeds came to the UK and what has become of them."

To learn more about the Moon Trees, you can read our original article below.

Original (12 July 2019): On 31 January 1971, the Apollo 14 mission launched from Earth and spent nine days in space. Along with the necessary space gear, scientific equipment, and two golf balls, the Kitty Hawk command module was also housing 500 seeds....

Net Zero is the only real answer.

I started blogging in 2004 after a perfect stranger stated I had a lot to say and people need to hear it. That was 16 years ago. At one point during those 16 years, I remember the Washington Post stating the issue of the climate has moved faster than any other topic the paper had covered. I would like to think that was true, but, then what is holding everyone back?

For the first time in those 16 years, I finally feel there is a president in the White House that actually cares about the climate crisis and hears the cries of the young people. Clinton and Obama had some influence, but, the petroleum industry and the financial institutions like Goldman and Dimon still hang on intensely to the cash flow that oil provides their investment banks. 

But, for the first time during this effort do I finally feel as though everyone concerned about a terrible reality is being heard. For god sake people, what the heck takes so long to bring about change that is going to last to save the Earth for generations to come. Elon Musk might be more than willing to escape into outer space, but, most of us are not so inclined. Sol, our sun, is not about to supernova and we kinda like it here.

Some of the greatest scientists in the world have been carrying this warning for the past 60 years. When is that message finally going to break through and we have a plan for modern society that is sustainable. If people like things to stay the same more than they like change, then let's get this over and done with so the next 100 generations don't have to change a thing.

It is so good of everyone to notice something scientists have been pointing out for decades.

By Elle Hunt, Nick Evershed, Dave Fanner and Andy Ball

When Cliff Goodwin first came to Franz Josef (click here) he didn’t know what a glacier was. It was 2001, and Goodwin had been travelling down the length of New Zealand from his hometown Taranaki, doing odd jobs: fruit picking, housekeeping. “I worked until I had $1,000, then I travelled until I had $100,” he says.

Goodwin had been intending to top up his bank account, then go. But soon after arriving in Franz Josef – on the West Coast of the South Island, at the foot of the Southern Alps – he went to see the town’s biggest draw for himself.

A short drive into the valley, Goodwin was confronted by the bright white face of the glacier: a thick seam of ice churning its way down from the mountains and into the stony riverbed below. The sight of snow was almost startling, so close to the ocean – the glacier terminates only 20km from the Tasman Sea – and so close up.

But Goodwin was not content just to look. “I did what most young boys did: jumped over the barriers, went and walked on the ice, and had a great old time,” he says. “It was awesome. I didn’t have any shoes on, either.”

Soon afterwards, Goodwin got a job as a glacier guide – and one season turned into many. Now he and his wife Tash run their own company, taking nature walking tours through the glacier valley.

What drew Goodwin in was the local history – stories of the glacier’s storming advances, sometimes so fast that snow would swallow shoes left at its base within a day; and the subsequent periods of retreat, revealing gear and paths from the past.

On the computer in his office, Goodwin has collected thousands of photos of the glacier, dating back to the late 19th century and its early days as a tourist destination.

“I fell in love with the glacier a long time ago – I think just because it’s moving, it’s living, it’s changing,” he says. “You can try and understand it, predict it, know what it’s going to do next.”

By nature, glaciers go through phases of advance and retreat. But lately these immense bodies of ice – so vast and ancient as to have carved the surface of the Earth – have been losing ground in a warming world.

Over 40 years, annual aerial surveys of the Southern Alps have shown the altitude at which snow persists throughout the year is climbing higher, and the overall volume of ice reducing – with flow-on effects for the glaciers.

Analysis by the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) revealed that from 1977 to 2014, a third of the permanent snow and ice was lost from the Southern Alps – a dramatic decline that began accelerating rapidly in the last 15 years.

More recent surveys have been even more sobering. The summer of 2017-2018 – which saw January temperatures of nearly 3C warmer than average – was the worst on record, scientists said. Some glaciers had shrunk so much, they were hard to see; many would be gone within decades.

