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.
Live anthrax shipped via FedEx while porn stars get safety glasses!...
"Cash for Grass" programs spring up across state....
First the former Hewlett Packard chief executive popped up outside the Marriott hotel where Clinton was just about to kick off a campaign event, offering to take questions from the press since Clinton so often won't. Forty-five minutes later and six blocks down the road, there Fiorina was again, bragging to the South Carolina House Republican caucus about what she'd just done as they chewed on grilled chicken at a Hilton hotel luncheon. "I've answered probably 420-plus questions on the record about everything, from, 'Is a hot dog a sandwich?' -- I flubbed that one, I will tell you -- to what I would do about ISIS and everything in between," Fiorina said. "And Hillary Clinton has answered maybe 15 questions."
I think a lot of the fire left the Tea Party when it got absorbed by the conventional conflict between lefties and conservatives on social issues. It started out as being about limited government (abolishing the federal reserve, getting the government out of housing, reducing taxes, reducing regulations, abolishing Obamacare) and morphed into being about maintaining or expanding government (border fences and marriage restrictions). The leftist media focused on these last and might have known that it would help diffuse the Tea Party.
Hedy Lamarr was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in Vienna, Austria. After ending an unhappy marriage in 1937, to a wealthy Austrian munitions manufacturer who sold arms to the Nazis, the actress fled to the United States and signed a contract with the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio in Hollywood under the name Hedy Lamarr. She became a big star upon the release of her first American film, Algiers, co-starring Charles Boyer.
Pope's deputy now comments on the need for eco-encyclical...
“I’m here today to say that climate change constitutes a serious threat to global security, an immediate risk to our national security, and – make no mistake – it will impact how our military defends our country,” Obama said. He added that climate change deniers are negligent and derelict in their duties. "And if you see storm clouds gathering or dangerous shoals ahead, you don’t just sit back and do nothing. You take action to protect your ship, to keep your crew safe. Anything less is negligence. It is a dereliction of duty. And so too with climate change. Denying it or refusing to deal with it endangers our national security," he said.For those of you want to endure the entire speech, here is the White House video: There are so many perplexing aspects to these remarks, I hardly know where to begin. Such a great deal of evidence refutes the climate assertions made by environmental activists (including expanding Antarctic glacial levels) that failure to question the premise is a dereliction of common sense.
State and federal officials on Wednesday investigated what caused a 2-foot-diameter underground pipeline to leak thousands of gallons of crude oil that polluted several miles of wildlife-rich beach and ocean along the scenic Santa Barbara coast. Houston-based Plains All American Pipeline said that in a "worst-case scenario," up to 105,000 gallons of oil spilled Tuesday from its ruptured onshore pipeline and that an estimated 21,000 gallons swept down a storm drain that empties into the Pacific. The company said a control room operator noticed "abnormalities" and shut down the pipeline around 11:30 a.m. PT (2:30 p.m. ET). Around the same time, Santa Barbara County firefighters responded to a report of a strong gasoline smell at Refugio State Beach and found oil pouring into the ocean.At this point, the response crews appear to have the situation controlled. This is a real blessing, because there will no replay of the BP oil spill drama that impacted the Gulf Coast and allowed an opportunity for Obama to grandstand. A News Today video summarizes the situation:
Egypt suspended a capital gains tax on Monday, sending shares soaring after a months-long downturn in which investors had complained of a lack of clarity about the new taxes, with some even taking the government to court. Immediately after the announcement, Egypt's EGX 30 index rose 3.3 percent to 8562.07, according to Egypt's official news agency. By late afternoon, shares were up 6.5 percent. President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi approved a law nearly a year ago which placed a 10 percent tax on capital gains, fueling a sell-off by investors in an economy already battered by years of political unrest since the 2011 uprising. The law had been part of a broader government effort to broaden the tax base as it pushed through a host of tough measures, including slashing fuel subsidies, amending the property tax law, imposing a 10 percent tax on stock dividends and allowing the Egyptian pound to devalue somewhat against the dollar.Contrast that with President Obama, who used America's moms as an excuse to propose capital gains tax increases.
In a wide-ranging interview with Vox, Obama discusses his proposal to raise capital gains taxes on couples making more than $500,000 a year to help pay for middle-class tax breaks. The rate would go from 23.8% to 28%. Obama tells Vox’s Ezra Klein the capital-gains proposal “would make a big difference in our capacity to give a tax break to working moms for child care.” And, says Obama: “There’s no evidence that would hurt the incentives of folks at Google or Microsoft or Uber not to invent what they invent or not to provide services they provide.”
Los Angeles became the largest US city to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour on Tuesday, as a wage increase bill passed the city council by a vote of 14-1. It is now up to city attorney Mike Feuer to draft an ordinance to implement the new minimum wage requirements. The ordinance will then return to the council for a final vote before becoming law. Under the proposed legislation, the city’s minimum wage would increase to $10.50 in July 2016, and would increase incrementally every year until it reaches $15 in July 2020. For small businesses with 25 or fewer employees, the wage hike would come on a modified schedule with the incremental increases starting in July 2017 and the minimum wage reaching $15 by July 2021. The current minimum wage in California is $9 an hour and is set to increase to $10 in January 2016. In the past year, two other US cities have approved similar wage increase measures. In June 2014, Seattle moved to increase its minimum wage to $15 by 2017. Last November, San Francisco voted to increase its minimum wage to $15 by 2018.It will be interesting to see the economic fallout from this decision. As many aspiring actors and actresses work fast food jobs and hold entry-level service positions to survive while catching their big break, I would anticipate that Hollywood will be feeling the pinch in a much more limited pool of talent. And that is likely to be only one of many unintended consequences of this vote.
