The Joel Osteen find is interesting, but, was there an insurance claim made when the $300,000 went missing?

Then the monies are found on site of the church. That is a lot to explain to the law and insurance company. So, the church isn't say a word because it is busy assessing it's legal status. 

Realizing the income of the Osteen Megachurch collects $600,000 per weekend he was eligible for a PPP loan. Amazing. $4.4 million PPP.

December 19, 2021
By Mary Claire Patton

Joel Osteen, (click here) the pastor at Lakewood Church in Houston, has come under fire in recent days after Houston Chronicle reported that the megachurch received $4.4 million in PPP loans from the Small Business Administration (SBA).

Federal Paycheck Protection Program Loan data provided by the Small Business Administration (SBA) indicates that the loan given to Lakewood Church is the third-largest for any Houston-area business or nonprofit.

The data shows that Lakewood Church applied for the loan on July 21 and that 368 jobs would be affected by the loan.

At least one of the criteria of eligibility for a PPP loan is that an entity must have “500 or fewer employees whose principal place of residence is in the United States or are a business that operates in a certain industry and meet the applicable SBA employee-based size standards for that industry,” according to the Federal Register....

The Olympic Boycott is correct. China is not trustworthy with athletes.

China has stated it will make the USA pay. No doubt, either economically or militarily.

The economic anctions that China would institute are welcome. It will force the USA to FINALLY reclaim it's jobs and infrastructure currently housed in China.

If the issue is military aggression, it will most likely be an uptick of violence placed on Taiwan. If that is the case, then Taiwan is well protected and the USA is not that far away.

No matter how one looks at the "you will pay" attitude the USA is prepared and will recapture many more jobs returned to its economy.

If a nuclear holocaust is what China has in mind, the USA is ready to carry out what is necessary then as well, aggression against USA satellites or not.

December 7, 2021
By Patrick Smith 

China has told the United States (click here) it will "pay" for its diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics on human rights grounds.

The White House on Monday announced it would not send any government officials to the Games in February 2022, due to "ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses."

This prompted a stern response from Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian, who told a press conference Tuesday: "The U.S. will pay for its wrongdoing. You can wait and see."

Zhao accused the U.S. of hypocrisy and called Western allegations of a cultural genocide of Uyghur Muslims a "fabricated" lie.

"The U.S. side attempts to disrupt the Beijing Winter Olympics," he said....

The Five Crackpot Judges

 If one listens to the recording of the Supreme Court regarding Roe v. Wade and Casey, the right wing judges are basing their decision in hypotheticals. Barrett in particular wanted the lawyers in defense of Roe v. Wade to think about a town that only practices one amendment or another as their town charter, and she thens go on to make her decision based on a "hypothetical town. " That, no matter which way it is presented is gross malpractice by an Associate Justice. She is willfully removing fact and reality to replace it with hypothecials in order to restructure the USA Constitution.

How many lawsuits since Ferguson? There are no real reasons for police to stop their use of force. They don't pay the lawsuits.

Cops aren't sued, cities are. It is time to raise the taxes in Santa Clara. How many times can a city sustain these lawsuits? 

December 6, 2021
By Robert Salonga

Santa Clara — A federal jury (click here) has ordered the city of Santa Clara to pay $500,000 to a man who was shot and wounded by police during a traffic stop four years ago, after finding that an officer used excessive force when he opened fire, according to court records and attorneys.

The Dec. 2 civil verdict determined that Santa Clara Police Officer Jordan Fachko was liable for excessive and unreasonable force and negligence during the Oct. 21, 2017 confrontation with a then-24-year-old Omar Gomez. In doing so, jurors apparently rejected the claim by Fachko that Gomez was trying to run him over.

San Jose-based attorney Jaime Leaños, who represented Gomez in the federal civil rights lawsuit, contends that ballistics evidence showing that Fachko fired through the driver’s side window of Gomez’s car helped convince jurors that the officer was out of the car’s path....

19 years old and never knew what the world was about. I doubt Mark Zuckerberg knows much about it yet.

