...The goats came marching one by one, The little one stopped...to bask in the sun....

September 18, 2021

By Coral Murphy Marcos

When megafires burn (click here) in unison and harsh droughts parch the West, local governments, utilities and companies struggle with how to prevent outbreaks, especially as each year brings record destruction.

Carrying an unconventional weapon, Ms. Malmberg travels the American West in an Arctic Fox camper, occupying a small but vital entrepreneurial niche.

Ms. Malmberg, 64, is a goat herder and a pioneer in using the animals to restore fire-ravaged lands to greener pastures and make them less prone to the spread of blazes.

She developed the fire-prevention technique in graduate school and is among a few individuals using grazing methods for fire mitigation. It’s a word-of-mouth business, and private landowners and local governments hire her to remove weeds while restoring the soil....

...After the goats digest the brush, their waste returns organic matter to the soil, increasing its potential to hold water. Goats are browsers that eat the grass, leaves and tall brush that cows and other grazers can’t reach. This type of vegetation is known as the fire fuel ladder and leads to wider spread when wildfires spark. More than quell a fire, Ms. Malmberg aims to prevent it from even starting. “By increasing soil organic matter by 1 percent, that soil can hold an additional 16,500 gallons of water per acre,” said Ms. Malmberg. “If helicopters come and dump water on the fires, nothing is done for the soil.”...

Some areas of California have been using the goats successfully on high tops and inclines where people can't get to. They seem to think it is working. The hilltops are where the worst fire spread is occurring. That is also true regarding the Sequoias. The National Park Service might want to invest in a few goats. The urea and droppings leave behind moisture, too.

January 5, 2020
By Megan Manata

California has gone through several difficult fire seasons in recent years. (click here) Now, some cities are investing in unconventional fire prevention methods, including goats.

Anaheim, a city southeast of Los Angeles, has recently re-upped its contract with the company Environmental Land Management to keep goats grazing on city hillsides nearly year-round.

The goats are stationed in places like Deer Canyon Park, a nature preserve with more than a hundred acres of steep hills. Beginning in July, roughly 400 goats worked through the park, eating invasive grasses and dried brush.

The company's operations manager Johnny Gonzales says that Deer Canyon, with its peaks and valleys, is just the right kind of place to use goats for fire prevention.

"This is the topography that poses challenges during these wildfire events," Gonzales says. "And we can go ahead and reduce the fuel loads and take out the invasive plants, and establish the native plants on these banks; you're reestablishing the ecology."

Gonzales says that demand for wildfire prevention goats has soared in recent years.

"It's not an underestimation to say that we got over 100 calls a month from private individuals with smaller parcels, little lots or things from an acre, 2 acres requesting the goats," Gonzales says. "And unfortunately, as a commercial herd, I can't take on all these private lots."...

Where are you now Moscow Mitch? Turn the carbon into bloodless diamonds.

8 September 2021

The world’s largest plant (click here) designed to suck carbon dioxide out of the air and turn it into rock has started running in Iceland, the companies behind the project – Switzerland’s Climeworks and Iceland’s Carbfix – said on Wednesday.

The plant, named Orca after the Icelandic word “orka” meaning “energy”, consists of four units, each made up of two metal boxes that look like shipping containers.

Constructed by Climeworks, when operating at capacity the plant will draw 4,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide out of the air every year, the companies say.

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, that equates to the emissions from about 870 cars. The plant cost between US$10 and 15m to build, Bloomberg reported.

To collect the carbon dioxide, the plant uses fans to draw air into a collector, which has a filter material inside. Once the filter material is filled with CO2, the collector is closed and the temperature is raised to release the CO2 from the material, after which the highly concentrated gas can be collected.

Then, Carbfix’s process mixes the CO2 with water and injects it at a depth of 1,000 metres into the nearby basalt rock where it is mineralised. Carbfix says the CO2-water mixture turns to stone in about two years, and hydride of sulphur (HS2), within four months.

Proponents of so-called carbon capture and storage believe these technologies can become a major tool in the fight against climate change.

Critics however argue that the technology is still prohibitively expensive and might take decades to operate at scale....

