Climate Change – United States is Not Prepared

Hurricane Sandy, which was also called “Superstorm Sandy” hit NYC October 29,2012. The New York Stock Exchange was closed, all airports in and around NYC were closed, 7.9 million businesses and households in 15 states were without electric power.

Major Deegan Expressway in the Bronx, New York after Hurricane Ida

Within two weeks, two storms — Henri and Ida — broke rainfall records in the Northeast. Flash flood emergencies from the remnants of Hurricane Ida stretched for 190 miles from Philadelphia to New York City. Central Park recorded its wettest hour on record.

Meanwhile in the western United States the long-term drought continues to take a toll on the Colorado River, the federal government, in mid August, for the first time, declared a water shortage at Lake Mead, one of the river’s main reservoirs. CNN says there is a looming battle over the available water.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a drought emergency in 41 of California’s 58 counties on May 10. In that same month, many farmers were warned that they would receive little or nothing from two large allocation systems, the federal Central Valley Project and the State Water Project.

FEMA is only there to help after a weather event. There doesn’t appear to be a federal agency working to minimize the impact of a weather condition.

The Words Of Larry Elder

Larry Elder is running to be elected California’s next governor if Governor Gavin Newsom is recalled. Elder is the front runner in most polls. These are quotes collected by CNN. The recall election will be September 14.

Larry Elder has a long history of making disparaging remarks about women.

“Glass ceiling? Ha! What glass ceiling? Women, women exaggerate the problem of sexism,” radio host Larry Elder said in a 1996 ad for his radio show.

“Blacks exaggerate the significance of racism”

“Medicare should be abolished”

He has mocked premenstrual syndrome, known as PMS, calling it “Punish My Spouse (or Significant Other).” He prominently promoted on his webpage a 1950s textbook on “how to be a good wife” that said women should “have dinner ready” and told them, “Don’t complain.”

His disparaging comments have been as recent as January 2017, when he deleted a tweet that implied women taking part in the Women’s March were too unattractive to be sexually assaulted, according to the Los Angeles Times.

In another previously unreported comment from a January 2017 radio show, Elder mocked women attending the Women’s March as “obese.”

Elder suggested in a video news conference with U.S. Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale) that he would end the “war on oil and gas” and the “attack on the logging industry,” adding that he would reduce regulation of fracking and deemphasize wind and solar power, which he called “not very efficient.”

“For somebody who’s never run a business to tell business people… ‘I’m going to jack up your price of labor, and you’re going to deal with it,’ to me, it’s offensive, The ideal minimum wage is $0.00.”

Are you OK with Larry Elder’s views on the issues he has discussed? If so, go ahead and vote for him but don’t be surprised about the outcome.

Census: decline in the white population for first time in history

What will the likes of Orval Faubus (past Governor of Arkansas), Strom Thurmond (past senator from South Carolina), George Wallace (Former Governor of Alabama) do in the 21st century? It was Wallace who said, “Segregation Now, Segregation Tomorrow, Segregation Forever.” It was President Eisenhower, a Republican, who sent who sent troops to Little Rock to enforce integration of their high school.

U.S. Census officials released data Thursday revealing the most sweeping picture of America’s racial and ethnic makeup in a decade.

“These changes reveal that the US population is much more multiracial, and more racially and ethnically diverse, than what we measured in the past,” said Nicholas Jones, the director of race, ethnicity, research and outreach for the Census Bureau’s population division.

The white, non-Hispanic population, without another race, decreased by 8.6% since 2010, according to the new data from the 2020 census. The U.S. is now 57.8% white, 18.7% Hispanic, 12.4% Black and 6% Asian.

“The presence of the Hispanic or Latino population as the second-most prevalent group spanned the entire continental United States, with large numbers of counties in every region,” census officials said.

White Supremacists are frightened about what will happen as the White population declines. What will the country look like racially in 2030? Whites will have dropped to 55.8% of the population, and Hispanics will have grown to 21.1%. The percentage of black and Asian Americans will also grow significantly. Predictions are that White people will be less than half the population by 2045 an will continue to decline.

My guess is White segregationists will be moving into gated communities.

L is for Liter

There are only three countries in the world that use the English system of weights and measures. It was called the British Imperial System.

Most common are the weight in the pound divided into 16 ounces (oz) and the ounce into 16 drams.

