By Joe Guzzardi courtesy of Cagle:
Fifty years ago, in 1969 when astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon, the world’s population was 3.6 billion; in 2019, it’s 7.7 billion. A half a century ago, the U.S. population stood at 208 million; today, it’s 329 million and growing at the unsustainable rate of one net person every 17 seconds, a total calculated by the sum of births minus deaths, plus net migration.
April 22, 2019, marks the 49th anniversary and 50th observance of Earth Day intended to raise awareness and appreciation for the earth’s natural environment. A massive oil spill off the Santa Barbara, California, coast that generated a slick large enough to encompass Chicago provided the catalyst for the first-ever Earth Day, celebrated in 1970, and currently recognized in 193 countries.
[continues]
earth day network org
What is Earth Day, and what is it meant to accomplish?
A message from our president, Kathleen Rogers:
On April 22, 1970, millions of people took to the streets to protest the negative impacts of 150 years of industrial development.
In the U.S. and around the world, smog was becoming deadly and evidence was growing that pollution led to developmental delays in children. Biodiversity was in decline as a result of the heavy use of pesticides and other pollutants.
The global ecological awareness was growing, and the US Congress and President Nixon responded quickly. In July of the same year, they created the Environmental Protection Agency, and robust environmental laws such as the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act, among many.
[…]
Earth Day 2019: Protect Our Species
Find out more about the 2019 theme for Earth Day, to protect threatened and endangered species.
at least their clown is a clown on purpose
the guardian: Comedian wins landslide victory in Ukrainian presidential election
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, an actor and comedian with no political experience other than playing the role of president in a TV series, has won a landslide victory in Ukraine’s presidential election, with near-complete counting showing he has won over 70% of the vote.
The incumbent, Petro Poroshenko conceded defeat on Sunday evening before results started coming in.
According to official results released on Monday morning, with 85% of the vote counted, 41-year-old Zelenskiy had won 73.4% of the vote, compared to Poroshenko’s 24.4%.
[…]
“We did it together,” he said, thanking his wife, parents and campaign team. “Thanks to all the Ukrainian citizens who voted for me, and to all who didn’t. I promise I won’t mess up.”
[…]
…. On Sunday evening, Zelenskiy’s declaration of victory carried a message that could reverberate in the Kremlin.
“As a citizen of Ukraine I can say to all post-Soviet countries: ‘Look at us. Everything is possible’,” he said.
I’ve become pretty attached to this earth and encourage any efforts to keep it cleaner. I went to the second? third? Earth Day observance at the U of Alabama in 1971. I kind of enjoy clean air & water. Unfortunately in my area of the globe the environment is taking a local hit in the name of getting more natural gas into the energy stream hopefully supplanting coal in the process. We’re downwind from Ohio Valley electrical generation plants so at least our air should improve even though between the gas pipelines, the muddy rivers and streams and the infrastructure and traffic needed to put them in place I’ll ONLY be able to breathe more freely. Happy Earth Day.
Ya know what would be the best present we Americans could give to Earth…. getting rid of the party that denies climate change. We get a chance to do that next year… don’t squander it!
wapo: Trump sues in bid to block congressional subpoena of financial records
President Trump and his business sued House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) in a bid to block a congressional subpoena of his financial records on Monday.
The lawsuit seeks a court order to prevent Trump’s accounting firm from complying with what his lawyers say is an improper use of subpoena power by congressional Democrats.
“Democrats are using their new control of congressional committees to investigate every aspect of President Trump’s personal finances, businesses, and even his family,” the filing by Trump claims. “Instead of working with the President to pass bipartisan legislation that would actually benefit Americans, House Democrats are singularly obsessed with finding something they can use to damage the President politically.”
The filing, in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, further escalates a clash between the White House and the Democratic-controlled House over congressional oversight.
[Read Trump’s complaint against the House Oversight Committee]
Last week, Cummings subpoenaed Mazars USA, an accounting firm long used by Trump.
For more than a decade, Mazars and a predecessor firm signed off on financial statements for Trump that he used when seeking loans. Some of the statements include frequent exaggerations or inaccuracies and were accompanied by a note from the firm saying it was not responsible for the accuracy of the information.
The company said last week that it “will respect the legal process and fully comply with its legal obligations.”
Lawyers for the president and the Trump Organization previously wrote in a letter to Mazars’s counsel that an expected committee subpoena “would not be valid or enforceable.”
In the complaint filed Monday, Trump’s lawyers argue that the subpoena of Mazars “lacks a legitimate legislative purpose” and is seeking information about Trump as a private citizen, before he took office.
“With this subpoena, the Oversight Committee is instead assuming the powers of the Department of Justice, investigating (dubious and partisan) allegations of illegal conduct by private individuals outside of government,” it says. “Its goal is to expose Plaintiffs’ private financial information for the sake of exposure, with the hope that it will turn up something that Democrats can use as a political tool against the President now and in the 2020 election.”
[…]
The complaint seeks a permanent injunction to prevent Cummings from taking any actions to enforce the subpoena, and a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction prohibiting Mazars from producing the requested information.
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also in wapo from the editorial board: Trump is accused of gross abuse of his office. We’re not talking about the Mueller report.
Gee, you might think SFB has something to hide, seeing as how he’s fighting tooth and nail to keep the Congress and the American people from seeing his tax cheats.
Can a mob boss exist without his mob attorneys?
Wherever it is I hope my first comment of the day is well read.
