Primary Manchin

I might add, there are plenty of West Virginians that don't like or approve of the window dressing that earns Shelley Moore Capito (click here) an election.

For the Democrat that is going to primary Joe Machin start now to dispel the lies that support his elections.

The people of West Virginia don't know the truth about the new jobs the Build Back Better bill would bring to West Virginia. They don't know what alternative fuels will do for them? They have children and grandchildren that need to inherit a promising and beautiful future with an Earth that will sustain for millenium.

The people of West Virginia are among the most impoverished in this country and it is a shame that they are and ignorant of the lies that exist to support their political choices. If nothing else a strong, truthful candidacy that seeks out the young people and their families will begin to chip away at the rhetoric that has locked them in servatude all these many decades.

West Virginians are people of conscience and in that they have a right to the truth. 

Every year West Virginia is feed the truth will be a greater and greater success for Democrats and this USA Constitution. The union needs to help to demonstate the LOSS of jobs under Machin and his promise to cronies that ignore the need of the people and the future of their children. I would like to see a union member run to primary Machin and speak the truth to the power of the people of West Virginia.

We can bring the truth to West Virginia, it just has to be done.

Joe Manchin is devoted to the Old World. West Virginia is not moving forward so much as maintaining old paradigms.

I started this entry and was going to post it after Christmas, but, now is a good a time as any.

December 20, 2021
By Jonathan Weisman and Lisa Friedman

Open Secrets (click here)

Washington - Senator Joe Manchin III (click here) on Monday cited a litany of issues that drove him to oppose President Biden’s $2 trillion Build Back Better bill, from Democrats’ refusal to attach work requirements to social benefits to their failure to raise tax rates on the rich. But left almost unsaid was the issue that has always propelled his political career as a Democratic maverick: climate change.

The version of the bill that passed the House last month devoted $555 billion to shifting the nation to renewable sources of energy, such as wind and solar power, and away from fossil fuels like West Virginia coal. Mr. Manchin, who defied gale-force political headwinds in 2010 by running for the Senate on his opposition to President Barack Obama’s climate change legislation, killed a provision in Build Back Better that would have imposed stiff penalties on electric utilities that continued to burn coal and natural gas....

Senator Machin was once governor of West Virginia and it has tainted his ability to place priorities on what is important.

Michael J. Anderson is on the Board of Directors at First Energy in West Virginia. He was also CEO of First Energy before joining the Board (click here). He along with the entire Board of Directors provides Machin with some of his largest donors.

But, that is not all.

I want to portray a state of these magnificent United States that is TRAPPED in the past and never to let go.

The Climate Crisis movement has been an agenda item for a long time. It has been an agenda item for the Democrats from at least 2002-3. I wrote in the "New Source Review" in 2003 that carbon dioxide was a toxic gas when found in large amounts in Earth's troposphere and that Global Warming was real. That leadship after that testimony resulted in the US Senate Chair of the environmental committee to bring about legislation to regulate any effects of carbon dioxide and any other GHG (greenhouse gas) that is forcing change in Earth's climate leading to adverse effects for citizens. The Senator was Barbara Boxer, who we all still miss, but, gave rise to another great Californian, Vice President Harris.

Given that time frame it is easy to say the majority of states in the USA have been moving as they can toward alternative energy sources, such as Solar and Wind. EXCEPT, West Virginia.

US Department of Energy (click here)

c

West Virginia's electricity is 88 percent coal fired plants. Coal is followed by Natural Gas/Methane, Motor Gasolines (it is used to generation electricity), Distilate Fuel Oil ( “distillate fuel oil” includes kerosene, kerosene-type jet fuel, diesel fuels (Diesel Fuels No.1, 2 and 4)). West Virginia hasn't even tried to change it's form of energy supply. I mean, you have got to be kidding me. All these fuels used in West Virginia to produce electricity are high offenders of the Climate Crisis, no exceptions. This state is so backward, it has no forward gear anywhere.

Now, as far as wind energy for West Virginia.

