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Author: Leslie Eastman

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Leslie Eastman

I am an Environmental Health and Safety Professional, as well as a science/technical writer for a variety of news and professional publications. I have been a citizen activist since 2009, and am one of the co-founders of the San Diego-based group, Southern California Tax Revolt Coalition.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 31, 2015 18 Comments
As Americans begin counting down to the beginning of 2016, the Transportation Security Agency is beginning its own countdown for its enforcement of Real ID Act Rules. Starting January 10, Alaska, California, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Carolina, and Washington would be out of compliance with requirements for state-issued driver's licenses used as identification at airports. Despite the deep concerns about privacy and fears over potential misuse of the national database that is to be created from information collected during the license compliance process, the TSA is now going to strong-arm states to comply.
...The federal government cannot force states to adopt these identification standards, but it can gain compliance in other ways. In October, it began requiring that visitors to military bases, nuclear plants and federal facilities produce a driver’s license from a state that complies with the law, or show another form of government ID, like a passport.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 30, 2015 13 Comments
The goal of one of the most ponderous pieces of legislation ever to be generated in the Golden State, the Global Warming Solutions Act, was to substantially reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions. Any gains that could be claimed, albeit questionably, from enforcement of this economy-crushing rule have essentially been wiped out by a massive leak of methane. The steady, significant release from an underground gas pipe in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles began in October.
...Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has called the leak an "environmental disaster," and the Los Angeles Unified School District shuttered two area schools for the rest of the year. Politicians and environmentalists in California are particularly sensitive to the toll the leak may take on the environment, especially after Gov. Jerry Brown doubled down earlier this year on the state's efforts to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 30, 2015 6 Comments
2015 will be remembered as a wild year for many reasons, including the weather. While the Eastern part of the country was enjoying record high temperatures, the Great Plains was slammed by "Winter Storm Goliath".
Winter Storm Goliath, the seventh named storm of the 2015-16 season, brought more than three feet of snow and extremely dangerous blizzard conditions to parts of the Southern Plains. New Mexico was under a state of emergency, where the governor called the weather a "dire situation." The panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma were also hammered by this storm, and officials were forced to close Interstate 40, which runs through Amarillo, because of the life-threatening conditions. Major roads were covered in snow, and drifts up to 10 feet were reported.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 25, 2015 12 Comments
While the Christmas seasons is full of traditions that stem from the Victorian era, diseases of this past era are also now returning. England is reporting a rise in illnesses related to malnutrition:
Cases of malnutrition and other “Victorian” diseases are soaring in England, in what campaigners said was a result of cuts to social services and rising food poverty. NHS statistics show that 7,366 people were admitted to hospital with a primary or secondary diagnosis of malnutrition between August 2014 and July this year, compared with 4,883 cases in the same period from 2010 to 2011 – a rise of more than 50 per cent in just four years. Cases of other diseases rife in the Victorian era including scurvy, scarlet fever, cholera and whooping cough have also increased since 2010, although cases of TB, measles, typhoid and rickets have fallen.
While food poverty is one explanation, other factors must include immigration from third world countries and anti-vaccination adherents.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 25, 2015 5 Comments
While the Friday afternoon data dump is a hallmark of the Obama Administration, the release of heavily redacted Benghazi emails from Hillary Clinton on Christmas days scores points for sheer audacity.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Thursday released 16 pages of sensitive documents related to the 2012 Benghazi terror attack. The documents, released ahead of the Christmas holiday, include mostly blacked-out emails and some press clippings about events in Libya after the attack on the U.S. embassy, which left four Americans dead. The event has become a central part of Republican criticism of Hillary Clinton's time as Secretary of State as she runs for president. A few of the heavily redacted emails discuss the drafting of an assessment of the threat level before the attack occurred. Congress had requested the assessment in the months after the attack.
The emails are redacted so much that they are as black as lumps of coal. Via Mediaite:

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 24, 2015 2 Comments
Presidential candidate Donald Trump once briefly owned the Miss Universe pageant, which he purchased after years of owning the Miss USA franchise and turning it around fiscally in his signature style. He sold it as he began seriously pursing the GOP nomination, and the subsequent contest turned out to be historic...for the controversies. In one of the most painful moments ever televised or shared via social media to an international audience, the host named the wrong contestant Miss Universe.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 23, 2015 23 Comments
I was astonished that Hillary Clinton wept as she decried bullying, after Donald Trump's used of the word "schlong". A woman who is seeking the office of "Commander-in-Chief" should really show a little more intestinal fortitude. The act is laughable, because her own use of profanity is so notorious that there are whole books on the subject! A California friend, Bill Monroe, offers this example.
Hillary's vulgar and nasty language is well documented. To directly quote her: 'F**k off! It's enough that I have to see you ****-kickers every day, I'm not going to talk to you too!! Just do your G*damn job and keep your mouth shut.'

