redcairo

I am out of words for what to call the mainstream media if not liberal -- since they are so overtly "left wing" and worse, barring Fox (which is right-wing and worse) that the word "Democrat" would not do (and is quite unfair to the many good democrats who wonder when their party went off the edge) and merely calling them "the enemy" while often but-not-always true would be even more biased. Have you a suggested word? Your ability to conclude that so many Single Words someone uses as a regular modern part of a living language -- language is alive and changes all the time -- have at some point in history been used for something else and hence the person today using it in a pretty normal way is unreasonably biased -- is so... so... LIBERAL. LOL!!!! It IS! PS I like Rush Limbaugh. PPS And I used the word again because however it might have been used "at some point in history" is not NOW. Language moves with the people. RC I resisted saying you are mansplainin' politics, a double-whammy as that's a leftist-pussyist term of its own--but only barely.

I think this was inaccurate of the media to portray (as usual). On that: Same with the media pretending that everyone in charge of an agency quit at once, when in fact the entirety of people in any prez admin submit resignations when a new one comes in (already done) and the new prez chooses to either 'accept' them (fire them) or request they stay on (hire them). Four people and one minion were fired by the new administration and that's going to be far bigger and more pervasive before long here. Perhaps the media will continue pretending that this perfectly ordinary transition process means that Literally Hitler™ is inspiring people to leap from ledges holding hands in their despair. I think the whole meme that Trump only won the so-called alt-right is more of the liberal media's denial, to marginalize him. The man had 63 million people vote for him. 30 million of those were women. The so-called alt-right was a tiny fringe. One of its media (Brietbart) exploded in great part because the mainstream media has been so intentionally out of touch with reality as part of their propaganda machine that people ended up at websites like Brietbart just trying to figure out what was really going on. Probably. But it's not too hard to read 95 million adults aren't working, can't afford their forced-upon health insurance they then can't afford to use, are utterly sick of tens of millions of illegals and the fallout of that, worried of the threat to national security of having no decent southern border and importing people from the regions that most hate us and often with decent additional-cause (they did already anyway) since Obama spent 8 years blowing most of them up, and the corruption that lobbying and unlimited terms has brought to our government, the corruption and politicizing of every federal agency as the C-Span congressional videos on youtube make so clear, and so much more. A person wouldn't need to be a genius to know there are issues government needs to deal with and a lot of citizens would like someone in government who wants to. They would however need to have so much money personally that a lack of funding by existing controllers wouldn't matter, the utter hatred of not one but both parties of government against and outsider wouldn't matter, and the entire edifice of western media against them wouldn't matter. As improbability would have it, the country actually found a guy like that. He found a way of bringing the GOP to heel on everything that mattered most to him. They have bowed to him far more than he has to them, with a couple rare exceptions. He's a centrist not a right-wing sort, that is for certain. He doesn't need to be predictable by any grand political or cosmic insight: he's predictable because he is up front and says what he wants and what he plans to do, and then he does it. He's already done more to back his 'campaign promises' than any politician I've known of in my life. His almost daily approach to pissing off the media and giving them SQUIRREL! talking points to obsess on is a bit unpredictable. Need to get more popcorn. * I'd sure like to see some UN-climate money go to Flint, and an agency for inventions that best help deal with the economic effects of traditional energy harvesting. RC