July Temperature Update: Moscow Mitch's Faustian Payment Comes Due

13 August 2021
By James Hansen and Makiko Sato

July global temperature (+1.16°C relative to 1880-1920 mean) (click here) was within a hair (0.02°C) of being the warmest July in the era of instrumental measurements (Fig. 1, left). That’s remarkable because we are still under the influence of a fairly strong La Nina (Fig. 1, right). Global cooling associated with La Ninas peaks five months after the La Nina peak, 1 on average.

Something is going on in addition to greenhouse warming. The 12-month running mean global temperature (blue curve in Fig. 2) has already reached its local minimum. Barring a large volcano that fills the stratosphere with aerosols, the blue curve should rise over the next 12 months because Earth is now far out of energy balance – more energy coming in than going out....

California is catching the worst of the climate crisis in the USA so far. Drought and destruction by fire. Louisiana comes in a close second.

September 17, 2021
By Nhat V. Myer

Pictures taken (click here) in January 2019, left, and September 2021 show the impact of the California drought on the San Luis Reservoir in Merced County

The California drought (click here) has been brutal over the past few years, but to see just how devastating it has been, you need to see before-and-after pictures side by side.

Bay Area News Group photojournalist Nhat V. Meyer went out to the San Luis Reservoir in Merced County this week and took pictures in approximately the same places that he did in January 2019. The reservoir is one of the largest in California.

The results are startling.

It shows how California’s reservoir water levels are way below what they should be at this time of year. The U.S. Drought Monitor reported that California’s 154 intrastate reservoirs contained 13.8 million acre-feet of water, just 60 percent of average for the date. That same agency said most of California is experiencing exceptional or extreme drought....

The death of Afghans and their children is hardly a new scenario. I can't think of a better reason to leave. The drone strikes. Wasn't there a wedding, too. Something like 20 people including the bride and groom was killed in a drone strike.

No, the picture below is not the most recent dead children from Afghanistan. The USA was long overdue to leave.

A war zone is very bad for children. No all 33 thousand dead are from American friendly fire, but, every one of the deaths is tragic.

The Save the Children Fund

KABUL, 31 Aug 2021 – Almost 33,000 children (click here) have been killed and maimed in Afghanistan over the past 20 years, an average of one child every five hours, Save the Children said as the last of the international military forces pulled out of Kabul on Tuesday....

April 7, 2013

The war in Afghanistan (click here) continues destroying lives, due to the direct consequences of violence and the war-induced breakdown of public health, security, and infrastructure. Civilians have been killed by crossfire, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), assassinations, bombings, and night raids into houses of suspected insurgents.

The United States military in 2017 relaxed its rules of engagement for airstrikes in Afghanistan, which resulted in a massive increase in civilian casualties. From the last year of the Obama administration to the last full year of recorded data during the Trump administration, the number of civilians killed by U.S.-led airstrikes in Afghanistan increased by 330 percent.

The CIA has armed Afghan militia groups to fight Islamist militants and these militias are responsible for serious human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings of civilians.

Even in the absence of fighting, unexploded ordnance from this war and landmines from previous wars continue to kill, injure, and maim civilians. Fields, roads, and school buildings are contaminated by ordnance, which often harms children as they go about chores like gathering wood.

The war has also inflicted invisible wounds. In 2009, the Afghan Ministry of Public Health reported that fully two-thirds of Afghans suffer from mental health problems....

September 17, 2021

By Tom Vanden Brook

Washington - Ten civilians, (click here) including as many as seven children, and no terrorists were killed in Kabul by a drone strike that the Pentagon had hailed initially as "righteous," the Pentagon announced Friday. 

"Our investigation now concludes the strike was a tragic mistake," Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, chief of U.S. Central Command, said Friday.

U.S. forces launched the strike after they had tracked a white Toyota Corolla for eight hours and deemed it an imminent threat, McKenzie said. There had been more than 60 pieces of intelligence at the time that indicated an attack was coming, he said. As many as six Reaper drones had followed the vehicle, he added.

The strike occurred on Aug. 29 near the airport during the final, chaotic days of the U.S. evacuation of civilians and military retreat from Afghanistan. The military claimed at the time that the strike prevented "multiple suicide bombers" from attacking Hamid Karzai International Airport. The statement from U.S. Central Command said the attack had targeted "an imminent ISIS-K threat" and that explosives were being loaded into the vehicle when the Hellfire missile struck it...

