Tag: Kentucky

Who was Breonna Taylor?

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Taylor, 26, was an ER technician who had worked at two area hospitals, her mother, Tamika Palmer, told The Courier Journal. Taylor had previously worked as a certified EMT, and aspired to further her career in health care…

“She had a whole plan on becoming a nurse and buying a house and then starting a family. Breonna had her head on straight, and she was a very decent person,” Palmer said. “She didn’t deserve this. She wasn’t that type of person.”…

Family members said that she was kind, hardworking and honest and that they were angry she was dead at age 26…

A…lawsuit against the LMPD officers and sergeant involved claims the officers weren’t looking for Taylor or her boyfriend. And no drugs were found in her home.

A defense attorney for Kenneth Walker, Taylor’s boyfriend, has claimed in court filings that Walker fired in self-defense, believing the home was being broken into because police didn’t announce themselves.

The Louisville, Kentucky, police department said, “Blah, blah, blah, blah!”

Over half of US coal mined in 2017 came from 5 companies

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❝ More than half of the coal produced in the U.S. comes from five companies, with the largest company producing one in every five tons.

Peabody Energy Corp. far outproduced any other coal company in 2017 with 156.7 million tons from U.S. operations, a 20.3% share of the total coal produced in the U.S. Nearly two-thirds of Peabody’s production came from a single mine, the North Antelope Rochelle mine in Wyoming, which is itself responsible for 13.1% of the coal produced in the entire country…

❝ “We’ll take a look at where our customer requirements are later as we progress through the year and see where we end up, but we are very focused on maintaining strong margins out of that basin,” Peabody Executive Vice President and CFO Amy Schwetz said Feb. 7…

Just to smell the money and power coal still has over a political economy…consider…

❝ In Wyoming, for example, two companies — Peabody and Arch — mine 64% of the coal in the state. Murray Energy controls 36% of the coal produced in West Virginia, while Alliance Resource Partners LP produced 39.7% of the coal mined in Kentucky in 2017.

How many politicians do you think they own – they might need to own – in a state, in Congress, to always get their way?

Long live irony! A solar-powered coal museum

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The Kentucky Coal Mining Museum, nestled in the heart of coal country, might seem like an odd place for a solar project. But the solar panels currently being installed on its roof will ultimately save thousands in electricity costs…

“It is a little ironic,” Brandon Robinson, communications director at Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College, which owns the museum, told WYMT. “But you know, coal and solar and all the different energy sources work hand-in-hand. And, of course, coal is still king around here.”

In the 2016 election, 85 percent of Harlan County, where Benham is located, voted for Donald Trump — likely in part because of his promise to bring back coal jobs, a promise that experts say is unrealistic.

Out-of-work coal miners could do lots worse than retraining for jobs in the solar trade. But, then, if you’re gullible enough to believe slogans and promises that matched the silliest, least likely, in the history of American campaigning lies – you’re more inclined to sit in your home town feeling sorry for yourself than get up, stand up, and fight for something better.

Reality TV is no source of legitimate solutions to any of life’s challenges in changing times.

Dumb crook of the day

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A 25-year-old man who applied for a job at a Michigan sheriff’s department was arrested after a background check revealed he was wanted in Kentucky on sexual assault charges, officials said on Friday.

John Wesley Rose was arrested and will return to Kentucky, where he is wanted on six counts of sexual abuse, sodomy and rape, said Paula Bridges, a spokeswoman for the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office…

He was arrested on Tuesday after a background check showed the outstanding warrant from Madison County, Kentucky from March, the sheriff’s department said in a statement. The warrant had not been entered into the national database when Rose initially applied for an officer position in September.

The sheriff’s office asked Rose to return to complete paperwork and finalize the employment application, and at that time arrested him without incident…

Anyone else remember Clem Kadiddlehopper? He wasn’t a crook; but, he surely was dumb.

At least federal judges are willing to serve the public good in Kentucky

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April Miller and Karen Roberts

A county clerk in Kentucky who refuses to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples on religious grounds was held in contempt of court by a U.S. federal judge on Thursday and sent to jail.

Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis was led away by U.S. marshals who confirmed she was under arrest.

“The court doesn’t do this lightly,” District Court Judge David Bunning said in ordering that she be taken into custody.

Bunning also said his earlier injunction ordering Davis to issue marriage licenses applied to everyone and not just the four couples whose suit in July had accused Davis of not doing her job.

Davis has refused to issue licenses to any couples, gay or straight, since the U.S. Supreme Court in June ruled that same-sex couples have the right to marry under the U.S. Constitution, citing her Christian beliefs.

Before and during the hearing, about 200 demonstrators on both sides of the issue gathered outside the courthouse, some chanting slogans and many holding signs. As word of the ruling emerged, supporters of same-sex marriage erupted in cheers.

Davis’ seven deputies still face their own reckoning as Bunning assigned each of them attorneys and said their fate would be determined at a 1:45 pm EDT hearing, warning them they could face fines or jail…

The hearing in Ashland, Kentucky, lasted just over two hours. Crying at times, Davis maintained that a marriage can only be between a man and a woman and she was unable to recognize same-sex marriages…

Also testifying was April Miller, who along with her partner Karen Jacobs had three times tried to get a marriage license from Davis’ office. They were one of four couples who sued Davis in July.

Throw away the key!

I have no sympathy for someone who runs for elective office and then refuses to obey the law of the land.

This is an individual who individually and as a member of her religion claims that violating the civil rights of other Americans is somehow godly. Just plain old-fashioned crap. The same lies used to hinder normal lives for people of color, of minority religions, of nationalities somehow unacceptable to this year’s favorite flavor of bigot.

She gets no sympathy from this jailbird who willingly entered cells in a half-dozen states because local law decided whether or not someone could go to school or sit down and have a crappy soft drink – based on the color of their skin.

I never expected to see anyone like Ms. Davis sitting-in alongside me. And never did. That’s not condemnation of all religious folk. You should know that, by now. Second-best time I ever had in a jail cell was discussing religious history with a Catholic priest busted in the same demonstration in Chicago.

She adds to the number of people who reject her kind of religious beliefs out-of-hand because of her denial of civil rights, civil liberties, for all Americans.

UPDATE: 5 of 6 deputy clerks say they will start issuing kicenses tomorrow. Davis wants to be released, then – but, the judge rightfully doesn’t trust her to keep from interfering. Not so incidentally, the one deputy who wouldn’t obey the law is her son. Not enough she’s paid $80K/year – she puts her kin on the payroll, too.

Kentucky lets clerk deny marriage licenses to gay couples despite court order

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Karen Roberts and April Miller, denied marriage license by religious bigot — AP/Timothy D. Easley

A gay couple was denied a marriage license for the third time in Kentucky on Thursday, after a Rowan county clerk refused to obey a federal court order telling her to comply with the law.

James Yates and William Smith Jr said that officials at Rowan County courthouse, led by clerk Kim Davis, refused to provide the couple with the paperwork for a marriage license on Thursday.

“It’s just making us want to press more,” Yates told the Courier-Journal. “She can’t get away with this.”

One of Smith’s deputies told the couple that the county clerk believes she can refuse to issue licenses until 31 August. The couple plans to return to the office the next day.

Same-sex marriage became legal nationwide on 26 June, but Davis is one of a handful of people who refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. She did not come out of her office and declined to comment to reporters…

On Wednesday, a federal appeals court upheld a lower court’s ruling ordering Davis to issue marriages for gay couples and denied her request for a stay while courts heard her appeals…

Two same-sex couples and two straight couples sued Davis in July. A US district judge then ordered her to issue marriage licenses, but delayed his order so she could appeal against the decision with the US sixth circuit court of appeals. The court on Wednesday denied her request to stay the district judge’s decision.

Theocratic dolts who hold office founded on the US Constitution – and refuse to uphold constitutional rights, decisions made binding by the ultimate constitutional court in the land – should be removed from office.

