Father Winter gave Washington a parting gift just days before the first day of Spring. I told this picture with my iPhone in my backyard this morning. Under the snow is my Chicago Bears tree face outside the window in the kitchen.
Continue reading “Washington Hit With Snow Storm Days Before Start Of Spring”
Located in the Chagos Islands, Diego Garcia is one of the most pristine areas of the world. When the British allowed the United States to use the base in the early 1980s, the authorization came with clear environmental controls to prevent the deterioration of the natural surroundings. Four years ago, the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) were declared the world’s largest marine reserve. However, its greatest danger appears to be the United States Navy. For decades, in direct violation of governing standards, the U.S. Navy has dumped hundreds of tons of human waste into the lagoon. In the meantime, while 5000 U.S. service personnel are dumping waste into the waters and coral reefs, Chagossians are being kept from returning to their home because of the delicate environmental conditions of the area.
We have yet another atrocity by religious protesters responding to a rumor that a Hindu had desecrated the Koran. These Muslim protesters than had no qualms over burning down a sacred Hindu temple in protesting a possible act of blasphemy. Last December, we saw a similar riot following a rumor involving a Koran.
Continue reading “Hindu Temple Burned Down After Rumor Of Man Desecrating Koran”
We just saw a lawsuit over the selling of the same amount of beer as a small and a large at Steelhead games. This all-too-familiar scene shows that it is not just beer that is misrepresented in terms of quantity at sporting events.
The cat appears to be saying “I’m shocked, shocked”
by Charlton “Chuck” Stanley, Weekend Contributor
“…to say John Joe Kelly plays the bodhrán, is like saying Mount Everest is a bit of a climb” – Sidmouth Music Festival, Paul Saunders, March ’99
St. Paddy’s day is upon us, and in the spirit of the Emerald Isle, some authentic Irish music is in order. Ireland has a long history of treasuring its poets and musicians. The tambourine was the percussion instrument of choice going back into the dim mists of Irish music history. Sometime about the late 19th or early 20th century, the bodhrán as we know it now came into existence. The first recordings of the bodhrán date to the 1920s. The great Irish composer, Seán Ó Riada (John Reidy) declared the bodhrán to be the native drum of the Celts. He described them as having a musical history predating Christianity, and was a native instrument of southwest Ireland.
John Joe Kelly’s interest in percussion began early. When he was seven, borrowed his older sister’s tin whistles. Unfortunately for the whistles, he used them as drumsticks. He managed to dent them in the process. A friend of the family observed John Joe’s interest in drums and bought him a 10-inch bodhrán. A percussion legend was born.
Continue reading “A St. Patrick’s Day celebration with John Joe Kelly”
By Mark Esposito, Weekend Contributor
Well, Captain Phillips hit the small screen at the end of January and the DVD supposedly captures everything good in America. Courageous sea-captain battles ruthless Somali pirates to save crew and cargo bound for parts unknown. Navy sharpshooters end hostage stand-off with might and right. Danish shipping line, Maersk, vindicated for its caution in protecting its freight. All hunky dory! Hunky, that is , until you start asking why are all those Maersk container ships floating oh so near the coast of East Africa and into harm’s way. Well, a significant number of them are carrying food aid from the U.S. to the nutrition-deprived people on the African continent and getting a hefty above-market price in return. Still, you must ask, what’s wrong with that — corporate citizen conducting a business that helps people and makes a profit for its shareholders. All’s right with the world, everyone must agree. Not every one.
A new article in Foreign Policy Magazine details the intense fight Maersk Lines is waging in the halls of Congress to scuttle a key feature of this year’s farm bill. That provision would likely feed a conservatively estimated 2-4 million more souls and perhaps up to 10 million. Yet, Maersk and its flotilla of lobbyists is fighting it tooth and nail. To understand why, you have to understand the basis and process of America’s food aid program and acquaint yourself with the history.
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Weekend Contributor
This session the record is 7-1. Since October of 2011, the record is 28 wins and 4 losses. That is a record that any team would be proud of and evidence of a significant amount of work and effort to improve its performance on the court. However, I am not talking about any particular basketball team currently involved in March Madness and the upcoming NCAA Men’s Basketball tourney.
I am talking about the record a team called The United States Chamber of Commerce has in cases it has argued or filed a brief in front of the Supreme Court. Even Coach K or Coach Izzo would be jealous of that record. Continue reading “The United States Supreme Court of the Chamber of Commerce”
Submitted by Charlton “Chuck” Stanley, Weekend Contributor
Fred Phelps son, Nathan Phelps, has reported on his Facebook page that his father, Fred Phelps, Sr. is near death in a Topeka KS hospital. Nathan himself has been estranged from his father and family for some time, and was “excommunicated” from the Westboro Baptist Church. What few people knew, apparently, was that Fred Phelps himself was excommunicated from the “church” he founded in August of last year.
The immediate family, in their usual mean-spirited style, will not let Nathan and other former members of their “church” have a last visit with the old man. Of course, all or almost all, current church members are immediate family themselves, so they are keeping his son and other descendants from seeing him before he passes.