 

The Manatee needs to be relisted as endangered. The habitat MUST be rehabilitated.

September 17, 2021
By Amy Green

The vast majority (click here) of manatee deaths have been in the Indian River Lagoon, a biological diverse east coast estuary that has been plagued with water quality problems and widespread seagrass losses.

The manatee was too weak to swim. (click here)

She lay still in a medical pool at a SeaWorld rehabilitation center, only lifting her whiskered snout every so often to breathe. Her snout rested upon a pipe to make the effort easier. Her body was slender, hardly that of the chunky manatee—a relative of elephants—that she should have been. Her underbelly was concave. The manatee was near death from starvation.'

“You are looking at the body shutting down. You’re looking at the body eating its own fat reserves. You’re looking at the body doing a lot of things to try to save the core,” said Jon Peterson, vice president of zoological operations at SeaWorld, who supervised the manatee’s care along with the veterinary staff. “When that goes on, would that be discomfort? Absolutely. Would that be painful? More than likely.”

Peterson called the manatee No. 37, because she was the 37th manatee to be rescued this year from Florida waters. She weighed 1,170 pounds, up to 630 pounds less than she should have at 12 years old. Her recovery would be long and grueling if she survived....

Is there something wrong with that? Child care. Family leave. Climate change provisions. What is wrong with that?

August 9, 2021
By Kelsey Snell

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., (click here) has released the text of a $3.5 trillion budget framework that is meant to give Democrats the opportunity to approve major federal investments in child care, family leave, and climate change provisions without support of congressional Republicans.

In a letter sent Monday morning, Schumer told Democrats that the goal is for committees to write legislation to fulfill the spending targets by Sept. 15.

"When we took the majority in the Senate earlier this year, the American people entrusted us with a great responsibility: to make their lives better," Schumer wrote in the letter. "I am happy to report that we are making great progress towards that goal."...

It isn't going well for the General.

General Sherman is the largest tree in the world. It has been in our country's care taking. The Park Service and the National Forest Service have worked really hard to clean up the ground of any ignitable litter and wrapped The General in fireproof blankets. The ancient grove has trees older than the birth of Jesus. Most are well over 2000 years old, nearly 3000 years old.

September 17, 2021

By Paul Rogers

Firefighters on Friday (click here) were able to keep a slowly advancing wildfire away from the most famous grove of giant sequoia trees at Sequoia National Park, the Giant Forest, which is home to five of the world’s 10 largest trees, including the largest of them all, the General Sherman Tree.

But as fire crews and park lovers focused attention on that iconic area — where some of the massive trees had been wrapped with fireproof aluminum blankets — nearby flames were already burning into different groves of ancient sequoias with trees at least 200 feet tall and 2,000 years old.

One grove on fire 30 miles to the south in Sequoia National Forest, Long Meadow Grove, was visited 21 years ago by former President Bill Clinton when he signed a proclamation establishing Sequoia National Monument at the area’s famous “Trail of 100 Giants.”

“These groves are just as impressive and just as ecologically important to the forest,” said Tim Borden, sequoia restoration and stewardship manager at Save the Redwoods League, a San Francisco environmental group. “They just aren’t as well known. My heart sinks when I think about it.”...

 

The current USA NATIONAL BUDGET has been politically coined as Tax and Spend Democratic priorities that everyone should fear. Really?

Now, we are talking about the budget and the Republicans as Moscow Mitch has stated want to shut down the government because of the PRIORITIES of the $3.5 trillion price tag. It has nothing to do with the cost, but, everything to do with the fact, this budget helps the Middle Class and Poor. That is what Moscow Mitch and his US Senate Republicans are belly aching about. And when Republicans are crying "Tax and Spend Democrats," chick livered Machen does the exact same thing. If Moscow Mitch was on board so would be Manchen.

You understand all this boys and girls. This is not rocket science. This is math. Addition and subtraction, except, for interest rates which does require a different formula.