...Annual average wind speeds (click here) around 6.5 meters per second and greater at 80-m height are generally considered to have a resource suitable for wind development....

West Virginia has a corridor of wind that reaches into the 6.5 category. That is the brick and orange category. We all know that transmission lines have to be updated and the Obama Adminstration provided that guidance when he was in office. 

In the topigraphical map below is noted the corridor is the mountain tops. It is easy to say that region is also good for solar. Now, I have been through West Virginia many times and the mountains are signficantly high. Ask any trucker that drives through there on a regular basis. Those mountains also host some of West Virginia's tourist economy. (click here) So, there is always the argument wind mills are unsightly. No more than power lines are and we as a society have accepted their above ground reality for a long time. Power lines also bring electricity to tourists and everyone knows a smart phone is a tourist's best friend for location and safety.

But the lack of will for change is also a moral issue. There are some areas of West Virginia where residents could install solar as a better fuel and sell it any excess back to the grid. But, in all honesty, I don't believe the unsightly issue or private solar panels is the resolve either. I think it is blatant corruption and nothing short of it.

Everyone knows that coal is a huge GHG pollutant. Natural gas is also undesireable but is slightly better than coal in the offense of fossil fuel burning. Ready? I mean like where do you find energy in those mountains except coal? Yes? No.

In 2019, (click here) West Virginia had the third-largest natural gas reserves of any state. It overlies part of the Marcellus Shale area, one of the largest natural gas-producing areas in the nation....

So, I asked myself, where are all the fracking wells? There aren't any that I know of, but, there is a good reason. Everywhere coal exists, coal bed methane exists.

US Geological Survey Report (click here) on coal bed methane in the USA.

There is a problem in West Virginia in that their energy infrastructure is antiquated AND DANGEROUS TO CLIMATE. Better alternatives exist and if West Virginia hired Elon Musk in how to convert energy to GREEN ENERGY for the state he would find a way to bring about a more benevolent energy for West Virginia. Elon Musk is a genius and knows the potential of harnessing energy and has batteries that do the job.

At one point coal was a far cheaper fuel, but, not anymore. Wind is surpassing coal as a far more economical alternative that carries with it morality. If one drives through West Virginia it is difficult to get a radio signal, but, when one finally reaches the in car radio it is usually a program with religious content and that goes for any Rock'n'Roll stations as well. Where is the morality in the energy sector in West Virginia? There isn't any. West Virginia's energy sector is pure unadultered profit driven by cronies to Manchin as old as those mountains. Nothing changes in West Virginia. I mean nothing.

Electricity (click here) routinely flows between the Lower 48 states and, to a lesser extent, between the United States and Canada and Mexico. Electricity generation exceeds electricity consumption in 25 states, and excess electricity is transmitted across state lines—almost 10% of U.S. electricity generation is traded among states. In 2019, California’s net electricity imports were the largest in the country at 70.8 million megawatthours (MWh), or 25% of the state’s total electricity supply. Pennsylvania’s electricity exports were the largest of any state in 2019, at 70.5 million MWh, or 24% of total supply....

The point is there are many, many alternatives for West Virginia to achieve Zero GHG Emissions. There is no excuse for coal fired power plants anymore EXCEPT CORRUPTION. By corruption I mean an unwillingness to change, no matter the reason including crony capitalism.

Cheap costs of living create cheap labor. This is the unwillingness for even governors to change the status quo.

West Virginia is one of the poorest states in this country and the quality of life of residents is far below that of most Americans. There are all kinds of health problems attributed to the coal industry in that state, including exposure of children at school on playgrounds due to wind blown coal dust.

The coal industry DOES NOT support any type of green economy and has been eroding jobs out of the industry as it has become highly mechanized. There are tens of thousands of former coal workers that need retraining and sustainable jobs in West Virginia. The Build Back Better program provides that training and new CLEAN jobs for West Virginia that do not cause health problems. Green jobs do not cause health problems in the workplace and that reduces the cost of health care across the country, including West Virginia.