Nathan reported the news last night on his Facebook page.
Continue reading “Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church reportedly near death.”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
In another example of felons making law enforcement easier Jules Bahler allegedly posted onto Facebook images of himself toting a sub-machine gun the same day he reportedly robbed a Chemical Bank branch in Bay City, Michigan. He is also accused of two more robberies over an eight day period.
On March 5, Bahler reportedly walked into a Chemical Bank branch in Bay City and “displayed what appeared to be a black sub machine gun and demanded money,” according to an affidavit sworn by FBI Agent Sean Callaghan. After a teller gave Bahler $7000, he fled the bank. The prior Pontiac robberies, Callaghan noted, netted Bahler a combined $8300.
Continue reading “Bank Robbery Suspect Nabbed After Allegedly Posting Selfie With Sub-Machine Gun”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
In another victory by gridlock the families in the state legislature were not able to get enough muscle behind two bills that would have taxed the fledging electronic cigarette industry into vapor. The sixty day legislative session came to an end and debate on these bills did also.
The bills have been controversial from the beginning. At first a 95% tax was the target and when that effort failed there were proposals to tax the “juice” by the milliliter. One thing is stilllargely accepted, the families still want in on the tax lute and will take up the issue probably next session.
Continue reading “Washington’s Proposed Electronic Cigarette Megatax Up in Smoke”
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Weekend Contributor
I thought this Carl Sagan interview would be a good follow-up to “Cosmos” Host Neil deGrasse Tyson Speaks Out about the News Media, Flat Earthers, Science Deniers, Climate Change Skeptics, Religion, and Dogma–which I posted earlier today.
Charlie Rose talked with Carl Sagan on the Charlie Rose Show back in May of 1996. At that time, Sagan warned about the dangers of people being ignorant about science while living in a society that is based on science and technology. Sagan talked about the “combustible mix” of ignorance and power in our society that would—at some point—blow up in our faces. He questioned who’d run science and technology in a democracy if the people didn’t know anything about it. Sagan also noted that science is more than a body of knowledge. He said it was a way of thinking.
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
A controversy is developing in Cornwallis, Washington where residents of a neighborhood bordering the army’s Joint Base Lewis McChord (JBLM) say the city council’s latest ordinance is yet another example of an overreaching government.
During the Christmas recess the mayor called a midnight city council meeting, with no public notice, and reportedly of all places in a Seattle pub. After seven exhausting hours the council voted 5 to 4 to enact a law that was purportedly intended to ease the severe traffic jams along Interstate 5 which runs through JBLM. But these intentions some believe were not so benevolent.
The law allocated nine tracts of park land to build high density housing for military personnel and their families. The land is just west of the Berkeley Bridge and soldiers going to and from the base would not need to use I-5. However the land is platted within the realm of the Lafayette neighborhood and its homeowner’s association. Residents angrily objected to their former park being taken over by the city, and in response turned to a relatively unknown civil rights advocacy group, the No Quartering Association, (NQA) to seek redress for the city violating the Third Amendment’s prohibition of quartering soldiers in citizens’ homes. Unfortunately for them, the worst was yet to come.
Continue reading “Homeowner’s Association Targeted After Supporting Pro-Third Amendment Group”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
In an outrageous lack of discretion, some members in the animal control and court system in Havre de Grace, Maryland put 81 year old great grandmother Mary Root through a harrowing ordeal.
Mary Root says her pets somehow got loose from her yard several times. A neighbor took pictures of the dogs running down the street and reported her to Animal Control.
The agency slapped Root with a $7,000 fine or she could spend nearly a year in jail.
“I’m struggling to pay my house taxes. I couldn’t pay it. It’s a different thing when you leave your dogs out and you don’t care. But I do care,” Root said. But when the cancer survivor failed to show up at court on her doctor’s orders, a judge had Root arrested.
She was booked, fingerprinted and issued a striped jumpsuit. She waited to see a judge in a cell without her cancer medication.
Continue reading “81 Year Old Woman Jailed Two Days For Allegedly Violating Pet Ordinance”
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Weekend Contributor
Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist and director of the Natural History Museum’s Hayden Planetarium in New York City. He is also the host of Fox Networks’ new science series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. Last Sunday, Tyson appeared on CNN’s Reliable Sources program and spoke with Brian Stelter. During the program, Tyson talked about “the hypocrisy of people dismissing scientific theory while simultaneously embracing the fruits of scientific discovery ‘that we so take for granted today.’”
Tyson said that our civilization “is built on the innovation of scientists and technologists and engineers who have shaped everything that we so take for granted today. So some of the science deniers or science haters, these are people who are telling that to you while they are on their mobile phone. They are saying, ‘I don’t like science. Oh, GPS just told us to go left. So it’s time for people to sit back and reassess what role science has actually played in our lives. And learn how to embrace that going forward, because without it, we will just regress back into the caves.”