A new analysis of more than 200,000 global glaciers found that those in New Zealand showed record thinning of 1.5m a year from 2015-2019 – a nearly sevenfold increase compared to 2000-2004....

The Paradise Parrot disappeared at the same time indiginous people were being massacred.

1 May 2021
By Paul Daley

Few but the most dedicated ornithologist (click here) will know anything about Australia’s Paradise parrot.

That is because it has the dubious distinction of being the only mainland Australian bird marked “extinct” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Its premature vanishment almost a century ago, meanwhile, remains prescient today when it comes to how best to protect other threatened Australian avian species.

That the Paradise parrot – Psephotellus pulcherimus – was already on the verge of extinction by 1900 in its habitat on the Darling Downs in the Queensland colony speaks volumes about the dramatic environmental impact of colonisation on native grassy woodlands....

And they call it progress.

First it was that the churches had more power than the CDC.

Now, it is just any landlord in the country has more power than the CDC. Are judges so ideological they don't even see the deaths and illnesses and the potential for viral spread in their own cities? It is ridiculous. The judges have this idea that legal decisions are always based on the ideology of law.

WRONG!

Law, when it comes to curtailing a pandemic is REAL!

It is one thing to have a head of state make an executive order based on health care because they are not qualified to make such decisions. But, the health of the country is the business of the CDC. Like, huh?

May 5, 2021
By Kyle Swenson

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday (click here) ruled that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention overstepped its legal authority by issuing a nationwide eviction moratorium, a ruling that could affect millions of struggling Americans.

In a 20-page order, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich vacated the CDC order, first put in place during the coronavirus pandemic under the Trump administration and now set to expire June 30.

“It is the role of the political branches, and not the courts, to assess the merits of policy measures designed to combat the spread of disease, even during a global pandemic,” the order states. “The question for the Court is a narrow one: Does the Public Health Service Act grant the CDC the legal authority to impose a nationwide eviction moratorium? It does not.”...

Methane is in violation of Environmental Justice.

May 5, 2021
By Michael Hawthorne

Pollution from natural gas (click here) is now responsible for more deaths and greater health costs than coal in Illinois, according to a new study highlighting another hazard of burning fossil fuels that are scrambling the planet’s climate.

Researchers at Harvard University found that a shift away from coal during the past decade saved thousands of lives and dramatically reduced health impacts from breathing particulate matter, commonly known as soot. But the numbers declined only slightly for gas, another fossil fuel that by 2017 accounted for the greatest health risks.

About half the deaths from soot exposure that year can be attributed to the state’s reliance on gas to heat homes and businesses, the study found. Coal is more deadly only when used to generate electricity.

The alarming findings raise questions about whether Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s proposed transition to a zero-carbon economy would move fast enough in phasing out the use of gas — not only to blunt the impacts of climate change but also to ensure Illinoisans breathe clean air.

Chicago appears to be locked into a gas-dependent future. Peoples Gas is charging its customers $7.7 billion during the next two decades to replace aging distribution lines throughout the city, even though an accelerating shift to renewable energy could make the project obsolete before it’s completed....

Yes, when fossil fuels burn they cause soot. No one ever saw the residuals of gas burning in a stove above the pilot light?

Symposium (International) on Combustion

Volume 15, Issue 1, 1975, Pages 1427-1438

Soot formation in methane-oxygen flames (click here) 