I don’t really care if the excuses they offer for violating their oath of office are based on religion, racism or what the tooth fairy whispered into their tiny brain last night. Either they lied when they took office, required to meet public standards of conduct – or they have since decided to reject the Constitution of the United States and civil law. Whatever. They should be launched into the ranks of Kentucky’s unemployed and left to find an honest job.

Poor old Noah – he doesn’t qualify for an $18 million tax break

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A Noah’s Ark-themed amusement park may have sprung a financial leak after being denied millions of dollars in tax incentives.

The Ark Encounter, a Genesis-themed attraction with a 500-foot-long wooden replica of Noah’s Ark, was denied approximately $18 million in tax breaks from the state of Kentucky. Why? According to Think Progress, it may have something to do with refusing to comply with the state’s existing nondiscrimination policies…

This isn’t the first time that Ark Encounter and its parent company Answers in Genesis have been tied in with state taxes. When the park was announced almost four years ago, MSNBC reported that it would be eligible for $37 million in state tourism incentives, despite worries that taxpayers were funding a religious theme park.

Fast forward to early October, when the park’s president Mike Zovath let it slip that he only planned to hire creationists. Ark Encounter had received preliminary approval for $18 million in sales tax rebates over the next 10 years, but the Secretary of the Kentucky Tourism, Arts, and Heritage Cabinet had warned Zovath that companies which discriminate on religious bases cannot receive these incentives.

And it turns out that the Cabinet was true to its word. In a letter, Tourism Secretary Bob Stewart noted that “the use of state incentives in this way violates the separation of church and state provisions of the Constitution and is therefore impermissible…”

Is there a Christian nutball in the country who doesn’t also feel it’s their fundamental[ist] right to be given taxpayer dollar$ to fund their personal religious beliefs?

Thanks, Mike

Why is this 1939 Dodge pickup so quiet?

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One thing you can say about Al Gajda without much fear of contradiction: he has the quietest truck in Lexington, Kentucky.

Some trucks rattle your windows when they pass. Others are so loud that children cower in fear and brave dogs run for cover.

But even newborns sleep in perfect peace when Gajda drives past in his 1939 Dodge pickup. It makes hardly a whisper.

To a casual observer, the Dodge looks like nothing more than just an old truck that runs particularly smoothly. The secret lies underneath.

It’s an electric truck.

Electrical vehicles are catching on in dealer showrooms today as gasoline becomes ever more expensive and environmental concerns grow.

But Gajda, 74, didn’t buy his. He built it.

A mainly self-taught electronics wizard, he spent more than three years replacing the truck’s old six-cylinder flathead engine with a modern all-electric system built around a series wound direct current motor.

He’s driven the truck more than 5,000 miles since completing the work about a year ago.

“It’s my daily driver,” he said. “I take advantage of any excuse to drive it; just banging around town, errands, short runs on the interstate, delivering my granddaughter to school in the morning.”

Lots more about the truck in the article. Even more about Al Gajda. He’s led a heckuva interesting life, engineering and design in the world of technology – without ever getting round to latching onto a degree.

So-called facts you find in the Creation Museum

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When BuzzFeed journalist Matt Stopera went to the Creation Museum in Petersburg, KY for the Bill Nye–Ken Ham debate, he learned a lot of really crazy stuff that creationists make up about creationism and evolution.

“First off, the museum is HUGE. It’s also REALLY nice. Like one of the nicest museums I’ve ever been to. It took me over three hours to go through it. Through the course of those three hours, I learned just about everything I could possibly ever want to know about creationism.”

Here is a sampling of some of the things he learned in his surreal experience. Honestly, these kooks just make this stuff up. I’m a Christian. Why can’t other Christians reconcile God with science as I have? But nooooo, they (some of them) have to be as stupid as humanly possible.


Graffiti is a sign of the abandonment of God


Adam and Eve did it in a forest surrounded by dinosaurs


Animals used trees knocked down by the great flood as rafts to get around


Fork it over!

RTFA for lots more useless crap. All images via Matt Stopera of BuzzFeed.

The magic words today are “profit center”.