American presidential self-delusion extends all the way back to George W [the first one]
Tag: Washington
Wildfire smoke ain’t like some family campfire, folks!
Daytime, Juniper Hills, California
The West Coast’s wildfire crisis is no longer just the West Coast’s wildfire crisis: As massive blazes continue to burn across California, Oregon, and Washington, they’re spewing smoke high into the atmosphere. Winds pick the haze up and transport it clear across the country, tainting the skies above the East Coast.
But what are you breathing, exactly, when these forests combust and waft smoke near and far? Charred trees and shrubs, of course, but also the synthetic materials from homes and other structures lost in the blazes. Along with a variety of gases, these give off tiny particles, known as PM 2.5 (particulate matter 2.5 microns or smaller), that weasel their way deep into human lungs. All told, the mixture of solids and gases actually transforms chemically as it crosses the country, creating different consequences for the health of humans thousands of miles apart. In other words, what you breathe in, and how hazardous it remains, may depend on how far you live from the Pacific coast…
As the smoke plume travels through the atmosphere, “the heavier particles are going to start to fall out as time moves on,” says Rebecca Buchholz, an atmospheric chemist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. “But then those sticky, partially burnt carbon gases are going to start to coagulate and become more particles again. So you’re losing particles out of the smoke, but you’re also gaining particles as the air processes through time.”
Another atmospheric nasty we’re all too familiar with forms as well: ozone, which inflames your airways. “Ozone requires carbon-containing gases, nitrogen-containing gases, and sunlight,” says Buchholz. “And so the more processing time you have, the more ozone is going to get created in that smoke plume.”
There are parts of the West where breathing the air has been evaluated as the equivalent of smoking 400 cigarettes! Today, wasn’t that bad in my neck of the prairie – here in northern New Mexico. But, after a morning try, I had to give up my usual regimen of exercise walking. My breathing, my eyes, just had too much of a bad thing to deal with.
Landyn Wadsworth is on Santa’s “nice” list
A young child with such a grown-up heart…
Autonomous car actually has driver dressed as a car seat — WTF?
❝ A gray van was recently seen cruising the streets of suburban, Washington, D.C. — without a driver.
But this wasn’t one of those self-driving cars that Google and car companies have been testing. This was … something else.
❝ The unmarked van first appeared in a video on ARLnow.com, an Arlington, Virginia, news site. In the video pedestrians comment on the van, clearly realizing something is up.
That’s when a local reporter decided to dig deeper. WRC TV’s Adam Tuss and his photographer followed the van for 20 minutes, even after he says the van tried to lose them.
❝ Tuss finally caught up with the 2017 Ford Transit Connect and peered through its windows, only to find a person inside…But instead of sitting in the car’s seat, the person was the seat. The driver was dressed in a car-seat costume.
RTFA for [contradictory] explanations.
Women’s March on Washington more than double predicted size — more than showed for inauguration
Support demonstration in Berlin — AP/Michael Sohn
9:40AM EST
A city official in Washington says the turnout estimate for the Women’s March on the National Mall now stands at 500,000 people. That’s more than double the initial predictions.
Kevin Donahue is Washington’s deputy mayor for public safety and justice. He says on Twitter that organizers of the march are increasing the turnout estimate to half a million.
There were early signs across Washington that Saturday’s crowds could top those that gathered on Friday to watch President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Keep on rocking in the Free World!
Contaminated “organic” food makes you just as sick as contaminated”conventional” food
❝ …CRF Frozen Foods of Pasco, Washington is expanding its voluntary recall of frozen organic and traditional fruits and vegetables…because these products have the potential to be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes. The organism can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Although healthy individuals may suffer only short-term symptoms such as high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain, and diarrhea, Listeria infection can cause miscarriages and stillbirths among pregnant women.