By A.D'Alessio, A.Di Lorenzo, A.F.Sarofim,*F.Beretta, S.Masi, C.Venitozzi

The physical and chemical processes governing soot formation in the burned gas region of an atmospheric, premixed flat CH4/O2 flame have been studied, using scatter and extinction by the flame to characterize particle size and number, and samples withdrawn from the flame to characterize the soot H/C ratio and the concentration of soot, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PCAH) and the principal gas constituents. A range of CH4/O2 ratios of 0.95 to 1.35 was covered. The mean particle size was found to increase with height above the burner from 50above the oxidation zone to 150at 18 mm (∼40 msec) for a CH4/O2 ratio of 0.95, and from 50to 1530for a CH4/O2 ratio of 1.27. Soot deposition was found to persist in the burned gas region, and surface growth rates ranged from 0.8/msec at CH4/O2=0.95 to 4/msec at CH4/O2=1.27. The observed increase in particle diameters was dominated, however, by the coagulation of particles and the coagulation constants deduced from the data ranged from a value that agreed with theory at R=0.95 to a value that was an order of magnitude larger than the theoretical values at R=1.35. The total concentration of PCAH was found to increase continuously with height but the ratio of PCAH to soot decreased. Individual PCAH were found to increase either continuously with height or to pass through a maximum. The H/C ratio in the soot was found to decrease with height from a value of 0.34 to 0.24. Pyrolytic dehydrogenation of the soot samples at 1000°C reduced the H/C values to 0.1.

The Pentagon is back to talking to the people. Nice.

The certainty of a future was never a question, now, it is.

April 22, 2021
By Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac

Before COVID-19 crashed into our world, governments (click here) had two major crises to tackle: the oil price crash and the climate crisis. Now that three crises have converged, so too can the path through them. We can rebuild clean and healthy with trillions of dollars of stimulus, transitioning away from fossil fuels to clean infrastructure and industries that create millions of jobs, overcome deep social inequalities and create a thriving economy.

In our book, The Future We Choose, we outline two possible futures; one where we act to halve emissions in this decade, and the one imagined in extract below, if we fail.

It is 2050. Beyond the emissions reductions registered in 2015, no further efforts were made to control emissions. We are heading for a world that will be more than 3 degrees warmer by 2100.

The first thing that hits you is the air.

In many places around the world, the air is hot, heavy, and depending on the day, clogged with particulate pollution. Your eyes often water. Your cough never seems to disappear. You can no longer simply walk out your front door and breathe fresh air. Instead, before opening doors or windows in the morning, you check your phone to see what the air quality will be. Everything might look fine—sunny and clear—but you know better. When storms and heat waves overlap and cluster, the air pollution and intensified surface ozone levels can make it dangerous to go outside without a specially designed face mask (which only some can afford).

Our world is getting hotter, an irreversible development now utterly beyond our control. We have already passed tipping points, like The Great Melting of the Arctic sea ice, which used to reflect the sun’s heat. Oceans, forests, plants, trees, and soil had for many years absorbed half the carbon dioxide we spewed out. Now there are few forests left, most of them either logged or consumed by wildfire, and the permafrost is belching greenhouse gases into an already overburdened atmosphere....

I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The horse had a great pedigree, why mess with it? Bob Baffert (click here). I thought he had turned a corner. I guess not.

Medina Spirit's reputation is ruined. He won't be a triple crown winner and now there is skepticism as to the quality of his Derby win. Why give these great horses to trainers with poor reputations?

May 9, 2021
By Jason Frakes

Trainer Bob Baffert said Sunday morning Medina Spirit tested positive (click here) for betamethasone after winning the Kentucky Derby on May 1 at Churchill Downs, a result that ultimately could lead to the horse’s disqualification.

Baffert disputed the positive test result of 21 picograms, saying Medina Spirit “has never been treated with betamethasone (click here),” which is an anti-inflammatory drug.

According to Kentucky Horse Racing Commission regulations, a second positive test – called a “split sample” – is required before a horse can be disqualified.

Baffert said he didn’t know when the result of the split sample will be available. Marc Guilfoil, executive director of the KHRC, said the positive test result was received Friday.

“During the investigation, both the trainer and owner of the horse will be afforded due process and opportunity to appeal,” Guilfoil said. “Therefore, the KHRC will not provide further comment at this time.”...

This is Kentucky and not New Jersey, but, the testing of these horses is always under scrutiny. Either a track and commission believes in fair play or not.

March 3, 2020

How bad is New Jersey’s split sample rule? (click here)

First, it is contrary to the best practices as set forth by the Racing Medication & Testing Consortium (RMTC), the National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA) Safety & Integrity Alliance, and the model rules of the Association of Racing Commissioners International (ARCI).