The Obstructionists in the US Senate are doing it to promote profits for cronies. It is just that simple. The Build Back Better legislation is good for America and will change the danger of GHG to allow a vision for the future of Zero GHG emissions. There is every reason to do this and not one good reason to postpone any of it. 

I thank the United Mine Workers. Magnificent and a strong support of President Joe Biden.

United Mine Workers of America and Who They Represent (click here) West Virginia's Democratic Party needs to "primary" Joe Manchin and provide a strong candidate representing human rights and dignity.

December 20, 2021
By Valerie Volcovici

UMWA and it's' proud history (click here).

Washington - The main union representing U.S. coal miners (click here) urged West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin to reconsider his opposition to the Biden administration's $1.75 trillion climate and social spending bill to preserve measures that would have benefited its members.

United Mine Workers of America International President Cecil Roberts, a long-time ally of Manchin's, said the sweeping bill contained important measures like an extension of funding to aid victims of black lung disease, tax incentives to urge manufacturers to build new factories and employ ex-miners, and protect union workers.

“For those and other reasons, we are disappointed that the bill will not pass. We urge Senator Manchin to revisit his opposition to this legislation and work with his colleagues to pass something that will help keep coal miners working, and have a meaningful impact on our members, their families and their communities," Roberts said on Monday....

How many inmates in jails or prison have been vaccinated with a booster?

May 18, 2021
By Tiana Herring and Emily Widra

Throughout the pandemic, (click here) prisons have been a hotspot for COVID-19, with case rates in prisons between four to five times higher than in the general population. Despite being disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, however, most states did not prioritize incarcerated people in their vaccination plans. As a result, seven months since the first vaccines were distributed, just 55% of people in prison have been vaccinated, leaving them vulnerable to infection.

Using data from the UCLA Law COVID-19 Behind Bars Data Project, The Marshall Project/AP, and other state-specific sources, we calculated the current rate of vaccinations among incarcerated people in 48 state prison systems and the federal Bureau of Prisons. For our measure of vaccination, we counted anyone who had received at least one dose of a vaccine as of May 14, 2021. Our findings are disheartening:

In 17 state prison systems and the Bureau of Prisons, less than half of incarcerated people have received a vaccine.

Vaccination rates are the worst in Utah, South Carolina, and Alabama where 20% or less of the prison population has received the first dose of a vaccine.
And two states – Florida and Wyoming – have not released any vaccination information at all. Their lack of transparency makes it impossible to hold these Departments of Corrections accountable and ensure they are doing all they can to limit the spread of the virus....

People with good intentions were used for their capacity to build a coup against President - Elect Biden.

I think Jennifer said it best, "That is not okay."

The organizers of January 6th bring an interesting perspective to Trump's real intentions for that day. He hijacked the rally to carry out a coup against the newly elected Pesident Biden. That is exactly what it is. It was a coup attempt by Trump. No one else is responsible for the march on the Capital. Trump diverted the "end of presidency" rally and redirected it to carry out a violent coup against the Rule of Law in the USA Constitution.

To the issue of voter fraud and mail-in ballots. The identity question is best to return to an actual signature when entering the ballot station. "Voter ID" is a very bad idea. It allows elections to become places where personal information can be exploited for many other purposes. It is simply wrong to require any person to provide proof of identity when their signature is all that is needed. Year after year in a voter record book the same signature appears when signing in to vote. There is nothing else needed. The other option is a thumb print next to the signature. If ever one runs into inappropriate activity when voting the thumb print may provide insight into who it may be.

But, im all honesty, I think we are seeing nafarious uses of the Voter ID and it's many laws. Now, lawyers are asking judges to release confidential information to a candidates campaign to determine if any of the persons voting were fraudulent. That is simply unrealistic. Voting should not be a burden so much as a responsibility. There should be a day off on election day and everyone should vote.

Occam's Razor. Simplicity is the best answer. 

 

Moderna has come out to state their mRNA vaccine in two does and a booster is effective against the Omicron variant.

