The Suez Canal was opened in November 1869. It connects the Mediterranean Sea with Red Sea. The completion of the canal reduced shipping time from East Asia to Europe by three weeks. Before the canal was completed ships had to travel around the horn of Africa. Today ships would take about a week longer to travel around the horn.
We have a problem that will impact the entire world. It has been reported that 12% of all goods shipped in the world pass through the Suez Canal. Right now one of the largest ships in the world has gone aground while traveling through that canal. The ship left China with a destination of Rotterdam Holland.
How the hell did this happen?
Evergreen Marine, owner of the ship, said the Ever Given, which is 59 metres wide, “was suspected of being hit by a sudden strong wind, causing the hull to deviate from the waterway and accidentally hit the bottom and run aground.”
Jamil Sayegh, a former captain and maritime law specialist with experience navigating the canal thought that human error may also have been a factor since ships traverse the canal in convoys and none of the vessels behind the Ever Given had run into similar troubles.
President Joe Biden held a one hour news conference in the White House. It was successful from the standpoint of no gaffs and no off the subject responses. It was beautifully choreographed. The list of questioners were just what he dreamed of. All of them representing news media that is friendly to a Democratic president. The list of questioners were just what he dreamed of. All of them representing news media that is friendly to a Democratic president.
Sadly we learned almost nothing about his plans. Instead he bragged. rightfully so, that 200 million COVID-19 injections will be given in the first 100 days of his presidency.
Zeke Miller of Detroit News
Yamiche Alcindor of NPR
Kristen Welker of NBC
Caitlin Collins of CNN
Justin Sink of Bloomberg News
Newsmax’s Emerald Robinson and Fox News Channel’s Peter Doocy were not called upon to ask a question.
This is beyond senseless. It seems improbably after two mass shootings just days apart, but the Supreme Court is scheduled to discuss a case that could expand Second Amendment rights.
Americans love there guns more than life itself. A law to prohibit the use of assault weapons in Boulder, Colo., barred assault weapons in 2018 as a way to prevent mass shootings like the one that killed 17 at a high school in Parkland., Fla., earlier that year. That ban was blocked in court this month.
Boulder City Attorney Tom Carr declined to comment to The Washington Post, but pointed to language in the city’s code on assault weapons suggesting that the AR-556 pistol linked to the suspected shooter would have been included in the ban.
With each mass shooting flags are lowered, candles are light to remember the dead and flowers are placed near the place of the shooting. The last thing we do is walk away tsk tsking and do nothing to prevent another shooting elsewhere.
You can bet there will be more mass shooting this year and every year as long as we love guns more than lives.
I am back to this topic again because it keeps coming up in the news. It is necessary for me to remind you that HATE is alive and well in America.
The sickening hatred of all Non-White Christian Americans has never been worse than it is today. They are racists. (Racist definition: a person who shows or feels discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or who believes that a particular race is superior to another.)
When the president of the United States promotes hatred for minorities it provides the haters with the encouragement they crave.
“You Will Not Replace Us” is a white supremacist slogan that became popular in early 2017, as did its acronym version, YWNRU. The slogan appeared on white supremacist flyers, banners and graffiti in a variety of places in the first six months of 2017, gaining wider attention when white supremacists used the phrase at several rallies held in Charlottesville, Virginia, culminating in the large and violent Unite the Right event in August 2017. Many in that march were chanting “Jews will not replace us.”
Now the focus is on Asian Americans. The hate against them was promoted by former president Donald Trump who called the COVD-19 virus the China virus. The haters have seen that as a signal to attack them.
The history of hate of Asian Americans is not new. The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers.
A total of 11,507 people of German ancestry were interned during war II, comprising 36.1% of the total internments under the US Justice Department’s Enemy Alien Control Program. By contrast, an estimated 110,000–120,000 Japanese-Americans were forcibly relocated from the West Coast and incarcerated in internment camps run by the US War Department’s War Relocation Authority.
2018 marked an anniversary if a massacre of 15 Mexicans in el Paso, Texas. The slaughter, which was carried out by white Texas Rangers, US soldiers, and local vigilantes, was justified by labeling the Mexican American families “bandits” and criminals. It wouldn’t be the las.t On The August 3, 2019 a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, which left 22 people dead, appeared to be the deadliest terror attack and hate crime against Latinos in recent American history.
The Pittsburgh synagogue shooting was a mass shooting that took place on October 27, 2018, at the Tree of Life – Or L’Simcha Congregation in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
President Joe Biden may have empathy for those who have been attacked but it will take more than showing compassion to alter the hate in so many hearts.
What happened to majority rules? You take a vote on any subject and the majority wins. That is not the way it works in he U.S. Senate.
The U. S. Senate is on its way to ending the filibuster. Rather than doing so in one step they are eating away at the idea of 60 votes to end debate. The intent of this process was to bring about compromise. The rule as created by the senate and is not in the Constitution. This nightmare rule denies the majority the power to pass legislation.
While Senate rules still require just a simple majority to actually pass a bill, several procedural steps along the way require a supermajority of 60 votes to end debate on bills.
The filibuster is an Informal term for any attempt to block or delay Senate action on a bill or other matter by debating it at length, by offering numerous procedural motions, or by any other delaying or obstructive actions.
The most common form of filibuster occurs when one or more senators attempt to delay or block a vote on a bill by extending debate on the measure. Changes in 2013 and 2017 now require only a simple majority to invoke cloture (The cloture rule–Rule 22–is the only formal procedure that Senate rules provide for breaking a filibuster) on nominations, although most legislation still requires 60 votes.
The Senate has a number of options for curtailing the use of the filibuster, including by setting a new precedent, changing the rule itself, or placing restrictions on its use.