It is also unfair to horsemen. Very unfair.

Background

Recently, I wrote a piece called, “New Jersey drug finding: Bad regulation and poor judgment equals injustice for Monmouth Park trainer.” In that piece, I wrote about a trainer, Glenn Thompson, who won a maiden race last July at Monmouth Park only to be disqualified for a positive test, despite the fact that the split sample results were below the regulatory threshold set by the New Jersey Racing Commission’s (NJRC) own regulation....

Trump's pandemic has been good for gun sales.

Interesting statement "Gun violence spiked at the beginning of the pandemic and has remained high."

Why? Guns aren't going to kill the virus. It is fear. The heightened fear that is the basis of Trump politics took hold. The trend does look as though it is returning to a lower level in 2021.

 

PUT DOWN THE GUNS AND GET VACCINATED!

April 26, 2021
By Nigel Chiwaya

It may feel like America entered a new wave of gun violence in 2021, (click here) but a review of shootings with multiple victims shows that their frequency has been unusually high for more than a year.

Data from the Gun Violence Archive shows that the number of multiple-victim shootings first spiked in April 2020 and has stayed high since. The most recent wave of shootings around the country, including the April 15 attack in Indianapolis where eight people were killed at a FedEx facility, is just the latest symptom of that trend.

The deadly pattern has continued this year. There have been 160 shootings from Jan. 1 to April 26 in which four or more people were injured or killed, compared to just over 90 during the same period in 2020. And this year’s total is nearly double the average for the same time period for every year since 2014....

People buy guns out of fear and then they become weapons in revenge of hurt and anger.

PUT THE GUNS DOWN, AMERICA!

May 9, 2021

By Shelly Bradbury

A man walked into a birthday party in Colorado Springs (click here) early Sunday and opened fire, killing six people before ending his own life, police said, in what is now one of Colorado’s deadliest mass shootings.

Freddy Marquez, who attended the party with his wife and children, but left before the shooting, said all of the victims were members of the same extended family, which had gathered to celebrate the birthdays of Marquez’s wife and her brother.

The shooting happened just after midnight at the Canterbury Mobile Home Park in the 2800 block of Preakness Way, Colorado Springs police Lt. James Sokolik said in a news release.

Investigators believe the shooter, who has not been publicly identified, was the boyfriend of a woman at the party.

“He drove to the residence, walked inside and began shooting people at the party before taking his own life,” Sokolik said in the news release.

None of the children at the party were hurt and they are now in the care of relatives, police said....

Poor leadership in DC is like invasive worms, they do a lot of damage without any benefit.

May 5, 2021
By Katherine Harmon Courage

Tiny, wriggling horrors are hatching right now, (click here) under our feet, across the country.

No, not the billions of Brood X cicadas emerging throughout the eastern US. I’m talking instead about baby invasive “crazy worms” that thrash through garden, farm, city, and forest soil, growing to 3 to 6 inches in length, sucking up nutrients, and transforming rich leaf litter into coarse droppings. All while laying nearly 20 hardy worm cocoons a month, without needing a mate.

Variously known as jumping worms, snake worms, Alabama jumpers, and Jersey wrigglers, common Amynthas species are a super-powered version of the more familiar, squishy languidness of the garden-variety European earthworms (whose genus name, Lumbricus, itself sounds plodding). And their rapid spread into new areas has led to a surge of concern about these worms.

This vigorous lifestyle can quickly lead to full-blown infestations — and decimated topsoil. Perhaps it’s no wonder jumping worms recently have been invading the internet, too....

The killing sprees keep on coming. There are too many guns on the street.

A new approach to gun violence
By Kristen Hoggatt-Abader

Academia is often accused of being out of touch (click here) with the rest of the world. I might agree, sometimes, but since gun violence often takes place on college and university campuses, including the University of Arizona where I am pursuing a Ph.D., academia is not studiously aloof to this societal illness.