December 20, 2021
By John Woolfolk and Harriet Blair Rowan

The fast-spreading COVID-19 omicron variant (click here) has rocketed to dominance over the highly contagious delta strain across much of the U.S., jumping from less than 13% of sequenced cases on Dec. 11 to more than 73% in a week’s time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Monday.

It was unclear how fast omicron has spread in California — the California Department of Public Health had not updated its variant tracking data and had no immediate comment Monday. But the rapid spread across the rest of the country alarmed infectious disease experts.

“Amazing — this is faster than I expected,” said Dr. John Swartzberg, clinical professor emeritus of infectious diseases and vaccinology at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health. “I think this is fair to say: This is explosive.”...

I believe there is a test case in Senators Warren and Booker. (click here) There is no statement as to the variant the two Senators contracted, but, they are ill after being vaccinated and this is the first Level Three Virus that circumvents immunity. So, currently, in looking at Moderna's statement and the two Senators, it is reassuring there is great degree of protection from the variants with a two injection initial shots and a booster. The three shots are providing a really good degree of protection. That is reassuring. We are on the right path with these viruses and there is good news to the efforts by research scientists.

December 20, 2021

Yahoo Finance’s Anjalee Khemlani (click here) explains the latest coronavirus news as Moderna announces the results of its booster vaccine dose against the Omicron variant, COVID-19 cases rise, and Europe braces for lockdowns....

...We've got news out of Moderna saying that their booster shot-- so the half dose compared to the initial course-- is effective against the omicron variant in addition to a full dose suggested as a booster or as an option. They've studied both and have come out with results showing that the half-dose booster is 30-- gives you 37-fold protection against omicron, and a full dose-- that's 100 milligrams-- gives you 83. That's in comparison to Pfizer, which had reported 25-fold increase protection from a booster dose....

.

What the heck?

RUSSIAN OCCUPIED LAND NEEDS TO END!!!!!

...1,500 soldiers (click here) of the Operational Group of Russian Forces in Transnistria (OGRF) are based at the decommissioned Soviet-era ammunition depot at Cobasna, in the unrecognised breakaway state of Transnistria. Located just 2km from the Ukrainian border, this depot is the largest in Eastern Europe with around 22,000 tons of military equipment guarded by the Russian troops. Russophile Transnistria had long been a point of cooperation between Russia and Ukraine, who serve as two of the mediators in the international effort to find a peaceful resolution to its separatism. Now, however, it has the potential to open a fourth front in the looming conflict feared by many observers and civilians....

This cannot be tolerated. These are methods of the old and failed Soviet Union. The occupied land needs to dismantled and returned to sovereign countries. THIS IS AN ILLEGAL OCCUPATION BY THE RUSSIANS. After the failure of the Soviet Union, Putin looked around to preserve mlitary sites whereby Russia could keep munitions and soldiers to assault Europe. This is one of those sites. Basically, Ukraine is surrounded by Russian troops and munitions. The current Ukraine military is not up to the challenge, but, if Russia is going to resist it's occupation of these lands that don't belong to them, then there is going to be conflict. Ukraine is being wittled away at to lessen it's strength and promote invasion.

...called on Russia to “urgently formulate a proposal for resumption of the process of removal and destruction of ammunition from the Cobasna site.”... 

There is nothing new here. Russia is simply the Soviet Union with a smaller foot print. These are all failed Soviet tactics. These soldiers are not protecting Russian sovereign lands. They are deployed to harass Ukraine and prepare for a multi-front war to end the sovereign country of Ukraine. That priority is a direct threat to Europe.

...Chisinau has argued that because Transnistria is internationally recognised as Moldovan territory, the presence of Russian troops there against its political will undermines Moldovan territorial sovereignty. Russia contends that the remaining OGRF troops serve as peacekeepers, authorized by the 1992 ceasefire and will remain until the conflict is resolved....

In 1992, Russia wasn't a threat and their peacekeeping was welcome. Enough of this mess with Russia already. Russia is NOT a reliable peace partner anywhere.