For many matters in the Senate, debate can only be cut off if at least 60 senators support doing so.
In 2013 the rules were changed under the leadership of Democratic Senator Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) eliminated the 60-vote requirement to end a filibuster against all executive branch nominees and judicial nominees other than to the Supreme Court.
In 2017 the rules were again changed under the leadership of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) eliminated the 60-vote requirement to end a filibuster for approval of nominations to the Supreme Court formally by lowering the threshold for ending debate on a nomination to 51 votes from 60, paving the way for Neil Gorsuch to win confirmation to the Supreme Court.
Once upon a time there were three large companies that built most of the cars sold in the United States. All three were American companies. They were called The Big Three: Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors. All the other car companies struggled to compete (American Motors – a combination of Nash, and Hudson, Willys Jeep, Studebaker, Packard, Kaiser Frazer. All those smaller car companies are now history.
I just received the latest issue of Consumer Reports annual auto issue. Of their top ten picks not one is made by The Big Three. Tesla’s Model 3 is the only American brand. The rest are made by Honda, Kia, Lexus, Subaru, and Toyota.
Even by category The Big Three did poorly.
Sedans under $25,000: none from The Big Three
Hatchbacks under $25,000: Chevrolet Spark with an overall rating of 45, next to last place
SUVs under $25,000: Chevrolet Trailblazer in last place with an overall rating of 55
Sedans $25,000 – $35,000: Chevrolet Malibu in last place with an overall rating of 45.
In none of these categories there were no Chrysler or Ford models.
Without listing the other categories I can inform you that The Big Three did well in high priced sedans, SUV and truck categories.
President Joe Biden may have led the congress into an inflation that has been brewing for a long time.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she didn’t think inflation posed a significant risk now that the Biden administration’s covid relief is signed and on its way to implementation. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has made it very clear that unlike some investors, he’s not stressed out about a potential rise in inflation later this year. And there’s good reason for that: he’s busy worrying about jobs.
Low interest rates and easy access to money has resulted in a buying flurry in southern California where I live. This did not start with the stimulus money sent to most families. Long before the COVID-19 pandemic new car sales and home buying was very obvious here.
My middle class neighborhood (median family income is $70,505) is now the home for high priced Lexus, Jaguar and other expensive car brands. This past October my nearby Honda dealer told me that they were not expecting any new shipments until after the new year. That means they have no motivation to sell cars at less than the sticker price. Real Estate brokers have been crying because the supply of new listings was too low for the past two or three years. It wasn’t. Most people do not keep moving from house to house. Homes have seen selling easily with bidding wars that drove the final selling price up by tens of thousands of dollars.
As of March 1, 2021 the Consumer Price Index data for the month of January found that the cost of food eaten at home rose 3.7 percent from a year ago — more than double the 1.4 percent year-over-year increase in the prices of all goods included in the C.P.I.
Even as a non-economist I can see trouble on the horizon.
Finally after years have gone by since the killing at Sandy Hook Elementary School that occurred on December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut we may have a bi-partisan group in the House of Representatives who will pass some meaningful legislation.
The Sandy Hook attack began when 20-year-old Adam Lanza killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, in the home that the two shared in Newtown. She was shot four times with a .22-calibre rifle. She had purchased the rifle, as well as an AR-15—the civilian semiautomatic version of the military M16 assault rifle—and several other firearms that Adam Lanza would use later that day, in the years prior to the shooting. Before leaving the house, Lanza destroyed his computer’s hard drive, an act that would make evidence gathering difficult for law enforcement personnel.
Protecting the public from people who have a total disregard for life should be the objective. It has been reported that most gun owners are in support of reasonable regulations. I guess the question is what is reasonable?
Eight House GOP lawmakers bucked party lines and joined Democrats in supporting legislation aimed at strengthening background checks on firearm sales.
The bill would put new background check requirements in place for gun transfers between private parties. The bill would also ban the sale, manufacture, transfer, and importation of more than 200 “military-style assault weapons” identified by name, although owners would be allowed to keep existing weapons. The bill would also require background checks on any future purchases, trades or gifting of an assault weapon included in the bill. This won’t stop future mass killing but in this gun crazy nation it’s probably the best we can do now.
Here are the Republican members that voted in favor of the bill:
Rep. Vern Buchanan (Fla.)
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.)
Rep. Andrew Garbarino (N.Y.)
Rep. Carlos Gimenez (Fla.)
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.)
Rep. Maria Salazar (Fla.)
Rep. Chris Smith (N.J.)
Rep. Fred Upton (Mich.)
Upton, Smith and Fitzpatrick co-sponsored the legislation, which faces an uphill battle in the upper chamber. The NRA is a very powerful voice that donates lots of money to campaigns.
I looked at my posting on the blog last year in March. On March 12, 2020 I posted my comments on a President Donald Trump speech along with a Youtube of the speech. I was not reassured.
Things are far better today than they have been in a year. President Joe Biden gave us an assurance today that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Here is what I wrote on March 12, 2020.
Are you reassured?
I’m not. This was not a speech of reassurance like George W. Bush’s speech after 9-11 nor was this a speech of the kind given by Winston Churchill as England was under attack by the Germans nor FDR after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Nothing up lifting at all. It was a speech read from a teleprompter in which Trump seemed more concerned with the economics of this country than the health of its citizens.
There was not a word about the development of a medicine to cure the disease nor was there any words about the development of a vaccine. The President did not mention, for example, the shortage of testing kits, which means officials cannot even get a strong read on how far the disease has spread across the nation. Instead the government will close travel from Europe for 30 days.
Coast Contact 