The accounts of gun violence are never ending these days. They’re becoming so common that many foreign-born people (I’m married to one of them) think this is just what life in the United States looks like. Isn’t that horrific? So I did some research to see if academia had something to offer and discovered actor-network-theory (ANT)....

...ANT emphasizes the relatedness between living and nonliving things, considering how each action triggers another action in an expanding network of players. Everything’s connected. I can’t drink my coffee without my cup and I can’t hold it comfortably without the handle....

...ANT would say the answer lies in a different question, highlighting the matrix that enables the action: the pull of the trigger, the explosion of gunpowder, even the humidity of the air that the bullet travels through to reach its target.

In a mass shooting, guns will kill some and not others in part due to this complex interplay of agents.

Considering ANT, one begins to see that the current gun debate fuels a false dichotomy. To prevent shooting deaths, we need to change the matrix: we need a multi-pronged approach to prevent more people from dying due to gun violence. That means better education. That means improved mental health services. That means more reliable tools for families to flag distressed relatives. That also means more gun control legislation to make guns harder to get....

Saturday in the USA saw three major mass murders. That should surprise no one. Since the insurrection of January 6, 2021, Americans have been buying guns as if there are going out of style. I wish they were going out of style. How do you tell a country that witnessed an insurrection that buying more guns is not the answer? How do you tell Americans that gun proliferates violence and does not end it.

Some time ago on this blog I put together a Sunday Night, back then it might have been Saturday or Friday Night, that talked about what happens when guns become pervasive in society. In that presentation of facts the one country that stood out as having changed drastically when it came to gun violence was Brazil. Today, Brazil is among the most violent countries in this Hemisphere with ambitions of greed that will defeat the benevolence of tropical rainforests. The reason for all this violence is the presence of the NRA. That was true then and it is true now. 

The NRA was proliferating gun purchases long before an escalation of crime and violence in Latin America.

22 July 2020
By Diego Sanjurjo

The vast majority of Latin American countries (click here) share a similar trend of rising crime and violence. Most forms of violent crime have intensified, with property crime being the most notorious. Nonetheless, homicides are easier to account for. Murders experienced an 11 percent increase in the region between 2000 and 2010, resulting in more than 2.5 million killings since the turn of the century. Furthermore, homicides have arguably turned into a Latin American singularity, because it is the only region in the world in which murder rates increased during the first decades of the twenty-first century. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the region surpassed Africa for the first time and became the region with the highest number of murders globally, both in absolute numbers as in relation to its population.

Guns are fundamental in these dynamics and their use as murder weapons supposes a particularity of the Latin American homicide epidemic. Firearms were used to commit around 50 percent of all homicides worldwide between 2010 and 2015, but their impact in Latin America is even more pronounced. In Brazil and in Central America, for instance, gun homicides correspond to at least 70% of the total. Their use in non-lethal forms of crime has drastically increased as well in recent decades, while national reports show that rising insecurity and mistrust in state authorities appear to be linked to increase popular disposition to acquire them as instruments of self-defense. Hence, self-protection and criminal predatory behaviour fuel a rising demand for guns in a region that already possesses important surpluses dating back to the civil wars and military dictatorships of the 20th century....

The gun culture has now inundated the USA with killing spree after killing spree. Why? An insurrection in the USA? Whoever heard of such nonsense? It scared people and they are looking at the government's potential to do harm when the wrong people are in power. "Preppers" have never felt so vindicated.

There are also still problems with chronic unemployment and the issue of racism has never been so keenly observed in the USA. When cops kill, people become insecure and not more secure and they turn toward self-sufficiency and guns.

March 11, 2021
By Emma Ascott

Phoenix - An escalation in firearms sales last year, (click here) driven in part by new gun owners, is prompting some health experts to call for more attention to gun safety and the relationship between owning weapons and injuries or suicide.

In 2020, the FBI processed a record 39.7 million firearm background checks, one of the best measurements of likely sales. The week of March 16-22 – just after COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic and then a national emergency – is the top week for background checks since the agency’s instant system launched in November 1998.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association for the firearms industry, estimates more than 8 million people were first-time gun buyers last year, and experts cite pandemic-related worries, as well as the presidential election, as primary drivers of rising sales.