Perhaps the United Nations needs to remove Russia as a country willing to provide peacekeepers. These Russian troops need to leave as they have been completely unable to secure the peace for the region. The West needs to formulate deployments into these Russian occupied areas to bring real peace and not just a faux face of Ukraine invasion plans.

The Biden adminisration should hold a USA Police Summit in 2022. There is a crisis in law enforcement.

"Morning Papers"

The Rooster 

"Okeydoke"

December 19, 2021
By Julius Prodis Sulek

Officer Michael Brown (click here) and his police dog Odin burst into the bedroom with a pack of officers from Richmond’s gang unit, and there he was: the intruder hiding under the bed.

It was around midnight as the swarm of police, guns drawn, crowded into the dark, cramped room to capture the 21-year-old man who had barged into a neighbor’s apartment after police showed up at his home to search for a weapon.

But in the shaky glow of their flashlights, they quickly discovered the suspected gang member wasn’t the only one concealed under the bed.

“Hey, there’s a kid under here!” an officer called out with alarm....

This reminds me of another police incident where a show of unnecessary force lead to the death of James Boyd.

March 16, 2021

By Russel Contreras

Albuquerque - A deadly New Mexico police shooting (click here) that happened a year ago Monday prompted angry protests and a murder investigation into the officers involved.

The fallout from the killing of James Boyd, a mentally ill homeless man, provided an early glimpse of the outrage that would spread across the country in 2014 over what critics decried as heavy-handed law enforcement tactics.

Boyd’s death came amid a wave of police shootings in Albuquerque. Mayor Richard Berry called it a game changer and urged the U.S. Justice Department to finish an investigation into the police department so a federal monitor could be appointed....

The issue regarding police violence within the USA is a two edge sword, in that, officers need options and the law abiding public, including those with mental health problems, need protection from them.

The policing with attack dogs is a worry. Of course, it can be a good tool, but, under what circumstances. I see the use of dogs in the USA as a means of detecting illegal drug activity. But, as a routine form of law enforcement, the question arises, once a dog tastes the blood of humans are they still effective in their purpose?

In an issue (click here) described in "The Mercury News" the police officer lost control of the dog. The dog caught by his harness under a porch was interpreting the struggles of the man in pursuit as aggression and became more aggressive and more injury was inflicted. Dogs don't think in terms of civility or crime, they think in "pack mentality" and protection of the pack, even if that pack is one man and one dog. Should the dog ever be "off leash?"

“I attempted to call K-9 Gunnar to my side several times,” Hodges later wrote in a police report, but the Belgian Malinois (click here) “refused to come off the contact ​​as the suspect was screaming, flailing his arms, agitating K-9 Gunnar.”

In speaking to a guard dog trainer it was stated dogs need to own their aggression to know their capacity. They need to experience their own strength in training to understand they are not in danger when they attack a target or in this case a potential criminal.

Dogs, tasers, guns and flash bangs are not the best domestic tools for a police officer in a country that likes to think of itself as civil. Yet, because of capitalism and consumer choices available in the USA, police officers are sadly outgunned by sincere criminals. It seems to me there needs to be a summit that encompases current police practices with current danger to police on the job and current dangers in those practices.

The issues law enforcement face today also include their top killer, COVID-19 and it's variants.

A summit of police enforcement in the USA could include all these issues. There needs to be a vision of future enforcement that doesn't face gun violence and military style weapons in their work. Some of the reasons for the crisis is the authority each individual officer allows themselves as seen in the murder of George Floyd.

But, the future vision for police officers needs to include a higher level of safety from more than the virus, but, also the chance of meeting a criminal that has more power at the end of a gun than the officer does. The USA needs a new vision of law enforcement and that includes an evaluation of danger within the societies where police do their work. 

Are current measures appropriate and what does a society have to do to end the problems police face? That aspect of SOCIETY RESPONSIBILTY is a huge part of the picture no one ever addresses. Why? Because of the profit margins of all aspects of the USA economy. Economists need to be part of a larger picture to target the violence and keep the benevolence.