Don't shoot the messenger. * The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release January 24, 2017 Presidential Memorandum Regarding Construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF THE ARMY SUBJECT: Construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline Section 1. Policy. The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) under development by Dakota Access, LLC, represents a substantial, multi-billion-dollar private investment in our Nation's energy infrastructure. This approximately 1,100-mile pipeline is designed to carry approximately 500,000 barrels per day of crude oil from the Bakken and Three Forks oil production areas in North Dakota to oil markets in the United States. At this time, the DAPL is more than 90 percent complete across its entire route. Only a limited portion remains to be constructed. I believe that construction and operation of lawfully permitted pipeline infrastructure serve the national interest. Accordingly, pursuant to the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby direct as follows: Sec. 2. Directives. (a) Pipeline Approval Review. The Secretary of the Army shall instruct the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), including the Commanding General and Chief of Engineers, to take all actions necessary and appropriate to: (i) review and approve in an expedited manner, to the extent permitted by law and as warranted, and with such conditions as are necessary or appropriate, requests for approvals to construct and operate the DAPL, including easements or rights-of-way to cross Federal areas under section 28 of the Mineral Leasing Act, as amended, 30 U.S.C. 185; permits or approvals under section 404 of the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. 1344; permits or approvals under section 14 of the Rivers and Harbors Act, 33 U.S.C. 408; and such other Federal approvals as may be necessary; (ii) consider, to the extent permitted by law and as warranted, whether to rescind or modify the memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works dated December 4, 2016 (Proposed Dakota Access Pipeline Crossing at Lake Oahe, North Dakota), and whether to withdraw the Notice of Intent to Prepare an Environmental Impact Statement in Connection with Dakota Access, LLC's Request for an Easement to Cross Lake Oahe, North Dakota, dated January 18, 2017, and published at 82 Fed. Reg. 5543; (iii) consider, to the extent permitted by law and as warranted, prior reviews and determinations, including the Environmental Assessment issued in July of 2016 for the DAPL, as satisfying all applicable requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act, as amended, 42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq., and any other provision of law that requires executive agency consultation or review (including the consultation or review required under section 7(a) of the Endangered Species Act of 1973, 16 U.S.C. 1536(a)); (iv) review and grant, to the extent permitted by law and as warranted, requests for waivers of notice periods arising from or related to USACE real estate policies and regulations; and (v) issue, to the extent permitted by law and as warranted, any approved easements or rights-of-way immediately after notice is provided to the Congress pursuant to section 28(w) of the Mineral Leasing Act, as amended, 30 U.S.C. 185(w). (vi) Publication. The Secretary of the Army shall promptly provide a copy of this memorandum to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the President pro tempore of the Senate, the Majority Leader of the Senate, and the Governors of each State located along the Dakota Access Pipeline route. The Secretary of the Army is authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register. © Private Property. Nothing in this memorandum alters any Federal, State, or local process or condition in effect on the date of this memorandum that is necessary to secure access from an owner of private property to construct the pipeline and facilities described herein. Land or an interest in land for the pipeline and facilities described herein may only be acquired consistently with the Constitution and applicable State laws. Sec. 3. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this memorandum shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect: (i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or (ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals. (iii) This memorandum shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations. © This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person. DONALD J. TRUMP

I'm confused about something. Didn't the tribe say that they wanted a should-have-been-done-and-wasn't environmental study done about this and their area and that they would abide by the results if for some reason it was done properly and did not suggest the level of damage they expected? Is that not so? Was it done? Why are they still protesting if that was the agreement? I must have missed a memo. RC

Yeah... When you get to the point that sedition is a JOB a country really has a problem. RC

Trump cannot disagree with every possible thing. He's got to give, or at least not make an issue of, some things, in order to have time for others. And, there is really no need to create whole furors over something now, when his party can simply do what they want later, regardless. What irks me is how many people (in both parties) behave like they're going to intentionally, and regardless of detail, cause problems for the leadership no matter what, just because it's not who they would have chosen. Man, in business, this is one reason why a lot of incoming CEOs end up firing a huge slew of people, because of all the subversive F'ing politics, and people not willing to support a change in strategy. I see Democrats like Tulsi Gabbard from Hawaii, I think she's native american not that it matters but I think that's one of the things she is fairly known for, she's a former soldier, one of her big pushes is getting our gov't to stop giving money to fund terrorist arms that end up killing our own soldiers. Logical focus for her to have, given her background. I do not imagine her working 'against' any president on her own, intentionally. I imagine her doing what she thinks is right which might disagree entirely but might not. Whether she'll be able, with a party that sees anybody with their own brain as a traitor to the cult, is another story -- and don't think I'm just blaming the D's here, the R's are the same way. But then I see this huge swath of other people who are basically insisting they plan to do nothing but be an impediment for the rest of their term and I feel like WHY ARE YOU EVEN THERE if they are so juvenile and unprofessional they can't even work on finding the ways in which their country and their state could most benefit from WHATEVER the current leads happen to be, and do their best within those boundaries. In the business world, this is how it is. And you grow up or you have the ethics to GTF out so people who are not just simmering impediments can do the job. I watched the live press conf from DJT the other day. Mostly live just to be a number. Just to support the WH live streaming stuff to the public rather than giving it to the 'press corps' and letting them twist it and spin it and spoon feed it to us in preferred pieces. I was shocked at how unprofessional the press were after like the first few questions. And some female who asked a question "as an accusation" and so on -- people trying to fit 6 complex questions in one or trying to sermonize in the form of a question or whatever -- GROW UP people, my god, the serious lack of professionalism was just staggering. And I know DJT really jumped on the guys from Buzzfeed and CNN but you know what, if you release fake and lurid kill-propaganda on someone less than 24 hours before don't be surprised if they don't F'n want to hear from you. That the press guy stood there shouting and would. Not. Shut. Up. Like he was "owed" anything at all was ridiculous -- it's the PrezE of the USA dude, you are not "entitled" to anything especially under those conditions. It was like Hi I'm An OverGrown Millennial And I Am Owed! I Am Entitled! I Have Rights To YOUR Stage! Like when I see college groups that Milo or Ben Shapiro are speaking for and the people in the audience clearly just do not get that they are the audience -- that someone else is on stage and it's their stage, and questions can come after but making someone else's show into your drama is injust even to all the other people in the audience never mind the speaker... it's like all these people never matured past age 8, if that, what is wrong with their parents I ask myself. Anyway on the press conference, I considered it a complete embarrassment for the press for reasons having nothing to do with Trump's comments. Annnnnd I got totally off topic I guess LOL. RC