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine are among those calling for action to help prevent firearm injuries or deaths amid the uptick in purchases.

More safety education “is essential to address the potential downstream adverse effects of increases in firearm ownership with regard to injury and suicide prevention,” the researchers wrote recently in JAMA Network Open....

I think the demographics about guns is more about political ideology than education level.

Gun ownership (click here) in the U.S. by education level 2020

The time to worry about sea level rise is not when they are rising, but, before they do.

May 5, 2021

By Scott K. Johnson

...The influence of sea ice (click here) on the Earth is not just regional; it’s global. The white surface reflects far more sunlight back to space than ocean water does. (In scientific terms, ice has a high albedo.) Once sea ice begins to melt, a self-reinforcing cycle often begins. As more ice melts and exposes more dark water, the water absorbs more sunlight. The sun-warmed water then melts more ice. Over several years, this positive feedback cycle (the ice-albedo feedback) can influence global climate....

...The first study—led by Robert DeConto (click here) at the of Massachusetts Amherst—describes the latest version of that worrisome Antarctic model we mentioned at the start. The model attempts to account for the spontaneous collapse of excessively tall cliffs of ice at the front of glaciers, as well as the pressure-driven expansion of deep cracks that fill with meltwater. The effect of these processes can be amplified in settings like the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, where significant areas of glacial ice sit on bedrock that drops in elevation as you move inland—ultimately dropping well below sea level. Once ice in this situation destabilizes, water can get under it, and it can retreat unstoppably until the bedrock slopes up again.

The model was fed several greenhouse gas-emissions scenarios relevant to recent international talks: futures in which warming is halted at 1.5°C, 2°C, and 3°C (which current pledges have us roughly on track for). The model was also fed a scenario in which unabated warming crosses 4°C before the end of this century. Interestingly, it also includes a series of scenarios where growing emissions halt and suddenly flip into active removal of atmospheric CO2 in 2030, 2040, or 2050, and so on....

Anyone that loves her country this much should be leading the GOP.

May 5, 2021
By Stephen Collinson

Donald Trump (click here) is effectively forcing every Republican who wants a political future to show how far they're willing to compromise on principle, truth and conscience for power.
Most GOP leaders with aspirations of higher office don't think twice before genuflecting before the former President. But the party's No. 3 House leader, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, is making a lonely stand by refusing to appease Trump over his incitement of the Capitol insurrection and claims of a stolen election. And her attitude seems almost certain to sacrifice a promising career in the defense of democratic values.
The lawmaker's power base splintered in plain sight on Tuesday, once again demonstrating Trump's formidable control over his party, which, if anything, has solidified since he left power after his humiliating election loss.
Cheney appears certain to face another attempt to oust her from her post as soon as next week, three months after easily repelling a previous attempt to remove her in a secret ballot. This time, her survival is in grave doubt...

Trump's nexus to the political arena involves radicals without morals. If Liz Cheney is to lead the GOP as I believe she should, she will have to defeat the last of Trump's minions, "America First."

The words America First goes all the way back to the early years of this democracy and were spoken by men like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. They were more interested in isolationism in the early days of the USA. The USA in its earliest days was mired in nationalism and protectionism. That is all understandable, but, in the modern era of the USA, there is absolutely no isolation. It is a great country that reaches across the world to offer an alternative to dangerous dictators and power hungry communist leaders.

Americans need to reappreciate the cost of democracy. It is a magnificent form of government passed down from the early creators that met bravely in halls to write the Declaration of Independence and eventually the USA Constitution. Those early founders of our great country would be proud of it's accomplishments in leading the world to a form of government they fostered from inception.

The United States of America is not longer a great experiment. Today, under the guidance of a great President the USA is back and on top. Or should I say, back at returning to the top. We have a lot of work ahead of us and the great Democratic leaders joined by great Republican members are giving families a fighting chance again. I am so pleased President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are leading this country at a time when it was on the precipitous of destruction by a party intent on ending free elections.