The summit will have to encompass every aspect of danger for police officers, what causes it and a PLAN to end that danger to return the USA to PEACE WITHIN IT'S BORDERS.

I do not believe police use grievance processes at all to mayors and council to end violence within the city. They simply take it on the chin and that spawns self-righteous attitudes, bonding and strategies outside the definition of good police work.

The full

15.7 day old moon

99.1 percent lit

The Climate Crisis is causing water shortages, wars and creating refugees.

December 16, 2021

By Ben Adler

A herder guarding his cattle. (click here)

Violent confrontations (click here) over increasingly scarce water in Africa have broken out in northern Cameroon, causing more than 30,000 people to flee into neighboring Chad, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency. Since Sunday, 22 people have been killed and 30 others seriously injured in fighting between fishermen and farmers, which follows an eruption of violence in August, which led to 45 deaths and forced 23,000 Cameroonians to leave their homes.

The root cause, according to the United Nations, is the dramatic decrease of water levels in Lake Chad, which has lost 90 percent of its surface area since 1963 due to overuse and climate change. “The water body is no longer sufficient to meet the demands of the population who need water to carry out their daily activities,” Benjamin Tonga, a campaigns officer at CIVICUS, a global alliance of civil society organizations based in South Africa, told Yahoo News. The dwindling of water resources has led to fighting over what is left.

“The conflict started in August between herders and fishermen, and it’s all about the sharing of resources and especially of water,” Xavier Bourgois, a spokesperson for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Cameroon, told Yahoo News. “What they do in that specific region of Cameroon is fishermen dig holes to do fish farming. As there is a lack of water in this region, the cows are naturally attracted by the water, by these huge holes made by the fishermen. That was the beginning of the conflict.”

The herders raise cattle, and when their livestock are drawn to the muddy, water-filled ditches, they can fall in and drown. So angry herders have attacked farmers to punish them for digging the trenches and to prevent them from making new ones, which in turn leads to reprisals. The fighting that broke out as a result led to the displacement of tens of thousands Cameroonians....

The Arctic regions of Earth are a house of cards. One part fails and it opens entire areas to move into the oceans.

Virtual vs. In-person conferences in regard to sustainability practices.

...a Carbon footprint associated (click here) with transportation for individual participants, indicating that the per pkm carbon footprint for trips primarily by plane (slope of cyan dashed line) tends to be smaller than that for driving (slope of orange dashed line).

b Cumulative carbon footprint for participants with increasing travel distances, showing that 50% of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for all participants’ trips result from long-distance travels with a round-trip distance of over 10,000 km.

c Environmental profiles of the virtual conference and in-person conference with only one hub, suggesting the environmental and energy sustainability of virtual conference in all impact categories. Colors represent different processes within the life cycle stages. Specifically, transitioning from in-person to virtual conferencing reduces the carbon footprint by 94% and cumulative energy demand (CED) by 90%. Among the impact categories at the midpoint level, air transportation dominates fossil depletion, marine eutrophication, natural land transformation, ozone depletion, and photochemical oxidant formation for the 1-hub in-person scenario....

Out with the old, in with the new.

December 19, 2021

By Tristan Baurick

To the left is the New Gas Standard, zero emissions.

Louisiana’s two most populous cities (click here) lost ground this year in an annual ranking of the country's most energy-efficient cities.

New Orleans plummeted 16 spots to 67th place and Baton Rouge slipped three spots to the 100th position, last out of the 100 cities evaluated by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy in its 2021 City Clean Energy Scorecard.

First place went to San Francisco, which made the top spot for the first time since the nonprofit research council began ranking cities in 2013. Rounding out the top 5 cities were Seattle, Washington D.C. and Minneapolis, with Boston and New York tying for fifth place. The top cities in the South were Austin, Texas, at 14th and Atlanta at 15th....

There will be unrest in countries hit hard by the climate crisis.

