Zorro
Zorro's JournalTensions Deepen Between Donald Trump and R.N.C.
The Republican National Committee had high hopes that Donald J. Trump would deliver a compassionate and measured speech about immigration on Wednesday, and prepared to lavish praise on the candidate on the party’s Twitter account.
So when Mr. Trump instead offered a fiery denunciation of migrant criminals and suggested deporting Hillary Clinton, Reince Priebus, the party chairman, signaled that aides should scrap the plan, and the committee made no statement at all.
The evening tore a painful new wound in Mr. Trump’s relationship with the Republican National Committee, imperiling his most important remaining political alliance.
Mr. Priebus and his organization have been steadfastly supportive of Mr. Trump, defending him in public and spending millions of dollars to aid him. But the collaboration between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Mr. Priebus’s committee has grown strained over the last month, according to six senior Republicans with detailed knowledge of both groups, some of whom asked to speak anonymously for fear of exacerbating tensions.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/03/us/politics/donald-trump-rnc-reince-priebus.html
Flooding of Coast, Caused by Global Warming, Has Already Begun
Huge vertical rulers are sprouting beside low spots in the streets here, so people can judge if the tidal floods that increasingly inundate their roads are too deep to drive through.
Five hundred miles down the Atlantic Coast, the only road to Tybee Island, Ga., is disappearing beneath the sea several times a year, cutting the town off from the mainland.
And another 500 miles on, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., increased tidal flooding is forcing the city to spend millions fixing battered roads and drains — and, at times, to send out giant vacuum trucks to suck saltwater off the streets.
For decades, as the global warming created by human emissions caused land ice to melt and ocean water to expand, scientists warned that the accelerating rise of the sea would eventually imperil the United States’ coastline.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/science/flooding-of-coast-caused-by-global-warming-has-already-begun.html
One of California's best-known Republicans is backing Democrat Loretta Sanchez for Senate.Here's why
Republican Rep. Darrell Issa is supporting his colleague Rep. Loretta Sanchez in this fall’s Senate race, a contest that pits two Democrats against each other and gives GOP voters no obvious choice.
The two appeared together in Issa’s congressional district this week, giving Sanchez an opportunity to publicize her expertise on national defense in a part of the state where she needs to do well with Democrats, Republicans and independents alike if she hopes to overtake her rival, Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris.
For Issa, the bipartisan event may help soften his image as congressional Republican leadership’s attack dog on the Obama administration.
He said that despite their differences on most issues facing the nation, he respects Sanchez’s knowledge of military and world affairs and they both support efforts to keep the country safe.
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-darrell-issa-loretta-sanchez-20160903-snap-story.html
Venezuela's Maduro jeered, dozens detained: activists
Source: Reuters
Venezuelan authorities have arrested more than 30 people on Margarita island for heckling President Nicolas Maduro, activists said on Saturday, in what appeared to be a rare public confrontation with the unpopular leader.
Videos published by activists, purportedly from the Margarita locality of Villa Rosa on Friday night, show scores of people banging pots and pans and jeering the socialist president during a visit to inspect state housing projects.
The display of anger followed a vast march in Caracas on Thursday that opposition leaders say has emboldened Maduro's foes after 17 years of socialist rule in the OPEC nation of 30 million people.
After Maduro left Villa Rosa, a rundown area known in the past as a pro-government stronghold, intelligence agents moved in, opposition and rights campaigners said.
Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/venezuelas-maduro-jeered-dozens-detained-activists-174038323.html
The hunt for Planet Nine reveals some strange, far-out objects
Astronomers hunting for Planet Nine have found some 50 new objects lying beyond the orbit of Neptune – including a few that may help them track down this elusive, distant world.
The new discoveries, described in a paper accepted to the Astronomical Journal, mark another step toward finding this mysterious giant planet, which could help rewrite our understanding of our own solar system.
In 2014, astronomers Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science and Chadwick Trujillo of Northern Arizona University announced that they’d found an object with the most distant orbit ever observed in the solar system – a possible dwarf planet called 2012 VP113 that lay far beyond Pluto.
2012 VP113 (nicknamed “Biden”) was a baffling object, because its orbit placed it in what was thought to be a no man’s land between the Kuiper belt (the icy ring of distant debris whose largest member is Pluto) and the Oort cloud, a far-out, spherical shell of debris that scientists think surrounds the solar system.
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-planet-nine-objects-snap-story.html
Juno reveals that Jupiter's north pole is 'like nothing we have seen or imagined'
Source: LA Times
Seen from a different angle, Jupiter looks like a whole new world.
After flying within about 2,500 miles of the gas giant’s cloud tops on Aug. 27, NASA’s Juno spacecraft has sent home unprecedented images of the planet’s north pole, revealing a stormy fluid-scape that looks as if it could be from a totally different planet.