In fiscal year 2015, (click here) the federal budget is $3.8 trillion. These trillions of dollars make up about 21 percent of the U.S. economy (as measured by Gross Domestic Product, or GDP). It's also about $12,000 for every woman, man and child in the United States.

So where does all that money go?

President Biden's FIRST BUDGET is 0.3 trillion less than Obama's in 2015. And what do we know about the Obama White House and the National DEFICIT? We know that President Obama lowered the NATIONAL DEFICIT every year he was in office after he rescued the USA from the Great Recession.

And where exactly does the money come from?

Now what does that say?

Corporate America? Most of the money comes from corporate America where they are making the billions and trillions, right?

WRONG!

Of the money collected by the IRS, the MAJORITY of the money is from the Middle Class in the way of individual income tax.

$1.48 trillion is from individual income taxes.

Some corporations pay taxes, but, they aren't the biggest of corporations.

$342 billion from corporations .

Now, if the Middle Class and individual income taxes are paying into the USA Treasury, don't you think the people should be benefitting from these taxes? I do.

And if you thought spending under President Obama was high, that ain't nothing compared to the money Repubilcans would spend AFTER they provided the largest tax cut to the wealthy and corporate America in history. They NEVER scaled back the spending, they increased it.

February 12, 2020

President Trump's Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 (click here) budget calls for about $3.2 trillion in net deficit reduction over the next decade by our estimate, including nearly $2 trillion in cuts to discretionary spending. The Administration cites the need to restrain spending as its way to address our unsustainable debt trajectory. Yet, since President Trump's election in 2016, total spending has grown by nearly $800 billion – from $3.85 trillion (20.8 percent of Gross Domestic Product) in 2016 to $4.65 trillion (21.0 percent of GDP) in 2020....

It is all Republican double talk. They say one thing and do another. Republicans lie to the public in their POLITICSPEAK and then stab Americans in the back to carry out the biggest spending programs in history. The reason it goes mostly undetected is because the majority of Americans don't see it. The Republican cronies only see it, so it is very stealthy.

So, when, Moscow Mitch cries and cries about coal and tax and spend Democrats, kindly remember THE TRUTH. Republicans waste money on cronines that Americans never see, yet it is the individual paying the taxes.

Listen closely to Moscow Mitch. He has been saying the same old words over and over.

He and others like him have delayed in every way action by the United States of America to end the use of petroleum industry products and endorse a better and more efficient electric grid and electric cars as well as mass transportation. Just look at the hostility against Amtrak by the Republicans to realize how much they hate the lower Middle Class and Poor.

No one is proposing an energy tax. Moscow Mitch is making OLD arguments that have nothing to do with today's circumstances. An energy tax will result in more cost to consumers and every Democrat knows it. There was a proposal by a group to pay the consumer for the increase in taxes passed on to them.

 

The climate crisis is as bad as it is today because of corporate propaganda that also was used by politicans.

September 18, 2021

By Morgan McFall-Johnsen

Ben Franta (click here) is trying to collect every climate-related ad the oil and gas industry has ever produced.

Franta, who is pursuing a law degree and PhD at Stanford, is among a small cohort of researchers who track fossil-fuel industry propaganda. These historians, social scientists, and activists have documented the extent to which major oil companies knew their products were changing the climate as early as the 1960s, and how they poured tens of millions of dollars into sowing doubt about the science through the 1990s.

"Not to get too tin-hat-y, but once you start to see these ads over and over again, you see the common elements arise," Franta told Insider.

So it was clear to him that around the year 2000, fossil-fuel companies changed marketing tactics. After decades of denial, they pivoted to blaming the climate crisis on you and me....

I am tired of hearing the US Seante bantar around the fact there is a $3.5 trillion budget. 

So, what!

The only reason it is an issue is because Moscow Mitch McConnell is trying to make the OLD argument that Democrats are tax and spend. That is just so old.

 

I don't want to hear it. Women are told all their lives that their bodies are more valuable than any other aspect of life.

This is some of the best Capitalism has to offer.

 "Money" by Cardi B

Look, my bitches all bad, my niggas all real

I ride on his dick, in some big tall heels
Big fat checks, big large bills
Front, I'll flip like ten cartwheels
Cold ass bitch, I give broads chills
Ten different looks and my looks all kill
I kiss him in the mouth, I feel all grills
He eat in the car, that's meals on wheels (woo!)