December 19, 2021
By Golnar Motevalli

Experts (click here) fear a long drought could jeopardise the recovery of Lake Urmia

It was a gushing river (click here) that turned the ancient town of Esfahan into a cultural paragon that twice served as capital of the Persian Empire. But today, as it trickles through Iran, the Zayandeh Rud is a dried up battleground.

Thousands of Iranians flooded the barren riverbed last month to protest against the state’s management of water resources during the worst drought in decades. Social media videos showed baton-wielding security forces step in to quell the crowd, leaving some with bloodied faces, including a middle-aged woman cloaked in a black chador.

This is exactly what the danger is for civilization. People will protest the lack of water and in reaction to the protests there will be government oppression that will result in prison and quite possibly excutions to uphold policy.

Deadly clashes also took place this summer in the province of Khuzestan, 180 miles away, where decades of oil exploitation has drained wetlands and destroyed once-fertile soil.

Iran’s Water Crisis

Shortages have destroyed farms and limited drinking water in affected cities and provinces...

This is the way it works. There will be deluges of rain at one end of a region and drought at the other. It is just as immoral in Iran as anywhere else on Earth to abuse the planet and cause problems that are not easily reversed.

February 25, 2021

By Peter Schwartzstein

It was the slow lengthening (click here) of the boat pier that Solmaz Daryani remembers as the most obvious sign that something was amiss.

Until the late 1990s, her family's hotel stood steps away from Lake Urmia's northern shoreline. Bit by bit, though, the waters began to retreat. At first, her uncle extended the pier 100 metres (330ft) out to facilitate guests' access to his boats. The next year, he built it out twice as far. Eventually, with the lake retreating at record speed, he had to admit defeat.

"At some point he just had to stop extending it. The lake was moving 500 metres [1,640ft] a year," says Daryani, a photographer who has spent much of the past few years documenting what has become of the lake. "Ultimately, people would have had to walk right to the middle."...

This is not a passive observation, it is a WARNING!

12 May 2021
By Damian Carrington

Humanity’s enormous emissions of greenhouse gases (click here) are shrinking the stratosphere, a new study has revealed.

The thickness of the atmospheric layer has contracted by 400 metres since the 1980s, the researchers found, and will thin by about another kilometre by 2080 without major cuts in emissions. The changes have the potential to affect satellite operations, the GPS navigation system and radio communications.

The discovery is the latest to show the profound impact of humans on the planet. In April, scientists showed that the climate crisis had shifted the Earth’s axis as the massive melting of glaciers redistributes weight around the globe.

The stratosphere extends from about 20km to 60km above the Earth’s surface. Below is the troposphere, in which humans live, and here carbon dioxide heats and expands the air. This pushes up the lower boundary of the stratosphere. But, in addition, when CO2 enters the stratosphere it actually cools the air, causing it to contract....

Is the USA legislature going to allow one Senator bought and paid for by Big Oil destroy our home?

Machin is imperiling lives and he does not care. It is incredible to realize that one man so corrupt can actually get away with death of citizens. The dead in Kentucky is still coming in. Currently there is still one person missing.

$577,060 from Big Oil in a quid pro quo relationship opposing all the good measures that President Biden was elected to carry out is at least an ethics issue and the most criminal.

December 19, 2021

By Jennifer Ludden

For months, (click here) West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin has been watering down the climate provisions in the Build Back Better legislation. Now, his final rejection of a stripped down version effectively kills President Biden's ambitious plans to reduce carbon emissions deeply enough to avoid the worst impacts of global warming. But the objections Manchin described to the bill's climate measures are misleading.

Here's what's really going on:
The free market is not moving fast enough to avert climate catastrophe

In a statement explaining his decision Sunday, Manchin said, "The energy transition my colleagues seek is already well underway." He means the transition from fossil fuels to wind, solar and other forms of renewable power. While it's true the U.S. is shifting away from fossil fuels, it's happening far more slowly than climate scientists say is needed to curtail the carbon pollution that is disrupting the climate.

