Your tax dollars, at work

[gotsnowgotslush]

CAPE CANAVERAL — Hobbyists who keep track of the skies with remarkable precision have found the U.S. Air Force’s mini space shuttle in its no-longer-secret orbit around the Earth.

The X-37B craft, making the program’s fourth mission into space, was launched May 20 from Cape Canaveral atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket.

The ascent entered a news blackout about five minutes after liftoff, as the Centaur upper stage began its burn to put the spaceplane into low-Earth orbit.

It wasn’t until later that officials confirmed the launch had gone smoothly for the Orbital Test Vehicle mission No. 4. It is believed the Centaur deployed X-37B about 19 minutes into flight.


http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/05/27/x-37b-spaceplanes-orbit-discovered/

The robotic X-37B space plane launched atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at 11:05 a.m. EDT (1505 GMT) from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.


The Air Force owns two X-37B spacecraft, both of which were built by Boeing's Phantom Works division. Each space plane is just 29 feet long by 9.5 feet tall (8.8 by 2.9 meters), with a wingspan of 15 feet (4.6 m) and a payload bay the size of a pickup-truck bed. To put those dimensions into perspective, both X-37Bs could fit inside the payload bay of NASA's now-retired space shuttle orbiter.

The X-37B launches vertically and lands horizontally, on a runway, as the space shuttle did.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/a...-x-37b-space-plane-on-fourth-mystery-mission/

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

NPR article

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-...ouse-unawares-and-pay-the-health-consequences

"Contaminated houses are listed on the state's public online database and properties are removed from the list only after they've been cleaned by a qualified inspector. The Drug Enforcement Administration keeps a national registry that logs the locations of known contaminated homes as reported by law enforcement."

What happens, when the house owner does not tell the truth, about a meth house ?

(How to get the house tested, before you buy a house ?)

Breaking Bad, revisited.

"A recently passed state law aims to protect homebuyers from unknowingly buying homes contaminated by meth."

Indiana General Assembly
2014 Session

House Bill 1141

Methamphetamine lab disclosure in property sales.

Provides that the state police department (and not the Indiana criminal justice institute) maintains the methamphetamine laboratory web site (web site). Provides that a property used for the manufacture of methamphetamine may not be placed on the web site until 180 days after the methamphetamine laboratory is reported to the state police department, and specifies that the state police department may not place a property on the web site if it was decontaminated before being placed on the web site. Provides that a property must be removed from the web site in accordance with the statute that requires the web site to be established. Specifies that if methamphetamine is manufactured in an apartment of a multi-unit complex, only the specific unit in which the methamphetamine was manufactured may be included on the web site. Requires a person who manufactures methamphetamine on property owned by another person to pay restitution to the owner for the owner's actual damages, including lost rents and the costs of decontamination.

https://iga.in.gov/legislative/2014/bills/house/1141/#digest-heading

July 1, 2015

"Indiana leads the nation in the number of meth lab seizures, causing hundreds of homes to be contaminated with dangerous chemicals each year."

A sad note-

"...the previous homeowner didn't disclose that meth was in the home."

"...family decided to sell their dream house. As a result, they took a significant financial loss."

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Tuesday morning, the New Horizons space probe zipped past Pluto going 30,000 miles per hour. It carries the ashes of the man who discovered the dwarf planet, along with several spectrometers to analyze Pluto's surface and one telescopic camera.

That camera has been busy for the past decade, snapping hundreds of photos of Jupiter first, and then Pluto. Those images were stitched together to create this video. The words that accompany the video come from Ray Bradbury, who read his poem "If Only We Had Taller Been" at a celebration of a NASA mission to Mars in 1971.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/07/14/422939198/the-last-boston-snow-farm-finally-melts



http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150714101141.htm

Astronomy Picture of the Day
APOD

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

NASA's three-billion-mile journey to Pluto reaches historic encounter
Date:
July 14, 2015
Source:
NASA
Summary:
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is at Pluto. After a decade-long journey through our solar system, New Horizons made its closest approach to Pluto Tuesday, about 7,750 miles above the surface -- roughly the same distance from New York to Mumbai, India -- making it the first-ever space mission to explore a world so far from Earth


Twitter feed
Kuiper Belt

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

August 3, 2015

In a decision that will have repercussions for the USDA's Wildlife Services program across the country, a federal Court of Appeals ruled today that the agency may not escape court review of their predator killing program just because State governments might kill predators without them.

At issue was a challenge to Wildlife Service's plan to engage in the systematic killing of hundreds of native carinvors, including coyotes, mountain lions and bobcats, across the State. WildEarth Guardians, a conservation group, brought a challenge to this plan, arguing that Wildlife Services had failed to prepare a thorough environmental analysis pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act or "NEPA".

In response, USDA argued that the courts should refuse to even consider WildEarth Guardians case because Nevada had written a letter stating that if USDA were to do nothing, it would go ahead and kill these animals anyway. That claim was dubious to begin with - Nevada has a limited history in engaging in this work, which is both specialized and expensive (federal taxpayers foot the bill for about half of Wildlife Services state management plan). Nonetheless, a lower court bought this argument and threw out WildEarth Guardians case, finding that a decision would be pointless. Put in lawyer-speak, the court found that WildEarth Guardian's claim was not "redressable" by a federal court.