I've seen human's solar bodies but they looked (humorously) a lot like the 'light beings' in that movie Cocoon -- soft-white light vaguely body shaped, kinda lose the detail near the feet (angelics do also). The light thing in the sky seemed awesome. I was reminded of these crazy trumpet-like sounds that I once heard recorded, said to be another weather phenomenon. I can only imagine what ancient man would have thought of this stuff!! RC

Yeah... The committee essentially said or implied that they were hoping awarding it to him would be ... inspirationally motivating, and that this did not work out as planned. Re: religion: the dominant and forceful theme(s) of the preacher he sat through weekly for 20 years is what got most people thinking his religion was an issue. It was a church, not a mosque, some are just as bad I suppose. I had nothing against him except that a) if he wasn't born here he was ineligible. I accepted that when the 'authorities' seemed to accept his birth cert but now it turns out the allegedly paranoia tea party guys were right all along and it's a hoax, watch the whole video and it's pretty clear the media gave him what might have been a billion in 'free' positive advertising for 2008 campaign and I resent having the media choose our leader mostly because the media's run by the worst sources and they are not in favor of our political health c) I really resented you could not have the smallest conversation about any actual issue without someone keening "racist!" which has sucked so much, to me it's enough reason to not put anybody ethnic in the house if it's going to prevent all Americans from being able to have any intelligent discourse (let alone debate) because it causes such egregious political correctness fears But Obama won and despite I was very depressed for a bit I hoped the country would survive and I hoped he would do well and would bring some of the 'change' everyone was optimistically hoping for. He did the same thing Bush did, except more of it, and worse, and even came up with new versions of bad. By the time he left, every federal agency (and this is likely not just his fault but 8 years of his admin surely made it vastly worse) appeared to be utterly corrupt, and usually at least somewhat incompetent, and watching some of the congressional hearings on C-SPAN is enough to make one want to just burn it down and start over it's so bad. I feel actual disgust at how bad things are presently and I blame him for a good 8 year chunk of it and its devolution, because I believe in the chain of command, and in business I totally believe that "all problems are management problems." I totally gave him benefit of the doubt and got behind him in spirit and conversation at least. He didn't live up to any of it. Oh well. Here's hoping the new administration will do better. RC

The Northern Lights -- a more novel version called "light pillars." The photographer said it was incredibly bright, and almost looked like something supernatural. I bet!

Well if their goal is "no pipeline" it's unrealistic. If it's "reroute the pipeline or do some real environmental survey studies that should have already been done that would have probably (important caveat-word) changed the routing to begin with" that could happen. RC

Saw on {service which shall not be named}

That's funny! (The spoiler too :-)) I guess I do understand that if someone is leaving a job, knowing you hate the guy taking your place, and that he's going to undo some things you did, is very upsetting. But it does seem O has gone slightly overboard with the "how much can I do and screw up for the incoming" party. RC