Earlier this year, Manchin's argument that the U.S. should not "pay companies to do what they're already doing" killed off a keystone Build Back Better provision that would have used carrots and sticks — payments and penalties — to push utilities to speed up the shift to renewables, roughly doubling the amount of wind, solar, and other forms of clean energy put on the grid each year....

It is absolutely fascinating to realize people once oppressed and threatened with death can become productive out of that.

Those were just a few famous examples. But, in realizing the tremendous contribution they had to humankind is to realize the very important policies that have been developed and applied in the name of freedom. These people are unmatched in their contributions to The West and it is all because of democracy, compassion, clear decision making and freedom. 

Where would we be without any of them. Their oppressors would never have fostered their genius in the same way it manifested under the protections of freedom and the USA.

As a country in need of a moral compass it is important to reflect on the past and the very solid achievements freedom offers and why we defend the USA, both in war to oppose aggression and in policy that protects us all.

The USA Constitution is a beautiful document. To look at it is most orginary and written on parchment, but, in the Rule of Law and it's consistency in treatment of the human experience in the USA, there is nothing that matches it. The document is a work of genius itself and it has spawned nothing but opportunity and genius in others.

Sigmund Freud was another refugee from Nazi Germany.

March 27, 2020
By Kendra Cherry

Students of psychology (click here) spend a fair amount of time learning about Sigmund Freud's theories. Even people who are relatively unfamiliar with psychology have some awareness of psychoanalysis, the school of thought created by Sigmund Freud.

While you may have some passing knowledge of key concepts in psychoanalysis like the unconscious, fixations, defense mechanisms, and dream symbolism, you might wonder exactly how these ideas fit in together and what influence they really have on contemporary psychologists....

Freud is the father of modern thought. Without his research and practices we would not have modern psychiatry. Much has been added and changed, but, the truth is there that on the shoulders of genius we build our insight.

Born in Vienna, Austria in 1858, (click here) and of Jewish decent, Freud was one of the most influential psychologists of his time, introducing the ideas of unconscious desires, psychosexual-development and dream-analysis. After the rise of the Nazi party and their increasingly hostile attitude towards Jews, Freud was forced to flee to England in 1938 to escape persecution. It was here that he spent the remainder of his life in Hampstead, London.

Whilst the validity of some of his research and methods are today questioned by modern psychological standards, many methods are still widely used across the world. His research has led to many modern therapeutic techniques, and he is often regarded as one of the most famous and influential psychologists in history....

Iman was a refugee from Somalia at a young age as well.

October 8, 2020

Iman (click here) with her famous husband the late David Bowie.

She’s a supermodel, (click here) an activist and an entrepreneur (one of the first to have a makeup line for African-American, Asian, Latina and multi-cultural women), but Iman says at heart, she will always be a refugee: "It never leaves you."

In this week's PEOPLE, the 65 year old style icon tells the story of her family's escape from Somalia in 1972. "My family left in the middle of the night, with just the clothes on our backs, and crossed the border from Somalia to Kenya. My father was a diplomat, and people who worked for the government were being executed or put in jail. I was a 16-year-old who'd never been on her own and never worked. All of a sudden, I was without my family and on my own in a foreign country."...

Albert Einstein was also a refugee from Nazi Germany.

July 24, 2021

Albert Einstein is known as a genius, (click here) physicist and Nobel Laureate. While his theory of relativity changed the world, it wasn’t his only legacy. He was also a refugee and humanitarian, having inspired the founding of the organization that became the International Rescue Committee....

This is some of his biography from the Nobel Prize for Physics.

Albert Einstein (click here) was born at Ulm, in Württemberg, Germany, on March 14, 1879. Six weeks later the family moved to Munich, where he later on began his schooling at the Luitpold Gymnasium. Later, they moved to Italy and Albert continued his education at Aarau, Switzerland and in 1896 he entered the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich to be trained as a teacher in physics and mathematics. In 1901, the year he gained his diploma, he acquired Swiss citizenship and, as he was unable to find a teaching post, he accepted a position as technical assistant in the Swiss Patent Office. In 1905 he obtained his doctor’s degree....