 It wasn't enough to reek havoc and destabilization in the largest democracy in the world, he had to carry out genocide. Where is his next stop, The Hague? It must have been one of those crazy algorithms gone wrong again.

6 December 2021
By Dan Milmo

Military (click here) necessity would never justify killing indiscriminately, gang raping women, assaulting children, and burning entire villages,’ states the report

 

Facebook’s negligence facilitated the genocide (click here) of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar after the social media network’s algorithms amplified hate speech and the platform failed to take down inflammatory posts, according to legal action launched in the US and the UK.

The platform faces compensation claims worth more than £150bn under the coordinated move on both sides of the Atlantic.

A class action complaint lodged with the northern district court in San Francisco says Facebook was “willing to trade the lives of the Rohingya people for better market penetration in a small country in south-east Asia.”...

The politics within that country is tough, too. Militarized state and opposition leaders are always threatened in one way or another.

December 6, 2021
By Helen Regan

Myanmar's deposed civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, (click here) faces two years in jail after her sentence was halved by the country's military, state media MRTV reported on Monday.

Earlier in the day, Suu Kyi was sentenced to four years in prison on charges of incitement and breaking Covid-19 rules, in the first verdict against the Nobel Peace Prize winner since the military seized power in February.

Suu Kyi, 76, was Myanmar's state counselor and de facto leader of the country before she was ousted and detained by the military 10 months ago and hit with almost a dozen charges that add up to combined maximum sentences of more than 100 years.

They include several charges of corruption -- which each carry a maximum prison sentence of 15 years -- violating Covid-19 pandemic restrictions during the 2020 election campaign, incitement, illegally importing and possessing walkie talkies, and breaking the colonial-era Official Secrets Act -- which carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison....

She actually argued before The Hague for her country. It wasn't compassionate or factual to the very genocide the Myanmar military carried out. She was not directly responsible for the genocide. She had no control of the mlitary and much of her statements at The Hague were political. It is impossible to lead a country without the support of the military.

December 11, 2019
By Marlise Simons and Hannah Beech

...Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi (click here) did not directly address the atrocities by Myanmar’s military and associated mobs that were described the day before — summary killings, babies thrown to their deaths, mass rapes, whole villages burned to cinders — all amply documented by the United Nations and human rights groups. Thousands of Rohingya have been killed and three quarters of a million driven into a squalid exile in neighboring Bangladesh....

How did this peace icon end up at a genocide trial? (click here)

The Senate is going to pass a bill…

 …to end vaccine mandates? It isn’t constitutional. States Rights.

NORAD is live.

 Norad tracking for Santa (click here)

Be sure and do a test run before Christmas Eve.

"Good Night, Moon"

The waxing crescent

2.2 days old

5.2 percent lit

December 4, 2021
By Elizabeth Howell

The only total (click here) solar eclipse of 2021 took place under especially isolated circumstances today, sweeping over sparsely populated Antarctica and surrounding areas to create a spectacular sight visible to only a few dedicated eclipse chasers in its path..

The partial phase of the solar eclipse began Saturday (Dec. 4) at 2 a.m. EST (0700 GMT), and included less than two minutes of totality at 2:44 a.m. EST (0744 GMT), before ending at 3:06 a.m. (0806 GMT), according to NASA. The space agency broadcast live views of the eclipse as seen by scientists Theo Boris and Christian Lockwood of the JM Pasachoff Antarctic Expedition from their observing point in Union Glacier, Antarctica. You can see amazing photos of the total solar eclipse from Antarctica here...

How often does anyone think about their planet?

The reality of the climate crisis is so important that everyone should be getting a daily dose of the health of the planet. This was the recent drought monitor. Oregon is the upper left corner of the map just below Washington State.

The map below outlines glaciers in Oregon that deliver snow melt to the people for their water supply. That means if the drought persists there will be less and less "recharge" to those glaciers. Glacial recharge is necessary to grow the glacier and guarantee icemelt.