The basic unit of length is the yard (yd); fractions of the yard are the inch (1/36 yd) and the foot (1/3 yd), and commonly used multiples are the rod (5 1⁄2 yd), the furlong (220 yd), and the mile (1,760 yd). The acre, equal to 4,840 square yards or 160 square rods, is used for measuring land area. For liquid measure, or liquid capacity, the basic unit is the gallon, which is divided into 4 quarts, 8 pints, or 32 gills.

The three countries still on the English system – the U.S., Liberia and Myanmar – still (mostly or officially) stick to the imperial system.

The rest of the world has adopted the metric system and there is a reason. It functions like the decimal system much like the United States dollar. Ten pennies equal a dime. Ten dimes equals a dollar.

We just bought a new trash can that came in a box marked “10 L.” Further examination I determined it has a 10 liter capacity. We also buy 2 liter bottles of soda (pop).

The biggest reasons the U.S. hasn’t adopted the metric system are simply time and money. That is the excuse that is provided by Encyclopedia Britannica and repeated on other internet sites.

None of these countries did not offers excuses. They simply made the switch including Great Britain (United Kingdom) at the end of 1994 under a directive of the European Union.

There is a US Metric Association but it was founded in 1916. As the United States has become ever more reliant on goods from other countries. That new trash can says the USA will join the world on weights and measures.

(In the US) Why is soda sold in liters while milk and other drinks sold in gallons? By coincidence, the large plastic soda bottle was invented right around the time that the US was seriously flirting with a conversion to metric. So it was introduced in a 2 liter size instead of a half gallon size. My 16.9 FL. OZ. bottle of water is 500 ml.

Metric is coming to America. It’s not a plot and it’s not part of an invasion.

Los Angeles County Orders Inspection Of Marina City Club Towers In Marina Del Rey

Condo boards nationwide have put off repairs because of cost concerns. Or to put another way high cost of repairs causes delays in needed repairs in homes, condos and townhouses.

I don’t live in a condo so I personally am not concerned with condominium maintenance. My mother lived in senior community that maintained the outside of the buildings and the grounds. The management company provided hotel vouchers when all residents were required to leave when the exterior of buildings needed painting.

I’ve known a few people who have had water leaks in their units. Both were resolved but it did require involvement of building management.

Now that we have viewed the events in Surfside Florida everyone is concerned about their condo and townhouse homes. Just one day after an investigation by CBS2’s David Goldstein exposed potential problems at a Marina Del Rey condo, building inspectors were on the scene Thursday to survey the property. This property consists of two 65 story buildings. That brought out county public works department to conducts an inspection.

It might be frightening but everyone living in shared facilities throughout the country are likely to demand repairs.

Juneteenth

By EUGENE DANIELS of Politico Playbook

For 156 years , June 19th has been celebrated by millions of Black folks in the U.S. to mark the real day that many of our ancestors were actually freed from slavery — when 2,000 Union troops went to Galveston, Texas, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed to make clear that Texas’ 250,000 enslaved people were free.

It’s been called by many names over the years: “Emancipation Day,” “Jubilee Day,” “Freedom Day.” And now, following a ceremony on Thursday when President JOE BIDEN signed a bill with overwhelming bipartisan support, it’s a federal holiday for everyone.

Which makes it an appropriate time to check in on Biden’s promises to put issues of equity, civil rights and social justice at the forefront of his administration.

How are civil rights leaders grading Biden’s record so far? I reached out to a few to ask. They were pleased by the progress on the easy lifts (like having the most diverse cabinet in history, from Vice President KAMALA HARRIS on down) and optimistic about the tonal shifts (like the way Biden has spoken out about racism with language about as forceful as anyone to ever occupy the office).

But they are growing tired of Biden’s penchant for bipartisanship in Congress, which they see as getting in the way of making real legislative strides on issues like voting rights and police reform.

Here’s what they said.

— Rev. AL SHARPTON told me that while he understands and respects that Biden wants to reach out to Republicans in the name of bipartisanship, “when you keep seeing that [the other side] is not going to reach back, you can’t continue to [try and win over Republicans] at the sacrifices of those that reached up and put you in office. … I think that the time has come for us now to say, ‘Let’s go on to Plan B, and that is to do what we need to do to get these bills passed.’”