I was born to flex (yes)
Diamonds on my neck
I like boardin' jets, I like mornin' sex (woo!)
But nothing in this world that I like more than checks (money)
All I really wanna see is the (money)
I don't really need the D, I need the (money)
All a bad bitch need is the (money)
I got bands in the coupe (coupe)
Bustin' out the roof
I got bands in the coupe (coupe)
Touch me, I'll shoot (bow)
Shake a little ass (money)
You get a little bag and take it to the store (store, money)
Get a little cash (money)
You shake it real fast, you get a little more (money)
I got bands in the coupe (coupe)
Bustin' out the roof
I got bands in the coupe (brrr)
Bustin' out the roof (Cardi)

I gotta fly, I need a jet, shit
I need room for my legs
I got a baby, I need some money, yeah
I need cheese for my egg
All y'all bitches in trouble
Bring brass knuckles to the scuffle
I heard that Cardi went pop
Yeah, I did go pop (pop)
That's me bustin' they bubble
I'm Dasani with the drip
Baby mommy with the clip
Walk out Follie's with a bitch
Bring a thottie to the whip
Is she fine or she thick, goddamn
Walkin' past the mirror, ooh
Damn, I'm fine (fine)
Let a bitch try me, boom
Hammer time, uh

I was born to flex (yes)
Diamonds on my neck
I like boardin' jets, I like mornin' sex (woo!)
But nothing in this world that I like more than checks (money)
All I really wanna see is the (money)
I don't really need the D, I need the (money)
All a bad bitch need is the (money)
I got bands in the coupe (coupe)
Bustin' out the roof
I got bands in the coupe (coupe)
Touch me, I'll shoot (bow)
Shake a little ass (money)
You get a little bag and take it to the store (store, money)
Get a little cash (money)
You shake it real fast, you get a little more (money)
I got bands in the coupe (coupe)
Bustin' out the roof
I got bands in the coupe (brrr)
Touch me, I'll shoot (bow)

Bitch, I will pop at your pops (your pops)
Bitch, I will pop on whoever (brrr)
You know who popped the most shit? (Who?)
The people whose shit not together (okay)
You'da bet Cardi a freak (freak)
All my pajamas is leather (Uh)
Bitch, I will black on your ass
Wakanda forever
Sweet like a honey bun, spit like a Tommy gun
Rollie a one of one, come get your mommy some
Cardi at the tip-top, bitch
Kiss the ring and kick rocks, sis (uh)
Jump it down, back it up (ooh, ayy)
Make that nigga put down 2K
I like my niggas dark like D'USSÉ
He gonna eat this ass like soup (ayy)

I was born to flex, diamonds on my neck
I like boardin' jets, I like mornin' sex
But nothing in this world that I like more than Kulture
All I really wanna see is the (money)
I don't really need the D, I need the (money)
All a bad bitch need is the
K, K, C (woo!)

Money
(Money)
(Money)
(Money)
(Money)
(Money)
(Money)

Goldman Sachs farms out their executives for the specific reasons this is happening, to protect what otherwise is unethical practices.

Carlyle?

Really?

May 26, 2021

The energy funds of private equity firm (click here) The Carlyle Group have underperformed the Pitchbook private equity benchmark, and its NGP funds all posted negative returns as of 4Q2020. Carlyle’s extensive exposure to oil and gas assets resulted in losses in 1Q20. For example, Chesapeake Energy filed for bankruptcy shortly after Carlyle dumped its stake after losing most of its value.

 

A Supreme Court Associate Justice cannot say these things for political reasons. He means it.

As of late and with the death of the late Judge Scalia, Justice Clarence Thomas has been speaking out about a number of topics and entering dissenting opinions that are out of the mainstream for him. He and Judge Scalia were in lockstep on most issues and it was Justice Thomas that was always quiet and without question or comment. Since the deaths of Judges Scalia and Ginsberg, Justice Thomas has found his voice and a purpose no one expected. 