"Recharge of a glacier" is when snow falls on the top of the glacier and over time it becomes denser and denser because of pressure from more snowfall and changes to ice. We see snow change to ice even in day to day living on sidewalks that make walking hazardous at times. That is the process the people of Oregon value to insure their water supply.

Now, while all that is, "hm, interesting," it is more than an interest the people of Oregon pay to such dynamics as drought and the amount of snowfall on the mountains. The point is that the climate crisis means different things to different people and it is vital to realize if one's life does not revolve around survival based on water availability, maybe it is important that one thinks exactly that way with Earth in the balance.

Young people have it right. This is serious. It is very serious. I have spend the better part of nearly a decade stating exactly that and it is imperitive we get it right.

The challeges that will be presented to the USA as well as every other country on Earth is not yet revealed, but, it is daughting. Water is at a premium everywhere. More places are warmer and dryer than before.

This map (click here) to the left is an interactive by NASA. It is about snowcover. It just picked a random day, Novemeber 06, 2021 so the arrow at the bottom could be seen.

It is an easy map to understand and manipulate once eyes are used to looking at it. To the left of that chart is a measure of snow cover. The pinker the region the more the snow. 

There are arrows at the bottom all the way to the left. They are easy to change, but, the difference in ONE DAY on multiple years is really what is important about this map. The change in snow cover, again the pink, in just ten years is remarkable. We are losing our snow cover. Just click the arrow in the bottom left corner to change the year while leaving the day an month in place. It is down right scary to look at the loss of snowfall even over ten years. 

Everyone should be thinking about this. The white swirly stuff are clouds. It is interesting to look at the quality of the clouds as well. We have to get this right in drastic ways. We no longer have time to think about this and debate it. It is time to move to the future that is completely benevolent to Earth. Every person on Earth has to realize, this is it. We need Earth and in a very symbiotic way, it needs us to behave and allow it to be benevolent. This is not a Sci-Fi Flick. It is real and we cannot afford to wait any longer. The current administration and majority Congress have this mostly correct. They are absolutely correct when it comes to spending to change the way we live our lives to be more harmonious with Earth. It is now and it is a must.

Please, don't let the young people down. They need us more than ever to make the right decisions and move as quickly as possible.

Oh, the black lines? That is just so the map can lie flat and still be accurate.

Thank you for your interest.

Glaciers were lost in the USA as well as Greenland.

November 7, 2021

Oregon glacier or should I state it was an Oregon glacier.

The year 2021 (click here) will likely be one of the worst for glaciers in southern British Columbia, Alberta, Washington and Montana.

It started out OK. A weak La Niña arrived in the fall of 2020 and continued through the winter. La Niñas tend to favour cool conditions and ample snowfall, so the winter of 2020-21 wasn’t bad for glaciers. But what followed was.

In late June, the so-called heat dome settled over the west, creating exceptional warming that melted snow cover on the glaciers and exposed ice in a matter of days. The timing was especially bad, as it coincided with days when energy from sunlight is at its maximum.

The hot weather also helped spark wildfires in British Columbia, Oregon and California that spread through the mountains. When soot, dust and debris from wildfires settle on snow and ice, it darkens the surface, causing them to absorb more solar energy and melt more....

June 9, 2021
By Nicole Vulcan

Late in the summer of 2020, (click here) a team of glacier experts, including Anders Carlson and Aaron Hartz, discovered a new glacier on South Sister in the Oregon Cascades. Finding a new glacier in Norway is no big deal, says Carlson, an Oregonian and the president of Oregon Glaciers Institute—but finding one in the Oregon Cascades is noteworthy. To Carlson, it's a sign of how little time we spend investigating our own backyard....

From NASA. To work the multimedia go to the article. Thank you.

Change is constant and common on Earth (click here) across geologic time. But in the icy polar regions, change has been dramatic and swift in the past few decades. One example is northwest Greenland, where quite a lot has changed in 21 years.

The image pair above shows part of Greenland along Melville Bay (a sub-section of Baffin Bay) on September 3, 2000, and September 21, 2021. The images were acquired with the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) on Landsat 7 and the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8, respectively. (Note that Earth Observatory originally published a version of the 2000 image in false color. Both images above are natural color and show a slightly wider view.)