The Trump Party is unrecognizable when defining democracy. It is unfortunate Liz Cheney has to be recognized as a member of the Republican Party because the Republicans aren't worthy of the conservative party. They radicals and in a mayhem, their parties most extremists were at a rally. They belong nowhere near the USA Constitution.

There have been some fantastic women and men that are part of the USA's course of history that found too much distance in lives with husbands. This is Tipper Gore, one of the USA's Second Ladies.

This past week there was a lot of speculation about the divorce of Bill and Melinda Gates. I follow her on Linked-In. The day the announcement came to the public Melinda was still making news in work she enjoys.

All these wonderful people have been a part of our lives and it is disappointing news when there is a separating of the ways of great people, but, they never fail to continue to do great and rewarding work.

This blog tonight isn't about the end of marriages and relationships, but, it is about trends that have resulted because it is simply too late.

December 14, 2006
By Linda Matchan

A furniture store is an odd place to hold an art opening. (click here) And the private cocktail reception for the Back Bay opening on Tuesday night drew an odd amalgam of guests: Senator John Kerry; Al Gore, the former vice president; interior designers; the reigning Miss Rhode Island; environmentalists; art buffs; and a lot of people who seemed to like tortoises....

Was there just no getting away from the parasite named Jeffery Epstein. Money. The power of money ruins lives.

16 January 2021

By Keith Griffith

• Sarah Kellen, 41, and husband Brian Vickers are in Manhattan neighbor dispute
• Kellen was accused of helping Gislaine Maxwell recruit girls for Jeffrey Epstein
• She denies the claims and says she was a victim of the sex predator's abuse
• Now Kellen's neighbors at NYC condo are complaining of constant construction
• Vickers, a NASCAR driver, also sits on the condo building's five-member board
• Residents of the building are complaining about massive fee assessments
• Lawyer for the board say no fees have been improperly assessed

A woman accused of helping Ghislaine Maxwell (click here) recruit 'sex slaves' for Jeffrey Epstein is now in a squabble with neighbors at the ritzy Manhattan condo where she lives with her NASCAR-driver husband.

Sarah Kellen, 41, and her husband Brian Vickers, 37, are the subject of ire among neighbors at the SoHo condo building on Greene Street, where Vickers leads the condo board, the New York Post reported on Saturday.

Neighbors told the Post they are fed up with the couple's constant noisy renovations in their $10 million penthouse, as well as massive fee assessments imposed by Vickers and the other board members...

May 9, 2021
By Anders Melin

Melinda Gates (click here) began working with divorce lawyers well over a year before her split with Bill Gates was announced last week, partly over concerns about her husband’s dealings with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The 56-year-old spoke with attorneys from several firms as early as October 2019, saying the marriage was “irretrievably broken,” the Journal reported Sunday, citing documents and people familiar with the matter. Her unease about her ex-husband’s ties to Epstein dates back to at least 2013, the paper said....

After this song on "YouTube" there is another entitled, "You are so far away."

 

Carol King's songs have lived on for three generations so far. It must be something called the human experience.

"It's' too late" by Carol King (click here for official website - thank you)

Stayed in bed all mornin' just to pass the time
There's somethin' wrong here, there can be no denyin'
One of us is changin', or maybe we've just stopped tryin'

And it's too late, baby, now it's too late
Though we really did try to make it
Somethin' inside has died
And I can't hide and I just can't fake it
Oh, no, no, no, no, no
(No, no, no, no)

It used to be so easy, livin' here with you
You were light and breezy, and I knew just what to do
Now you look so unhappy and I feel like a fool

And it's too late, baby, now it's too late
Though we really did try to make it (we can't make it)
Somethin' inside has died
And I can't hide and I just can't fake it
Oh, no, no

There'll be good times again for me and you
But we just can't stay together, don't you feel it, too?
Still I'm glad for what we had and how I once loved you

But it's too late, baby, now it's too late
Though we really did try to make it (we can't make it)
Somethin' inside has died
And I can't hide and I just can't fake it
Oh, no, no, no, no

It's too late, baby
It's too late now, darling
It's too late

1986 through 2021 Chicago was making the same mistake.