Watching what's going on just a little, I had the darkly amusing thought that it's like when someone is a pathological liar, and have succeeded by keeping people hating each other and away from each other so nobody ever compares stories, and then one day it all falls apart when a couple people talk to each other and start to realize what's going on, and it all starts collapsing. Everything would have kept on going like it was except DJT had to wade in like an intentionally-clumsy bull with his balls on fire and just have friendly casual conversations with everybody, and the house of cards of "inertia and comfortably entrenched corruption and incompetence" starts crumbling. Company after company, big ones, saying they'll be on board to try and make it happen. He doesn't want war with Russia, considers Climate Change political, and the UN openly sucks. Mexico's president likes him. Russia's premier likes him. Israel's leader likes him. Ohhhh I bet TPTB so far really hate him. If only DJT would agree to live at least 11 levels down in a secure military bunker for the next four years so he can keep breathing long enough to get that far into things, I'd feel somewhat more secure about the odds of him actually accomplishing something before the globalists have someone shoot him. RC

People offer bonding over what they have in common. "Protest" and "non-whites feeling trod on by the white man" both have in common. The differences otherwise are massive. RC

Steam on Lake Superior, a bit earlier in December, this 2016. Looks like something apocalyptic!

This is not new but it's cool. They go through several things... not just a shape, must have been a ton of work to work all that out and get everyone to remember it and do it right! (Never mind while playing music.)

I've had a lot of that in the past as it grew wild where I'm from in so CA. You'll need soil at some point probably, it is a cacti and its growth is eventually large. If you don't have soil you might just dissolve a multi-mineral supplement in the water if you don't have any liquid minerals, that might help more than plain water. You have a generator? Do you live in the wilds? :-) RC

Interesting timing.

Gatlinburg, Tennessee, has a huge tourism footprint. A good deal of territory, homes, businesses, spent this week burning down... ...the mainstream media said close to jack about it. Today I saw a ref on FOX news. Until today, what I've mostly seen is tons of tweets from people, day after day, asking how this huge disaster could be happening and the news channels not be covering it. Sadly, some seemed to feel that it was so surreal and hence seemed "intentional" that maybe it was just a statement from the MSM (mainstream media) that "flyover territory didn't matter." This area has like a billion dollar annual tourism footprint -- maybe more, that was just for one county I saw a web page on. So it's not a small thing. Kinda strange the news wouldn't cover it (they might finally be now). I can't figure out why. In any case, the photographs and some videos online have been incredible. It's the smoky mountains -- lots of stuff to burn in that region for sure. I hope if we have any forum members from that area of the country that they are safe. RC

They do have to go somewhere. My reason for empathy is that I think native lands should have the native agreement first if they're going to be used for something that eminent domain is pushing. This I think doesn't have the smallest ones as I saw another image I couldn't find, that had tons more 'hairline' examples. But this is food for thought:

This guy... he has a gift as a statesman. Every time I see him speak on video I am impressed again. And I consider Russia the enemy and him a bad guy, so this is really saying something. Someone via Anonymous theorizes that Russia hates the USA and wanted Trump to win solely because they think it will ruin us, like mwahahahaha. They point out the close relation of Russia with China. Which Trump is the enemy of due to the trade stuff he insisting on. But I think maybe he just has a point about the whole military and war stuff, namely that we simply do not take him (or anyone else) seriously. I remember Iran's former lunatic leader whose name I forget right now. He said that he could say the most specific things about his intents to do us in and that our response was basically to wave it away like he couldn't possibly mean it. (I see the left doing that concerning Islam and Sharia as well. Like we simply cannot wrap our brains around anybody thinking differently than we do. A lot of that was seen in the recent election I suspect.) I found this video interesting. I don't know what room the new President will have for making changes, if any, in our approach to war... but it would be nice if we would at the very least, take more seriously international leaders. I turned this up to 1.5 speed in the settings which is more reasonable, for reading the subtitles. RC

Why a mutual apology and forgiveness followed by hugs might be a war declaration is kinda beyond me? RC

Demonstrating IMO that pretty much all human traits are on a circular spectrum -- like politics. Every trait can go two opposite ways toward bad when not in moderation -- and go far enough in one direction, you get around back and run into the other. RC

What happened to Bernie? I had high hopes for him. But y'all know how it went with him losing at the DNC and HRC getting the nomination. It was a bit odd that just after he was stumping for her, but I thought perhaps she had implied he might be her VP or something if he did. No idea but that obviously didn't happen. The election is over now and I'm surprised that he is still going on 'against Trump' since I actually suspect many of his voters ended up Trump voters. But, that's all well and fine. Except it seems like he has kind of gone off the deep end. To wit: That's incredibly irrational, hyperbolic, and projectively paranoid. What happened to him?? RC