Last week’s flyby was the spacecraft’s first such pass with all its science instruments turned on, as well as the closest of the 36 orbital flybys that the spacecraft is set to make during its mission. While Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system by far, there’s surprisingly little known about its polar regions — and so Juno’s close-up camera work was bound to deliver a few surprises.
As the JunoCam imager revealed, Jupiter’s north pole is bluer than better-known areas of the planet, which are often dominated by red-brown hues. Gone are those iconic bands of light and dark; in their place, a whole lot of storms.
Read more: http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-jupiter-north-pole-20160902-snap-story.html
MEXICAN PRESIDENT SAYS HE MADE TRUMP PAY FOR LUNCH
MEXICO CITY (The Borowitz Report)—The war of words between Donald J. Trump and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto continued on Thursday as Peña Nieto vehemently asserted that he made the Republican Presidential nominee pay for lunch during his visit to Mexico City.
“As soon as we sat down to order, I made it very clear that I had no intention of paying for lunch,” Peña Nieto said. “And when the check arrived, I made absolutely no move to pick it up.”
To support his claim, Peña Nieto tweeted out a photo of himself seated at a table with an aggrieved-looking Trump, who appears to be placing an American Express card on top of a restaurant check.
Responding to the Mexican President’s claim, the Trump campaign issued a statement of its own. “As anyone who has read ‘The Art of the Deal’ knows, Donald J. Trump is a master negotiator,” the statement began. “While he did pay for Peña Nieto’s lunch, he extracted a commitment from the Mexican President to pick up the check the next time they go to dinner. It’s a well-established fact that dinner is far, far more expensive than lunch. Yet again, Donald Trump entered into a negotiation and won big.”
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/mexican-president-says-he-made-trump-pay-for-lunch
North Korea executes vice premier for 'disrespect': Seoul
Source: AFP
North Korea has executed a vice premier for showing disrespect during a meeting presided over by leader Kim Jong-Un, South Korea said Wednesday, after reports that he fell asleep.
The regime also banished two other senior officials, Seoul said, the latest in a slew of punishments Kim is believed to have ordered in what analysts say is an attempt to tighten his grip on power.
"Vice premier for education Kim Yong-Jin was executed," Seoul's Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-Hee said at a regular briefing.
Kim was killed by a firing squad in July as "an anti-party, anti-revolutionary agitator," added an official at the ministry, who declined to be named.
Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/north-koreas-top-education-official-executed-seoul-022737788.html
Well, at least this time it was by firing squad and not by anti-aircraft cannon, dynamite sticks, or a pack of ravenous dogs.
OBAMA PAYS MEXICO FIVE BILLION DOLLARS TO KEEP DONALD TRUMP
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—President Barack Obama defended his decision on Wednesday to issue a payment of five billion dollars to Mexico to compel that nation to retain custody of Donald J. Trump.
The payment, which will be delivered to the Mexican government in hard American currency by Wednesday afternoon, will insure that Trump will remain in Mexico for the rest of his natural life.
“I have been assured by the government of Mexico that Mr. Trump will be well taken care of and, if he proves to be a productive member of their society, will be provided a pathway to Mexican citizenship,” Obama said.
While the transfer of funds to Mexico sparked howls of protest from some Trump supporters, it was hailed by congressional Democrats, as well as by over a hundred Republicans currently running for reëlection, including Arizona Senator John McCain.
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/obama-pays-mexico-five-billion-dollars-to-keep-donald-trump
If Tesla Model 3 Delivers, “Gas Vehicles Are History”: Gas & Auto Services Dealers Of America Exec
No doubt about it, many of us EV enthusiasts have been blown away by the Tesla Model 3 and believe it’s the car that is really going to break the gasoline auto industry’s back. But we’re just EV enthusiasts, right? Treehuggers, tech heads, climate alarmists, and people obsessed with breathing clean air — that’s who we are, right?
Okay, we can throw in gearheads now too, since electric cars absolutely crush gasmobiles in acceleration and many a gearhead is now in love with them. And I guess we can throw in anybody who loves scaring the crap out of their passengers as they skillfully effortlessly step on the pedal without notice and with full force.
But, again, this is still just a niche portion of society. Maybe we’re all just crazy enthusiasts and don’t have a clue what the mass market wants.
In a new Wall Street Journal article, however, a striking quotation jumped out at CleanTechnica reader Karl Graves, who highlighted it and passed it on to me. Maybe it didn’t come from Grandma Gretchen, but it did come from the executive director of Gasoline & Automotive Services Dealers of America, Mike Fox. Here’s the beauty (which is a mix of paraphrasing from author Chris Mims and the straight words of Mike Fox): “If Tesla can deliver on its current promises with the Model 3, says Mr. Fox, ‘gas vehicles are history—it’s horse and buggy days.’
https://cleantechnica.com/2016/08/29/tesla-model-3-delivers-gas-vehicles-history-gasoline-automotive-services-dealers-america-exec-says/
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