It is time for the Legislative Branch to pay attention to the words of people like Justice Thomas and the votes and actions by the Chief Justice and put at least two more Justices on the Supreme Court while beginning to pass an Amendment setting term limits for them.

This is not funny business. Justice Thomas cannot simply make such statements without a sincere commitment to those ideas. His words carry brevity to the concerns of those currently outside the Supreme Court but within his peer group. The time has come to bring about a legislative branch that does the important work of the people.

September 17, 2021

By Bryan Metzger and Oma Seddiq

Justice Clarence Thomas

In rare public remarks, (click here) Justice Clarence Thomas said on Thursday that the Supreme Court "may have become the most dangerous branch" of the federal government.

Clarence warned against "destroying our institutions" and spoke about his experiences with segregation in the South during his youth in a wide-ranging lecture at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana.

During a question-and-answer period, Thomas was asked what threats he foresaw to the autonomy of the judicial system. He responded that judges going "beyond" longstanding limitations had become a grave issue.

"When we do that, and we begin to venture into political, legislative or executive branch lanes and resolving things that are better left to those branches — where people actually have some input and some opportunity to participate in the electoral process as to who those leaders are," Thomas said, "Those of us, particularly in the federal judiciary with lifetime appointments, are asking for trouble."...

It is time to end McConnell's stranglehold on the US Senate. In 2020 the people voted to rid themselves of a wannabe dictator, it is time to finish the job. There is not rampant inflation due to Congress spending. They are raising children out of poverty, there is nothing inflationary about that.

What does exist is greed and it is not necessary or needed. It costs no more to make semi-conductors or cars today than yesterday. The demand is up and the supply is stressed. So, those that have control of the supply chain think it is perfectly alright to increase prices regardless of the fact it costs no more to make them. If this is justified by supply-side economics no one needs it! Americans are emerging out of poverty and with some money in their pockets for the first time in a long time and this is the thanks they get for finally grabbing the brass ring. I DON'T THINK SO!

Inflation and greed are two very different things. If anything there will be a return of the Great Recession where average people owned two to three or more houses. The Great Recession was due to Wall Street and why? Why? It had nothing to do with inflation, it had to do with DEREGULATION. The regulations that were passed into law under Obama were destroyed by Republicans and their President King. 

The budget needs to be passed in it's present form and it needs to be passed now before the people lose every bit of upward movement they gained due to legislation insisted upon by the Democrats.

September 16, 2021

By Kevin Freking and Lisa Mascaro

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin

Washington — The Biden administration (click here) has been enlisting one emissary after another to convince Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell to help raise the federal debt limit.

It’s not working.

Despite the high-level conversations, including a call from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the GOP leader is digging in and playing political hardball. He’s telling all who will listen that it’s up to the Democrats, who have narrow control of Congress, to take the unpopular vote over federal borrowing on their own.

McConnell’s stance is deepening a political standoff and risking turbulence in the financial markets that could ripple into the broader economy. His refusal to rally Republican votes leaves Democrats with only tough choices as they rush to ensure the nation does not default on any of its accumulated debt, which now stands at $28.4 trillion....

There is work to be done and the filibuster is in the way!

This recently came out in the Washington Post about Flint.

September 17, 2021
By Brady Dennis and Brittany Greeson

“Never again can we allow what happened in Flint, Michigan,” (click here) President Biden said on a sweltering Tuesday afternoon this August inside the East Room of the White House.

The admonition came as the president touted a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that had just cleared the U.S. Senate. He spoke of rebuilding the nation’s roads and bridges, boosting public transit and constructing electric vehicle charging stations.

And replacing pipes. Lots of pipes.

The legislation would set aside roughly $55 billion to repair and replace the nation’s aging water and wastewater infrastructure, including funds to eradicate lead pipes that remain buried in communities around the country. “Millions of lead pipes carrying drinking water to our homes and schools and day-care centers — they’re finally going to be replaced,” Biden said.

As he spoke, more than 500 miles to the northwest, Flint was already into its seventh year of wrestling with one of the most disastrous, high-profile water crises in the nation’s history....

The event in the American landscape was a major trauma to many in this country. It was real and happening and it was completely unbelievable that such a necessary commodity as water would become a poison and do such horrendous damage to residents of Flint, including the elderly that died of Legionnaires Disease and children accumulating lead in their bodies.