“Can we change the access and the oratory into legislative results?” Sharpton asked. “To remember Tulsa is heartening, to finally get the Juneteenth holiday is great. But we are still, in both cases, talking about what people in the past did.”

— “When you talk about compromise, you can only sit down and compromise with people who believe there’s a problem,” said Reverend WILLIAM BARBER , co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, sounding a similar note. “Some people don’t believe there’s a problem with poverty or a problem with voting rights. So you can’t compromise with people like that. You have to use the power that you have and let the chips fall where they may.”

“What politics [dictates that] he can do is fundamentally different than what he should do,” said Barber. “The pain of Covid has opened up the possibility of him being an FDR or Lincoln. [He] can’t allow the people who just want to play politics [stop] him from being the president that does the things we need.”

— “He says he wants to be bipartisan. However y’all do it, we need to have real bold changes,” said MELANIE CAMPBELL , president and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation. “On social justice, on the racial justice, those were the things that got Black people, Black women, young people out to vote. So we need to see those things come to fruition because a lot of this is about life and death. I would say that they have the building blocks. They’ve got to keep building those blocks.”

Still, Campbell said that while she “would like to see more, but we’re not living in a perfect political reality.”

America’s Oligarchs

America’s super wealthy are oligarchs.

Let’s start by defining the word oligarch.

Oligarch | Definition of Oligarch by Merriam-Webster

A person who belongs to a small group of people who govern or control a country Oligarchy is a form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people. These people may or may not be distinguished by one or several characteristics, such as nobility, fame, wealth, education, corporate, religious, political, or military control.

Now let’s look at the super wealthy and powerful in the United States. The nonprofit news organization ProPublica has just performed a significant public service by publishing federal tax records of some of America’s leading billionaires, including Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Mark Zukerberg, Geroge Soros, and Elon Musk. Actually we all already know who they are. Forbes magazine publishes an annual list of the 400 richest people in the United States.

Jeff Bezos’ wealth grew by $99 billion from 2014 to 2018, but he paid only about 1% of that growth in federal taxes. Elon Musk’s fortune grew by about $14 billion in that time frame, but he paid only about 3.27% of that increase in federal taxes.

The fact is they get away with paying little or no taxes. And it’s all legal. They pay lobbyists to influence our legislators to sustain the system.

ProPublica’s publication of the taxes paid by our oligarchs will not change this situation.

Senator Elizabeth Warren Tweet:

The rich & powerful run Washington. Here’s one benefit they wrote for themselves: After making a killing from the economy they’ve rigged, they don’t pay taxes on that accumulated wealth. It’s a system that’s rigged for the top if I ever saw one. 1:10 PM · Jan 24, 2019

Warren is correct and calling those super wealthy oligarchs won’t change a thing.

President Joe Biden offers defense of democracy

This is a sad day when the president of the United States must defend democracy. That is precisely what he did in a speech today at Arlington National Cemetery, saying “democracy is more than a form of government — it is a way of being.”

“Democracy itself is in peril,” the president said.

“Democracy must be defended at all costs,” Biden said. “Democracy, that’s the soul of America. And I believe it’s a soul worth fighting for. And so do you. A soul worth dying for.”

It was obvious that he was standing up against those who would deny voting rights and the acceptance of free and fair elections.

Why did Biden make this speech? Because of people like Michael Flynn. Flynn is former President Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser, who said that a Myanmar-like military coup “should” happen in the United States at a QAnon event in in a Dallas hotel. Sadly thousands, and perhaps millions, of Americans really believe Trump’s claim that the election was stolen.

Dictators like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are delighted with politics in the United States. They are telling their populations that democracy doesn’t work. They point to our political system in fighting as proof.

Canoga Park California Memorial Day Parade

The parade was canceled last year and again this year due to the pandemic. I would go every year or two just to see what was new. There really was not too much to see. Various groups of scouts and children’s clubs marched down the main boulevard and adults rode in cars or on trucks. It is doubtful that the children understood the meaning of the holiday. Elected people rode in cars as they fulfilled their duty. Fire engines and police motor cycles were driven down the street.

It’s all meant to show that we are one people that remembers those who lost their lives in wars past and present. This was the last parade I went to see, 2017

The primary speech at a reviewing stand called for the support of Christian values in America. I was horrified.

A solemn day made into a fun event.