A few years ago I read a little “article”, one of those scribblings where four sentences are turned into four paragraphs, about America becoming a metric nation without us noticing. It was about how many pieces of daily life were really metric in at least one dimension. I decided last week while trying to measure a length in metric using my American tape measure to find a tape measure that included a metric scale. While choosing I remembered how dependent I am on the “not metric” scale, I purchased a metric only tape measure so I would be better at visualizing the lengths. I am enjoying going around measuring my world. Many items are metric. A surprise was the granite counter top in my kitchen. Fully metric! My kitchen cabinets, fully metric. Washington Post print edition appears to be metric too, 32 cm front page edge to edge. For reference I measure articles that are pre-nineteen seventy-five, when the Congress moved an act to make America metric. I am having fun once again immersing in a metric world, my first was years ago in a different life.
All my cabinet meanderings are inch and foot, but when it comes to pulls and knobs on drawers and doors they are just as apt to be metric as not.
the hill:
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), one of the frontrunners for the 2020 Democratic nomination, is getting the superhero treatment in a new comic book.
The comic, titled “Talk Bernie To Me,” is a one-time issue from Devil’s Due Comics to be released in July and depicts Sanders as He-Man, going shirtless and holding a sword in front of the White House.
Sanders is also wearing a chest plate with “$27” emblazoned on it, representing the average individual donation to his campaign.
“I’ve been increasingly impressed with Sanders’ ingenuity and ability to be on the right side of history — even when it’s not the popular thing to do — from his fights for civil rights and healthcare many decades ago, to the introduction of the recent Stop BEZOS Act and Stop WALMART Act,” publisher Josh Blaylock said in a press release announcing the new comic.
Sanders is the second political figure to get their own comic book from Devil’s Due Comics, following fellow progressive, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
The Sanders comic will also include content featuring Ocasio-Cortez.
A portion of all sales will go towards the ACLU and RaicesTexas.org, a group that provides immigrant children and families free and discounted legal services.
So I do make sure to have a metric tape measure on hand.
the new Yorker
Sarah Huckabee Sanders Accuses Media of Anti-Liar Bias
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Reacting to the journalist April Ryan’s call for her to be fired, the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said, on Friday, that she has been the victim of the media’s “widespread anti-liar bias.”
“From their obsession with fact-checking to their relentless attacks on falsehoods, the media have made no secret of their bias,” Sanders said. “It’s open season on liars in America.”
“This is media hypocrisy at its very worst,” she added. “The same journalists who advocate freedom of speech want to take that freedom away from anyone whose speech consists entirely of lies.”
“This is nothing more or less than a direct attack on the lying life style,” she said. “You take away my right to lie and you take away my ability to earn a living.”
Kellyanne Conway, the White House senior counsellor, spoke out in support of Sanders, telling reporters, “An attack on one liar is an attack on all liars.”
“Our country has seen some dark days, from the Bowling Green Massacre to the bugging of the White House microwave,” she said. “But this might be the darkest.”
patd… I was gonna ask you if your above post was from The Onion. But then I saw that tiny print that said “Satire from the Borowitz Report. phew…. for a moment there, I thought it might be real seeing on whom it’s about…
“Sanders is also wearing a chest plate with “$27” emblazoned on it, representing the average individual donation to his campaign.” mean or median
I almost back to the regular world. Now mulling over 3 really strong house offers.
More proof women may be better at governing than men. 🙂
British monarchs over the last 200 years 6 kings – reigned for 69 yrs (combined) 2 queens – reigned for 131 yrs & counting
Craig,
Good to see you again. Come back soon.
While considering impeachment there are some questions still on the back burner.
Jamie, apparently at a minimum female British royalty are certainly hardier than the males.
Poobah, highest offer with least contingencies. That’s my advice (and I am a legendary terrible real estate buyer/seller).
Metric – I’d gladly put up with the pain of a learning curve to move to cms, mls, etc. I’d also like to see a move to degrees Celsius. I don’t expect to see that in what’s left of my lifetime.
pat, love the Borowitz satire. Like Renee I thought it was the Onion at first. Shoulda had a “quote” from Caribou Barbie about the lame stream media – would really round it out.
Metric is swinging, cause it’s all 10’s…..gotta dig dat……I also use a metric ruler for drawing purty cabinet pitchers.
Hemingway wrote a good little short story about his kid waiting around all day to die cause he had a fever, but Hem told him his fever in Fahrenheit, but the kid, having been raised in Paris, was thinking in Celsius.
But this I know from Moose Jaw:
-40 F equals -40 C
Is Celsius the same as centigrade?
But I would not want to “move to metric” since there’s no real need to and I’m sure it would turn out be a scam of the highest order designed to ultimately separate us Yahoos from our hard earned shekels.
Sturge, yes, C=c, and only us, the Caymans, Belize and Liberia still use Fahrenheit. Lifuckingberia Think of the commercial possibilities and get on the right side of that. Metric System for Dummies will be #1 on every best seller list. I want an author credit for that one.
We have metric where it counts–any more and it will be like forcing membership in the EU on us.
…this is the end of my presidency. I’m fucked.
I find it hard to believe that he said that.
Because his saying that would show that he has at least a passing acquaintance with reality, which I do not believe he has.
Reality outside his own, that is.
He’s William Wilson, stabbing himself.
We are about to enter another of those runs of IRRISISTABLE TELEVISION . Buckle up, as Cbob was wont to say. We watched Vietnam, then the Watergate hearings and Ol Nixo-man…..Iran-Contra hit the box featuring Ollie North. Then we watched the bush1 gulf war. That was hip, but then OJ– and the TV world stood still. OJ was KILLER, so to speak, asses in the seats, boffo tv and careers were born. Clinton gave a glimpse and some shimmer and the meaning of is, is, but quickly moved on to the Bush 2 slog.
But now this….This is going to be GREAT Television
NEW THREAD