The images show a 80-kilometer (50-mile) stretch of coastline. Like so many places around the edges of Greenland, a series of glaciers here carry ice from the island’s interior toward the coast and onto the ocean. Most of these marine-terminating glaciers are retreating. Kjer and Hayes—the two main outlet glaciers shown above—are also speeding up.

Notice that in 2000, Kjer Glacier abutted a few rocky outcrops. These rocks helped buttress the ice and slowed its oceanward flow. Then sometime in 2012, the glacier’s floating ice shelf disintegrated. The rocks became free-standing islands, surrounded in the 2021 image by open water and a mixture of sea ice and icebergs, or mélange. Having lost contact with the rocks, the glacier’s inland ice can flow even more rapidly toward the ocean.

According to Alex Gardner, a snow and ice scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, data from the NASA MEaSUREs project ITS_LIVE show that one year before the ice shelf’s breakup, the glacier flowed at an average speed of 1,200 meters per year. By 2018, the glacier’s average speed was more than 4,000 meters per year....

This is just plain wrong. Since the beginning, the policy has been "If you or your child is ill, stay home."

There should be fines for parents that use the schools as daycare and send their children to school while COVID-19 positive. Just like a traffic fine.

December 4, 2021

Eight children contracted COVID-19 and 75 (click here) were quarantined after a family knowingly sent their infected child to a Marin County school after they were told to keep their children home, officials said Friday.

The parents, who have not been identified, were notified the week of Nov. 8 by the Marin County Health and Human Services Department that one of their two children had tested positive, said Brett Geithman, superintendent of the Larkspur-Corte Madera School District.

Both the siblings are students at Neil Cummins Elementary School in Corte Madera.

The parents were specifically told to keep both children home and to notify the school, Geithman said. Instead, they notified no one and sent their children to school for seven more days, and they did not return multiple calls from public health contact tracers, he said....

Sorry to hear of his death. Very sad. He was a great advocate for the handicapped.

It is called a rape kit.

These are American women. They are not sex objects. They are not bad girls. They are women with minds that can be reasoned with and deserve respect when they report sexual assault and abuse at the hand of correction officers. If a woman incarcerated complains of sexual abuse or assault and there is any chance there was forced intercourse, the rape kits are completed while the correctional officer is given paid time off.

Women in prison practice their beliefs just as anyone else does. There are innumberable reasons why women find themselves in prison, that doesn't mean they have given up the belief in God or any other practice they have to cope with life.

A woman leaving jail or prison should be proud of herself for sustaining the time and planning to be a better citizen with opportunity to renew that belief everyday. 

Family members need respect as well. If family brings complaints they should be taken seriously and acted on. Not every complaint will be correct, valid or measurable, but, they should be taken seriously. There is nothing more powerful to end complaints than to act on them. If inmates are to be lawful, the people surrounding their incarceration should be lawful.

December 5, 2021
By Mike Carter

This story includes descriptions of sexual assault and suicide. (click here)

Everyone, even her mother, thought 23-year-old Kimberly Bender would be safe in the Forks City Jail, away and protected from the drugs and past abuse that haunted her and fed her depression.

It turned out that everyone was wrong.

Bender, a single mother and member of the Quileute Tribe, died by suicide in her jail cell in December 2019, apparently after enduring weeks of torment and abuse at the hands of a corrections officer with an extensive history of abusive behavior, racism and sexual abuse aimed at men and women behind bars and co-workers alike.

Police and hospital records note that Bender complained, saying she was afraid to even go to the bathroom while the guard was working, and that he’d come into her cell at night to whisper lewd comments.

Investigators who interviewed Bender believed her story, but the Forks police chief and jail officials said they were “unable to substantiate” her allegations even as they terminated the guard, John Russell Gray. He then returned to a job as a correctional officer for the state Department of Corrections....

Every state in the country should be doing this. MAIL THE TEST TO THE PEOPLE! Save them $14.00 at Walmart!

