August 19, 2017

Heartless, disgusting, unnecessary

Along with this:

400,000 Coyotes Are Killed in the U.S. Each Year… The Reason Why Will Make You Livid

http://blog.therainforestsite.com/killing-coyotes/

August 9, 2017

Restoring Land for Native Plants, Bees and Streams

Elevation and topographical changes aside, reclaimed mountaintop removal sites look nothing like what was there before. Natural forests are gone, replaced mostly by grasslands and non-native vegetation. While these plants grow quickly and help stabilize the land that was stripped bare and compacted during the mining and reclamation process, they don’t provide anything close to the same type of habitat or ecological value of the forests they replace.

A new nonprofit organization, born out of the bankruptcies of Alpha Natural Resources and Patriot Coal, is hoping to bring native forests back to these lands, and restore streams that can support native aquatic life and insects.

“We are planning to restore approximately 250 acres over the next three to four years on unreclaimed mine sites, or sites that have been reclaimed but aren’t successfully growing native forests,” says Mike Becher, an attorney working for Appalachian Headwaters.

Appalachian Headwaters launched last year, funded by bankruptcy settlements with Alpha and Patriot to ensure those companies would live up to their environmental cleanup obligations.

....Workers will plant thousands of trees — 300 to 400 trees per acre, Becher says.
The three nonprofit groups also jointly secured a $1.5 million grant from an Appalachian Regional Commission economic diversity initiative. That grant is funding work to bolster the region’s bee and native plant population.

This project will help train displaced Appalachian miners and other workers as beekeepers and provide financial startup assistance to get them started, as well as processing, marketing and packaging honey and other products. Others will be employed to collect seeds and grow native plants that aren’t available in most regional nurseries.

More...
http://appvoices.org/2017/06/15/appheadwaters/

August 4, 2017

Wow...just wow.

On the other hand, I knew a retired minister who did lose his faith in fairy tales - all of them including the one he made his living from for 40+ years. He admitted to becoming an atheist some years before retiring. Can you imagine! How, I wondered, could he live with his hypocrisy? It was like something from Bill Maher's Religulous movie.

I'm rambling on now...And, forgive me, off the subject of the OP a bit...

Surprisingly he admitted this to hubs and me after only a couple of long visits to our house when he came to pick up his grandson, our son's playmate. This was the early 90's.

Why tell us, we wondered? Was it the fact that we were honest about never attending church and/or the fact that hubs is a physicist? (Well-known that most all of them are atheists.) I susposed he was just playing his hunches.

His honesty was shocking, yet he was quite humble and contrite with us. This was *with us*. He also confessed that he'd never told his family or any church members, not even his wife who later invited me to church! It's hard being an atheist near the thin edge of the RW buybull belt. I can imagine his intellectual loneliness.

August 4, 2017

OMG! Kicked & Recommended.

CHILLING!!

Thanks for linking from the other thread.

Also, for even more background, (which made me wanna shower after reading) is this 2005 Slate article:

Psy-ops propaganda gone mainstream.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/dispatches/2005/09/you_cant_handle_the_truth.html

August 3, 2017

Military generals would invoke the 25th Amendment

And not follow that order - an order which would end in destroying S.K. and parts of Japan. Remember there are ~84,000 Americans stationed in SK and Japan.

Also China wouldn't just sit there. Too dangerous a scenario. The military knows this man is nuts. If they chose ignore his transgender order, I think they'd ignore a call for nuclear war.

July 29, 2017

"EVERYTHING" Putin has been putting off in this conflict, he's now going to do!

WaPo is reporting...

Russia has promised additional retaliatory measures against the new sanctions once they become law, possibly targeting U.S. commercial or trade interests.

“This is a landmark moment,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, a journalist for the newspaper Kommersant who regularly travels with Putin and has interviewed him extensively over the past 17 years. “His patience has seriously run out, and everything that he’s been putting off in this conflict, he’s now going to do.”

...
Among the areas that could be affected are a United Nations vote on new North Korea sanctions and cooperation in Syria.

...
In Syria, the administration is depending on Russia to restrain its allies — the government of President Bashar al-Assad and Iran — from interfering in the campaign against the Islamic State.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/07/28/trump-intends-to-sign-russia-sanctions-bill-white-house-says-it-would-let-congress-block-him-from-easing-sanctions-on-moscow/?utm_term=.7b65f48e9554

This is a stern warning from Putin. He could bring Trump down with blackmail info he has on him but then he'd have to deal with the less pliable Pence. Hmmm.

So, will we or will we not see the peepee tape?

Or Bannon being "a gymnast" as Rachel euphemistically called it. (Sorry, I had to interject that image. )

July 28, 2017

Thanks for the clarification.

As MarketWatch journalist said, "This president is a lazy old man who golfs, watches TV and tweets. That’s about all." And Newsweek: "Trump hast he work ethic of a bored, lazy child." And most everyone on DU knows he's dumb as dirt and doesn't read ANYthing, so I don't think he knew much, including this, because he doesn't care enough to even want to know. He's lived his life in a bubble.

And what intelligent person would do business with a ruthless dictator? Trump might have to watch his back after leaving the WH because he cannot deliver for his boss.

I also thought: 1) you might be implying that Trump had the unused power to do something about this report OR 2) that you were making a funny, cliched joke.

My apologies for being dumb. Not the first time. And, btw, I was NOT trying to be offensive.

Bye now.

July 25, 2017

American Pastor: Christian Children Should Be Taught To Be Extremists Like Hitler Youth, ISIS

http://addictinginfo.com/2015/01/31/american-pastor-christian-children-should-be-taught-to-be-extremists-like-hitler-youth-isis/

July 24, 2017

My son was still in grad school and

Without adequate coverage at 26. He could NOT afford his own coverage and we, his parents, would have ended up paying for an individual policy for him without ACA.

BTW, HE PAID his way thru grad school with a teaching assistantship and side tutoring. He had to budget to pay bills and had but tad little coverage with the university policy. During this time he was hospitalized once - Ka-Ching $$$! So, I'm most grateful ACA made BC/BS keep him on our policy.

I'm sure there are other young folks who need help too.

July 21, 2017

How convenient that this info comes out NOW!!

Just when Trump needs another excuse to fire sessions.

Think about it. Even Dana Bash (R- CNN) had the same observation.