It is time to take environmental justice seriously. It is just too bad that RMG didn't care about the well-being of the people. The reason RMG put a scrap yard shredder in Southeast Chicago is that it is the only place in the city where no one usually cares about pollution, particulates, and cancer.

STOP CAUSING DEATHS TO PEOPLE!

May 7, 2021
By Michael Hawthorne

Chicago - Under pressure from the Biden administration, (click here) Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Friday indefinitely delayed making a final decision about a proposed scrap shredder in one of the nation’s most polluted areas.

Lightfoot directed the Chicago Department of Public Health to conduct a more thorough investigation of environmental health risks in low-income, largely Latino and Black neighborhoods on the Southeast Side, where Ohio-based Reserve Management Group wants to shred cars and other metallic waste after closing a similar facility on the wealthy, predominantly white North Side.

The mayor stepped in after Michael Regan, the new administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, reminded Lightfoot the Southeast Side already ranks among the nation’s worst areas in various pollution categories the EPA relies on to determine where it should focus its attention.

Heavily industrialized neighborhoods along the Calumet River are scarred by 250 polluted sites actively monitored by federal and state authorities, Regan noted Friday in a letter to Lightfoot. More than 75 companies on the Southeast Side have been investigated for Clean Air Act violations since 2014 alone.

RMG has largely completed construction of its new shredder and scrap yard on the ruins of the former Republic Steel mill, within sight of George Washington High School near Avenue O and 116th Street. But RMG needs a city permit before it can begin shredding flattened cars, used appliances and other metallic junk — a valuable commodity for companies that make steel from recycled scrap...

The bottom line is no longer profit over people, it is an end to the dangers of living in a capitalist country where politicians grovel for any kind of jobs just to say they improved the economy. Who cares if there is a scrapyard on the Southeast side of Chicago so long as it makes the election look good!

March 15, 1986
By Casey Bukro

Chicago - A new look at a survey of the Chicago (click here) area`s industrial Southeast Side disclosed an unusually high death rate among white men and women for three types of cancer, the Illinois Public Health Department reported Friday.

Dr. Robert Spengler, epidemiology chief for the department, said ''What we`re looking at here is not an epidemic (of cancer) as of today,'' but the latest study does indicate ''excess deaths'' for lung, bladder and prostate cancers compared with the rest of the City of Chicago.

Environmental activists who have been clamoring for more attention to environmental hazards on the Southeast Side say they will push for follow-up action to the report.

''This supports the concerns the community has been raising for the last several years,'' said Dr. Robert Ginsburg, research director for Citizens for a Better Environment in Chicago. ''There are health problems out there. This is another piece of evidence that supports our concerns.''

The new study is a re-analysis of a 1983 study, which found cancer ''hot spots'' in six Southeast Side area communities: Pullman, South Deering, East Side, West Pullman, Hegewisch and the suburb of Riverdale.

Both studies were done at the request of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, which has been criticized for failing to protect residents from dangerous environmental exposures in air, water and soil....

One national park does not make all the environmental problems right. One national park is only the beginning.

November 12, 2014
By Lori Rotenberk

The historic Pullman neighborhood, (click here) perched on the southeast side of Chicago, is a textural patchwork of industry and humanity. Take a walk through the community and you’ll find shuttered steel mills and railroad tracks intertwined with small, brick rowhouses. On warmer days, there are garden walks and alley parties. The residents here — Hispanics, blacks, and whites, both poor and middle class — are among the most diverse in the city.

Although Pullman has ridden many waves of change, it breeds resilience. Its 4,000 residents, less than half than in its heyday, have cobbled together lives amid the neighborhood’s rough-hewn beauty. Bent on busting crime, they watch each other’s backs.

“It’s quiet,” says artist Ian Lantz, 38, who moved to the neighborhood two years ago from Los Angeles. “It lacks pretension. I [first] saw it in the wintertime and found it gorgeous — it looks like a Hollywood back lot.”...