Sending them the test is best, but, there is another way. Mail the coupons, enough for the family, to the house. Make the test free and let the people purchase their own test on the government. It is that important.

November 29, 2021
By Nik DeCosta-Klipa

InteliSwab™ (click here) COVID-19 Rapid Antigen Test

New Hampshire (click here) began offering to send free, rapid COVID-19 tests to the homes of its residents on Monday. Countries like the United Kingdom have been doing it for months.

So why isn’t Massachusetts?

Gov. Charlie Baker says there simply aren’t enough testing kits — an issue he blames on the federal government’s approach to the easy-to-use, self tests.

Others say the reason is a lack of political impetus.

While the Baker administration has purchased loads of rapid COVID-19 tests for schools, prisons, and nursing homes, the self-administered kits — which return results in as quick as 15 minutes — can be elusive and relatively expensive for the typical resident....

Surfs Up. That will be heard more and more in the years to come.

This article in the New York Times is my pet pevee. The people with lawyers get the money. Everyone that needs funding to improve their circumstances need to band together and hire a lawyer to bring home the money from Washington, DC. Seriously. Communities can form coalitions, cooperatives or solicit unions to prepare proposals to improve their part of the world.

That is an incredible picture. I am guessing it was done with a drone. Amazing photo. Those circular things in the picture at water's edge are sand bags. North Carolina is famous for them.

So, be a Gerry McQuire, and "Show me the money!"

Attitude! Get attitude!

December 3, 2021
By Christopher Flavelle

Homes in Buxton, N.C., threatened by beach erosion this year.Credit...

Washington - The new infrastructure law (click here) signed by President Biden includes almost $50 billion to protect communities against climate change, the largest such investment in United States history and a recognition that the effects of warming are outpacing America’s ability to cope.

Mr. Biden has insisted that at least 40 percent of the benefits of federal climate spending will reach underserved places, which tend to be low income, rural, communities of color, or some combination of the three.

But historically, it is wealthier, white communities — with both high property values and the resources to apply to competitive programs — that receive the bulk of federal grants. And policy experts say it’s unclear whether, and how quickly, federal bureaucracy can level the playing field.

“These tensions have to be squarely faced,” said Xavier de Souza Briggs, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who volunteered on Mr. Biden’s transition team. The White House “is trying to transform some of these deep structures of government that have needed attention for a long, long time,” he said....

This is not a close up of the picture above, this is Top Sail Beach, NC.

The northeast end (click here) of Topsail Reef Building 1 looking toward the northeast.

When sandbags are put in place that means the structures are already flooded but they don't know it yet.

Thought it was worth a look at tonight. It isn't really looking good, is it? The majority of the country is dry or getting that way.

Current drought map (click here) Even Hawaii where the blizzard hit isn't wet enough.
 

Party line vote? Unethical and not sound governance.

To the left are the US Representatives from Alabama. (click here) When they saw the "Build Back Better" legislation coming through they should have backed it 100 percent. Why? Because they should have been lobbying the Speaker to bring a good protion of that money to their state to protect and perserve that river delta. Why?? BECAUSE IT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO. While they can bring Alabama state of the art wind mills and solar panels, they can also bring a conservation effort to change the course of the dangerous coal ash sitting there waiting to destroy some of the most precious land area in Alabama. They should have done it for the people of Alabama, but, also the country because Americans like being proud of their country and it's beauty. We can call this river race an economy all we want to help support vital practices in conservation and environment, but, it is more than that, it is also how we regard human health and the beauty we call the USA.

So, is that what happened? No. There was a party line vote because the politics of the USA are divisive and not bipartisan. Are the best people in office? It doesn't look like it to me. There are a bunch of partisans that don't really do any work, except, line up their votes against each other. No one is doing the work of governance.

December 5, 2021
By Isabelle Chapman

A predawn phone call woke Ron Bledsoe (click here) with a jolt. It was his supervisor telling him to come in,

Bledsoe dressed and drove an hour to the power plant, near Kingston, Tennessee, where he worked. He arrived at a shocking sight: A mountain of coal ash covering the road and a set of railroad tracks. It looked like the surface of the moon, he recalled....