These issues were ancient. Lead in paint (click here) was tackled in the 1950s and even today is discussed when buildings change hands including and especially renters. And here it was in the very water everyone was drinking. The citizens of Flint were getting sick and no one cared about it. That is simply UNAMERICAN. 

Legionnaires manifested in 1976 (click here) and the country was horrified at the deaths this bacteria caused. To have the nightmare happen all over again was surreal. This was somehow impossible. 

So, the idea this event in Flint, Michigan happened at all left the people there stunned. Then to not have any attention to the cause and the end of such problems is unthinkable. It took an entire year of these people suffering and only then it became an issue to resolve after a Rachel Maddow show segment. I was in the audience and I was like, "What?"

The layers and layers of trauma that exist in a community with a high number of minorities is going to become legendary and will linger for a long, long time. This trauma turned the country into many that questioned if it could happen to them.

September 17, 2021

By Ron Fonger

Flint - A federal judge (click here) wants to know more about a bone-scanning facility that measured the lead in Flint residents’ bodies before making a final decision on whether to approve a historic $641-million civil settlement related to the city’s water crisis.

U.S. District Court Judge Judith Levy ruled Friday, Sept. 17, on a motion filed by Dr. Lawrence Reynolds which asked her to consider new evidence, including a state inspection of the facility that used modified, hand-held bone-scan devices that were never intended to be sold or leased for any diagnostic use, including the measurement of lead in human bones.

Although Levy denied Reynolds’ motion to allow him to file the information in a supplemental brief with the court, she directed Special Master Deborah Greenspan to “obtain and file as part of the record for purposes of the Court’s review of the settlement the complete file of the (Michigan) Occupational Safety & Health Administration inspection of the pertinent facility ... as well as any statements made by (MIOSHA) as soon as they are available.”...

I think the settlement will become void for several reasons, but, this bone scan mess is nothing but pure corruption. The lawyers pulled this boner without any consultation with people's personal physicians as to whether they would be adversely effected by such a scan. Never mind that it is completely ineffective in determining exposure to lead in the human body, this is unauthorized by any authority. It is more of the Michigan law that is of, by, and for the lawyer. The use of such a bone scan without consultation with physicians is endangering people to be exposed to not just lead now, but, some sort of idiotic scan.

I think the people exposed to lead in Flint that underwent this procedure need more than information from Michigan, they should be calling in OSHA to evaluate what occurred here. 

"File a complaint" (click here)

It only takes one complaint about OSHA to respond. It is interesting the judge trusts Michigan agencies to carry out serious evaluations. I don't think any Michigan agency under the direction of the Snyder Administration should be involved in providing factual information to the judge. We already know Snyder's people erased cell phone records and what else did they do. The entire Michigan government structure was scrapped by Snyder's right-hand man and reorganized under one czar. The judge can ask Michigan agencies for information, but, there needs to be a federal review as well that accompanies any Michigan information. My guess is that a federal review of the information will find where Michigan's agencies were tampered with in reviewing this bone scan mess.

Snyder is still whining about the process, yet again. (click here)

Here ya go, People are coming forward already because they are scared for others. Dr. Reynolds is scared for the people. This settlement won't go through. There are too many credible people coming forward to raise concerns.

September 9, 2021

By Ron Fonger

Dr. Lawrence Reynolds of Mott Children's Health Center addresses media on the Flint Water Advisory Task Force final report findings on Wednesday, March 23, 2016 at Mott Community College. The team, appointed by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, reviewed actions regarding water use and testing, and offered recommendations to protect the health and safety of all Michigan residents in the future. 

Flint - Before a federal court judge (click here) decides whether to give her final approval to a $641-million settlement of Flint water crisis lawsuits, a Flint doctor is asking her to consider new evidence about the use of bone scans to determine the levels of lead in city residents’ bodies.

Dr. Lawrence Reynolds, a member of former Gov. Rick Snyder’s Flint Water Advisory Task Force, filed a motion to supplement his previous objections to the settlement with the court on Tuesday, Sept. 7, saying new information about the controversial bone scan program has come to light since his initial filings with the court....