WildEarth Guardians appealed. NRDC, representing a dozen national and local conservation groups supported them, filing a "friend of the court" brief. Today, the Ninth Circuit reversed the lower court's ruling. Citing the Supreme Court's opinion holding that EPA has the authority to regulate carbon pollution despite the fact that many countries contribute to global warming, the court found that

the mere existence of multiple causes of an injury does not defeat redressability, particularly for a procedural injury. So long as a defendant is at least partially causing the alleged injury, a plaintiff may sue that defendant, even if the defendant is just one of multiple causes of the plaintiff's injury....The conclusion that [ WildEarth's] injury is redressable is bolstered by the fact that any independent predator damage management activities by Nevada are hypothetical rather than actual. What, if any, the extent of a Nevada predator damage management program would be if APHIS stopped its activity in Nevada is entirely a matter of speculation because Nevada currently has no such independent program. ...The notion that Nevada would replace everything APHIS currently does is therefore speculative at best.

The consequences of this ruling are hard to understate. If USDA had prevailed, it would have been virtually impossible to ever challenge any predator management plan undertaken with a state or local government in federal court. After all, all Wildlife Services would have to do is to get a letter from the state or locality saying: "we would do this anyway." Instead, Wildlife Services will now be forced to comply with the same federal environmental laws that apply to all other federal agencies. And that is a victory for wildlife everywhere.

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/awetzler/wildlife_services_tries_and_fa.html#comment120450

EXPOSED: USDA'S Secret War on Wildlife

. A senior Congressman and three former Federal agents take on the US Department of Agriculture, in this new film exposing the government's war on wildlife.


2012 investigation by the Sacramento Bee found that the agency had inadvertently killed tens of thousands of non-target animals with their broadly applied trapping and poisoning tactics since 2000. Among those killed were rare and endangered species, as well as more than a thousand family pets. Many deaths are believed to have gone unreported.

https://www.thedodo.com/millions-animals-killed-by-us-government-1090872400.html

 

[NeverEndingMe]

clearly those in government are not mentally fit to have access to tax payer money



remember, government was created so that retards have a place to go during the day

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

PBS News Hour revisits why wildfires are so extreme

Population growth in areas that are in danger
No burn off
Too much undergrowth
extremely dry brush help to start trees on fire
Three years of drought

Half of the budget the firefighters are given, is spent fighting forest fires, wild fires

20 year veteran firefighters, 30 year fire fighters have not seen fires behave as they do, now

nytimes.com/2015/08/06/us/rocky-fire-in-california-defies-expectations-and-defenses.

LAKEPORT, Calif. — As firefighters on Wednesday embarked on their sixth day of battling the largest of the many wildfires that have flared across the state, fire officials said the Rocky Fire, which has grown to consume nearly 70,000 acres here in the northern reaches of wine country, was still nowhere near under control and may not be until perhaps Monday.

The Rocky Fire, which was impeded slightly by humid overnight conditions, has already defied firefighters’ expectations for how such blazes typically behave, and has crossed highways, fire lines and other barriers meant to contain it. Feeding on tinder-dry terrain and woodlands that have been parched by drought, the Rocky Fire is now 106 square miles and has forced the evacuation of 1,480 people; about 13,000 have been urged to leave their homes.


“I’ve got 30 years in, and in the last 10 years I have seen fire behavior that I had never seen in my entire career,” said Capt. Ron Oatman, a public information officer for Cal Fire, the state firefighting operation, and a longtime wild-land firefighter. For example, he said, on Saturday the Rocky Fire grew by 22,000 acres, a plot of land that computer models indicated would take about a week to burn. But that plot was consumed in five hours.

That new reality, Mr. Shelton said, is that “fire seasons are lasting longer, fires are burning harder, hotter and faster.”


On Monday, the fire leapt across Highway 20, embers blowing from treetop to treetop, dismaying the firefighters, who had hoped to contain the blaze to one side of the road. The ability of a fire to keep catching — called its probability of ignition — is assessed by fire experts. The Rocky Fire has a probability of ignition of 100 percent, almost unheard-of when the tinder is forest and scrub, as it is here. “That’s something I’ve never seen,” Captain Oatman said.

 

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One of the most glaring examples of how FEMA’s programs are a mismatch for climate change is how difficult it is for communities to get money before a disaster strikes. The FEMA program that provides such funds has been seriously underfunded, according to academics, FEMA contractors and other experts, at $25 million in recent years — a drop in the bucket compared with post-disaster funding.

After the 2012 Waldo Canyon fire burned close to 20,000 acres on the mountain slopes above the tourist town of Manitou Springs, Colorado, town leaders knew the parched landscape greatly heightened the risk of flooding.

But despite local government efforts, Manitou Springs could not get FEMA or other federal money to improve the town’s storm water system, according to state and local officials. So, town officials installed new emergency warning sirens, drilled residents and waited for the disaster they knew was on the way.

On Aug. 9, 2013, it came.

“I’d been living under this shadow of doom for about a year,” Manitou Springs Mayor Marc Snyder recalls. “I remember looking over and seeing that ominous dark cloud over the burn scar and I thought, ‘This is it.’ ”

Manitou Springs sits at the base of several mountains, including the majestic Pikes Peak, which inspired the patriotic song “America the Beautiful.” For 100 years, the town’s storm water system handled the water running off the slopes. But it was no match for floodwaters carrying rocks, trees, mud and ash off the scorched slopes. Dozens of homes and businesses were destroyed or damaged in the flood. So was the storm water system.

“We had to wait for the disaster, and then the funding doors opened up to us,” says Snyder.

FEMA paid for most of a new $6 million drainage system. Upgrading before the flood would have cost far less, and much of the rest of the damage could have been averted, state and local officials agree.

FEMA says it receives requests for several times more funding than it has available each year for preventative projects. “There’s a clear need there,” says FEMA’s Grimm.


wgbhnews.org