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 20, 2015 14 Comments
One of my happiest birthday memories was seeing the original "Star Wars" in 1977, when I turned 15. I fell in love with science fiction that day. So when my son, who is a big fan of both the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises, turned 14 this month, my birthday gift to him was tickets for the earliest showing I could obtain for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The movie was the perfect present, as the stories behind the film and its making involve the struggles of one generation attempting to pass the torch of its values and ideals to the next. And while I didn't experience the same "high" after seeing The Force Awakens as I did with A New Hope, in many ways it was nearly as satisfying. First, a small clip for those few of you who haven't been exposed to the recent spate of "Star Wars" advertising:

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 20, 2015 5 Comments
It was my pleasure to interview Legal Insurrection's cartoonist extraordinaire, Antonio F. Branco, for Canto Talk this week. Antonio shares his journey from proprietor of a graphics art business to Tea Party participant to one of America's leading cartoon panel pundit: "I was a late-comer...I went to a few rallies," said Antonio, describing his entry into political activism. "I just fumed and vented, then I started to draw cartoons." We featured work from Antonio's new book, comically incorrect. Antonio gives us a behind-the-scene view of some of his favorite panels, including one featuring two lobsters and a mention of Glenn Beck.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 18, 2015 4 Comments
Earlier this week we reported that the body of Tashfeen Malik, the female San Bernardino terrorist who slaughtered 14 of her husband's co-workers, was still unclaimed. As I predicted, Malik was buried without fanfare in an Islamic cemetery alongside her murderous spouse:
Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, who opened fire on a San Bernardino holiday party earlier this month, were buried Tuesday in a quiet, graveside funeral. Many of those who attended mosque with the couple refused to attend, two mosque members said. ...The funeral followed traditional Islamic rituals, said an attendee. At a Muslim cemetery hours away from San Bernardino, the bodies were cleansed according to Islamic rules, wrapped in white cloth and buried.
Those attending the funeral at a graveyard some distance from San Bernardino are keeping the location of the burials under wraps, fearing the graves would be desecrated.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 15, 2015 14 Comments
Last week, we reported that one of the San Bernardino killers, Syed Rizwan Farook, had pictures of educational institutions on his camera, indicating that high school and college campuses were potentially being targeted for future terror acts. Tuesday, the entire Los Angeles Unified School District has been shut down because of credible threats involving bombs and packages:
All Los Angeles Unified School District schools were closed Tuesday until further notice after LAUSD received a "credible threat," according to school district officials and police.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 14, 2015 18 Comments
We reported dive crews were searching a lake in San Bernardino for evidence related to the terror attack that left 14 Americans dead. It appears that investigators may have located some:
Divers recovered items from a lake in San Bernardino, Calif., where a couple who killed 14 at a nearby regional center Dec. 2 possibly dumped evidence on the day of their shooting spree, according to various media accounts,

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 13, 2015 19 Comments
The UN Climate Change conference is wrapped up yesterday. After two weeks of world leaders opining mindlessly, protesters heckling speakers, and participants enjoying lavish French cuisine, bureaucrats agreed to squander billions of dollars to solve a non-existent problem.
In a landmark move, 195 nations agreed Saturday evening to adopt an historic pact to halt global warming that for the first time asks all countries to reduce or rein in their greenhouse gas emissions. ...In the “Paris agreement,” countries commit to keeping average global temperatures from rising another degree Celsius (1.8 Fahrenheit) between now and 2100, a key demand of poor countries ravaged by rising sea levels and other effects of climate change. They are also committed to limiting the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by human activity to the same levels that trees, soil and oceans can absorb naturally, beginning at some point between 2050 and 2100.
Yet, this landmark pact has no mechanism to punish countries that don’t or can’t contribute toward that goal.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 11, 2015 17 Comments
Investigations are continuing into the terrorist couple, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, who slaughtered 14 coworkers in San Bernardino and were planning to kill the first responders with explosives. The quest for clues has led to a local lake:
An FBI dive team was searching a lake Thursday near the site of the terror attack in San Bernardino, California -- a spot where investigators were told the shooters spent time. The FBI would not discuss the specific evidence it was looking for, but said it was seeking "anything that had to do" with the shooting. ....The investigators appear to be combing an area near the shallow edge of the lake. The water is so murky that divers cannot actually see through it, so they are largely feeling their way through.
Investigators had received indications through leads that at some point they came to this park, though they didn't specify exactly what was being sought when reporters queried them.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 09, 2015 7 Comments
After the San Bernardino terror attack, California Governor Jerry Brown stopped by the city on his way out the the UN Climate Conference that is continuing this week. Brown, a leading advocate of creating climate change policies that have chilled the economy of the Golden State, was invited to speak. The reception was...unexpected.
Gov. Jerry Brown, at the conclusion of a speech here Tuesday, was heckled by a group of protesters opposed to carbon offset programs they said could hurt indigenous people. Brown, accompanied by several South American governors at a 19th century mansion in Paris, had finished brief remarks urging further efforts to counteract climate change when protesters started yelling, “No REDD.” The acronym is used by The Governors’ Climate and Forest Task Force, of which California is a part, to describe programs to promote reduced emissions from deforestation and land use. California officials have considered ways to link the state’s cap-and-trade program, in which polluters pay to offset carbon emissions, to tropical rainforests in Chiapas, Mexico and Acre, Brazil. Outside the venue, Tom Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network said that such a system could prevent indigenous people from working on their land.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 07, 2015 5 Comments
As San Bernardino families mourned the loss of their loved ones during a terror attack, funeral services were being conducted for an American student killed during the recent Paris massacre:
Funeral services [were] held Friday for Nohemi Gonzalez, the 23-year-old Cal State Long Beach student who was killed in terrorist attacks that killed 129 people in Paris Nov. 13. Gonzalez, of El Monte, died while eating with friends at a popular bistro in Paris called La Belle Equipe. A senior majoring in industrial design, she was one of 17 CSULB students attending Strate College of Design in Paris as part of a semester abroad program. She died in the coordinated attacks that erupted at the cafe, a soccer stadium and, most notably, at the Bataclan theater where a Palm Desert-based band was performing.
The loss of such a young woman, filled with talent and life, is horrific. So, too, is the loss of the 14 Californians at the hands of a couple they had befriended.
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