According to Vaticanist Sandro Magister, Pope Francis has decided to postpone the publication of his long-awaited encyclical on the environment. The reason, according to Magister, is that the Pope realized that the document in its current state had no chance of receiving the approval of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith under the leadership of Cardinal Gerhard Müller. If it seems somewhat improper for a Cardinal to be telling a Pope what he can and can't write, don't fret, gentle reader: the text wasn't written by Pope Francis at all.
A worthy question, as I thought progressives would be positively joyful at this point in the "Hope and Change" presidency. However, they seem to be clinging to their bitterness.
Following the social media trail, it turns out that in a piece on Salon.com, author Anne Lamott transforms a happy holiday into a scourge:
California regulators approved sweeping, unprecedented restrictions Tuesday on how people, governments and businesses can use water amid the state’s ongoing drought in the hope of enticing residents to conserve more water. The State Water Resources Control Board approved rules forcing cities to limit watering on public property, encouraging homeowners to let their lawns die and imposing mandatory water-savings targets for hundreds of local agencies and cities that supply water to California customers. Gov. Jerry Brown sought to tighten the already strict regulations, arguing that voluntary conservation efforts have not yielded the water savings needed amid a four-year drought. Brown ordered water agencies to cut urban water use by 25 percent from levels in 2013, the year before the drought emergency was declared.
When political commentators note that there is no justification for sexual violence, they aren’t adhering to doctrinal feminism but the tenets of civilized Western thought. No woman, a responsible citizen would say, invites violence merely because their assailant was uncontrollably stimulated by their victim’s choice of attire. This is such a bedrock principle of human decency that it barely needs to be said. Only the most brutish and crude among us would contend otherwise. Why then does it appear vogue to imply that a terrorist attack on a Texas American Freedom Defense Initiative event organized by the group’s president, Pamela Geller, was the inevitable result of provocation on the part of the victims?ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack, and promises more:
ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack outside a Prophet Mohammed cartoon contest in Texas -- and warned of more attacks to come. In a broadcast on its official radio channel Tuesday, the group said two Al Khilafa soldiers opened fire outside the event in Garland, a Dallas suburb. Al Khilafa is how ISIS refers to its soldiers. The gunmen, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, wounded a security guard before police shot and killed them. The ISIS radio announcer also referred to Simpson and Soofi as the terror group's "brothers." The announcement ended with this warning: "We say to the defenders of the cross, the U.S., that future attacks are going to be harsher and worse. The Islamic State soldiers will inflict harm on you with the grace of God. The future is just around the corner."It turns out that the winner of the "Draw the Prophet" contest, Bosch Fawstin, was previously featured at Legal Insurrection when I covered a special conference organized by conservative talk show host Tammy Bruce:
Crowds clashed with police during May Day marches in several U.S. West Coast cities late on Friday, as officers responded with stun grenades and pepper spray, police and media said. Anti-capitalist protesters hurled wrenches and rocks at officers in Seattle, police said. Demonstrators in Oakland, California, and several other cities, rallied against a series of police killings of unarmed black men, local media reported. Footage on social media showed protesters smashing shop windows in Seattle and crowds scattering as police in riot gear threw in "flashbang" grenades. Demonstrators set fire to garbage and damaged at least two dozen vehicles, police said.The city's top law enforcement officer shared this:
"This is no longer demonstration management, this has turned into a riot" -Captain Chris Fowler. #MayDaySea
— Seattle Police Dept. (@SeattlePD) May 2, 2015
Egypt reportedly is preparing a large-scale ground and air assault along the Libyan border to oust the Islamic State group from eastern Libya. DebkaFile, quoting military and intelligence sources, said naval and marine forces are assembling at Egypt's Mediterranean ports for a possible assault on Derna, the militants' provincial capital. DebkaFile noted the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS, represents an unacceptable threat to Egypt, and President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has been warned extremists already have penetrated some Egyptian towns and military units. ISIS fighters are being smuggled through the Sinai Peninsula and Egypt from Syria and Iraq by drug rings, DebkaFile said.
...The doctor then proceeded to ask..."do you know what your gender identity is?" I looked at the doctor and said, "What are you asking my son?" She proceeded to explain to me that sometimes kids don't know and they like to help explain it to them. My son asked what the doctor was asking him and I said, "She wants to know if you are a boy or a girl?" My son looked at me funny and said, "I'm a boy", with a look of bewilderment on his face. The doctor then proceeded to ask if my 11 year old son new what his sexual identity is?" At this point I stopped again and said, "Why are you asking these questions?" The doctor's response was that not all parents have these conversations with their kids, so they want to be the one's to explain it to the kids. Again, my son asked me what the doctor was asking him. I said, "Well, the doctor wants to know if you would prefer to kiss boys or girls." My son had a look of disgust on his face and said, "A girl, of course".