...Coal ash, an umbrella term for the residue that’s left over when utilities burn coal, is one of the United States’ largest kinds of industrial waste. It contains metals — such as lead, mercury, chromium, selenium, cadmium and arsenic — that never biodegrade. Studies have shown these contaminants are dangerous to humans and have linked some to cancer, lung disease and birth defects....

...About 400 miles southwest of Kingston, a coal ash lagoon — which holds almost four times as much sludge as what spilled in Tennessee — is sitting in the Mobile–Tensaw Delta, one of the most biodiverse areas of the United States, with flora and fauna not known to exist anywhere else on Earth. Environmentalists, community members and scientists fear the pond could someday unleash a Kingston-like catastrophe on southern Alabama and say leaving the coal ash in the delta is shortsighted and dangerous.

“We’ve got an A-bomb up the river,” John Howard, who lives in Mobile County and said he has been fishing in southern Alabama for decades, said. “It’s just waiting to happen.”...

This is called an economy. It is a leisure economy, but, leisure economies are a good for people. The US Travel Association seems to think Americans should be using all their vacation days every year (click here).

May 14, 2018

By Watt Key

One Saturday in May, a traffic jam of boats converges upon a handful of river camps up in the Mobile Delta for the Poker Run.

The fishing camps that host the Poker Run (click here) are overrun with visitors on the Saturday before Mother’s Day. This particular camp flies the event’s logo, with a High Flying Chickasaw on a banner right under the American flag for all party-goers to see.

At some point, you may have noticed someone in passing wearing a ball cap displaying a hand over a triangle. The hand is closed except for the thumb and pointer finger, which are extended straight out. On one day a year, the Saturday just before Mother’s Day, you can also find several swamp camps, miles deep into the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, flying a flag with the same sign. This hand signal is called the “High Flying Chickasaw, ” and the triangle represents the “Delta.” It’s the logo for the annual High Flying Chickasaw Poker Run, perhaps the most unusual party you’ll ever attend.

Kendall Dexter started the Poker Run in 2010, and it’s been going strong ever since. The event results in the busiest day of the year for the most remote area of Alabama, luring 50 or more boats into the swamps of the Mobile-Tensaw Delta for a day of adventure and socializing with a crowd that is about as diverse as they come. Kendall is one of the owners of Runamuck, a swamp camp four miles north of the Causeway. The Poker Run is his way of showing off an area that’s been special to him since he was a boy....

Party line votes should not occur in a Congress that functions well. It is easy and stupid politics.

November 19, 2021

By Lazaro Gamio and Alicia Parlapiano

...The bill, (click here) which Democrats have been negotiating since the spring and have pared down to secure the votes of their most centrist members, includes roughly $2 trillion in spending increases and tax cuts over 10 years, expected to be largely paid for through tax increases on the wealthy and on corporations.

The only Democrat to vote against the bill was Representative Jared Golden of Maine, who had expressed concerns about the inclusion of a provision that would reduce taxes for high earners in states like New Jersey, New York and California.

The bill now moves to the Senate, where it is expected to change. Some policies may be removed or altered by Democrats in the chamber, and others could change to comply with a review by the Senate parliamentarian....

Basically, a party line vote. There are many issues these days that are party line votes. That is bad governance. There should be something for everyone in these bills and there is. But, trouble with the party line vote is that the politics are toxic to bipartisanship. The politics are practiced everyday in the Congress and it is basically unethical. I am sure if scrutinized, nearly 50 percent of the Congress could be written up on an ethical basis alone.

There is nothing difficult about party line votes. No thinking. No cooperation. No good governance.

Let me show you want I mean in the next entry.

November 19, 2021

By Lazaro Gamio and Alicia Pariapiano

The House of Representatives (click here) approved a sprawling social spending and climate bill on Friday, with all but one Democrat and no Republicans voting in favor....

Sometimes it is good to hear a different voice with similar values.