There was so much corruption during the Snyder Administration it overshadows the facts as they occurred. Records were tampered with and we know there was one man as concerned for himself as well as Snyder and he was doing everything he could to remove any evidence of guilt. 

This sort of corruption can be cleaned up when people of conscience come forward to stop it. It will take honest judges to ask the right legal questions when arguments are made to be sure this is an honest record so decisions can go forward, but, it will get cleaned up.

People who have concerns and evidence have to be strong and work past any feelings of fear or inadequacy to make the hearings happen well. It isn't easy being a whistleblower. It isn't easy to have information that needs to be presented. But, at some point, people will feel some degree of purpose and safety and more and more truth will be told. That is the way corruption is defeated. It is replaced with the truth.

I think France's reaction to a deal between three allies is a bit too much. The USA has the right to have allies on it's own terms.

I think France's President Macron did not choose the best path for his complaint. This paper is a bit dated so laws and regulations have certainly changed.

France has a legitimate complaint IF their submarines were to prove to be at least adequate to the 2021 needs of Australia. Important in this exchange of anger by President Macron and his ambassadors to the USA is the question as to what type of fuel do these submarines use? Because if they are less than nuclear powered, France does not have an argument. The Climate Crisis is upon us and to think anything other than nuclear-powered ships and subs are on the seas is contributing to the problem and not resolving it.

Then there is the issue of what exactly is "shared USA technology" mean to these submarines as compared to France's contracted subs. Will the Australian subs be able to act in unison with the USA in this shared capacity, hence, expanding an alliance and enhancing war games in the Indo-Pacific region. 

There is a lot to unpack regarding France's anger with the USA and Australia, including the issue of Brexit and it's impact. There have been shops closing in Europe due to Brexit. So, with all this financial stress on President Macron, this is another straw in the camel's saddlebags.

I am sure President Biden intends to help France in it's distress over a cancelled contract by Australia, but, this extreme measure by France is inappropriate. 

There is one other issue, Angela Merkel is leaving the Chancellor position in Germany. Her party is not doing well in the polls before the election either. So, some of Macron's closest allies are in flux. A lot is going on within these circumstances.

We analyze the optimal design of legal remedies for breach (click here) in the context of international trade agreements. Our formal analysis delivers sharp normative conclusions concerning the appropriate remedy for breach and optimal institutional design in light of features of the underlying economic and contracting environment. And our analysis also delivers novel positive predictions regarding when disputes arise in equilibrium, and how the disputes are resolved....

What a horrible human being. He had no respect for life. He valued his own and no one else.

September 17, 2021
By Jonahtan Bandler

Susan Berman: (click here) her death is a mystery, currently unraveling every Sunday night in the HBO documentary series The Jinx. 

Robert Durst, the estranged heir of one of New York’s wealthiest real estate empires, (click here) was convicted of murder Friday in the execution-style slaying of his best friend more than two decades ago.

Jurors in Los Angeles County Superior Court reached a verdict on their third half-day of deliberations following a four-month trial, finding it was Durst who fatally shot Susan Berman in her Los Angeles home just days before Christmas in 2000. The motive presented by prosecutors was that Durst had to silence Berman because she knew he had killed his wife Kathie in the couple's South Salem cottage in 1982.

Durst was the subject of the six-part HBO documentary “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst,” which aired in early 2015. He was arrested in a New Orleans hotel the night before the final episode, in which he was heard on a hot mic in the bathroom that he had "killed them all." Prosecutors said that was a confession....

Booster shots for the elderly are approved. They should definitely take the booster. I took the booster shot and I am fine. 

September 17, 2021

After hours of discussion (click here) and a request to revise the question they were being asked, a key federal advisory committee on Friday recommended a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine six months after full vaccination for people aged 65 and older and those at high risk of severe COVID-19.

The initial question, posed by Pfizer, would have made the booster available to everyone aged 16 and up.

There isn’t yet sufficient evidence to show boosters for people under 65 are necessary, said members of the Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee.

Those at high risk would include health care workers, first responders and people likely to be exposed to the virus at work, committee members said.

Members said getting it right, and waiting to follow the science, were important factors....