❝ This expanded recall of frozen vegetables includes all of the frozen organic and traditional fruit and vegetable products manufactured or processed in CRF Frozen Foods’ Pasco facility since May 1, 2014…These include approximately 358 consumer products sold under 42 separate brands, the details of which are listed below. Products include organic and non-organic broccoli, butternut squash, carrots, cauliflower, corn, edamame, green beans, Italian beans, kale, leeks, lima beans, onions, peas, pepper strips, potatoes, potato medley, root medley, spinach, sweet potatoes, various vegetable medleys, blends, and stir fry packages, blueberries, cherries, cranberries, peaches, raspberries, and strawberries. For a complete list of affected products, click through to the article. It goes on forever.
❝ We apologize for any concern or inconvenience, blah, blah, blah…Consumers with questions may call the company’s consumer hotline at 844-483-3866, Monday through Friday, 8:00 am to 8:00 pm Eastern Standard Time.
Lots of frozen fruits and veggies under lots of brands – ranging from products sold at WalMart to Trader Joe’s and Wild Oats. I suggest you click that link above and check your freezer.
A new window on the universe — gravitational waves confirmed
The top two plots show data received at each detector
The final plot compares data from both…confirming the detection
❝For the first time, scientists have observed ripples in the fabric of spacetime called gravitational waves, arriving at Earth from a cataclysmic event in the distant universe. This confirms a major prediction of Albert Einstein’s 1915 general theory of relativity and opens an unprecedented new window onto the cosmos.
❝Gravitational waves carry information about their dramatic origins and about the nature of gravity that cannot otherwise be obtained. Physicists have concluded that the detected gravitational waves were produced during the final fraction of a second of the merger of two black holes to produce a single, more massive spinning black hole. This collision of two black holes had been predicted but never observed.
The gravitational waves were detected on September 14, 2015 at 5:51 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (09:51 UTC) by both of the twin Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors, located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington, USA…
❝Based on the observed signals, LIGO scientists estimate that the black holes for this event were about 29 and 36 times the mass of the sun, and the event took place 1.3 billion years ago. About 3 times the mass of the sun was converted into gravitational waves in a fraction of a second — with a peak power output about 50 times that of the whole visible universe. By looking at the time of arrival of the signals — the detector in Livingston recorded the event 7 milliseconds before the detector in Hanford — scientists can say that the source was located in the Southern Hemisphere.
RTFA. Lots of truly interesting science.
And, sorry, Trumpites – the earth is not flat.
Zero-tolerance madness in Washington school
Webster’s defines “tag” as “a game in which the player who is it chases others and tries to touch one of them who then becomes it.” Wikipedia explains that the game, also known in Britain as “it, tip you’re it” is “a playground game that involves one or more players chasing other players in an attempt to ‘tag’ or touch them, usually with their hands.”
So is the game of “tag” still “tag” if tagging is banned?
That is the question for the Mercer County School District in Washington state and for some unhappy parents.
It all started with a social media report earlier this week when a group of parents, responding to what they had heard was a ban on the game of tag in elementary schools, formed a group called “Support ‘tag’ at Recess.”
It was their impression that there was indeed a ban and the word soon spread to the news media…
Sounds like a ban to me
“The Mercer Island School District and school teams have recently revisited expectations for student behavior to address student safety. This means while at play, especially during recess and unstructured time, students are expected to keep their hands to themselves. The rationale behind this is to ensure the physical and emotional safety of all students…”
Thursday the school district attempted to clarify. What it really has in mind, said a statement, was a “new form of tag-like running games to minimize the issues of ‘you were tagged/no I wasn’t’ or ‘the tag was too hard and felt more like a hit.’ Tag is not banned,” it insisted. “We plan to support our elementary students with new games and alternatives that still involve running and exercising.”
Running. Exercising. But no mention of touching, however, raising the question of how a child can become “it” without being touched.
RTFA. It goes on and on, here and there. The object is central to what I’ve been watching happen to education in America since the 1950’s. How to educate our children is now grounded in becoming a vaguely Freudian assembly for the purpose of group therapy.
I can understand any portion of our alienated society trying to come to grips with stupidity, grand illusions, imperial arrogance, bigotry, misogyny, the whole ball of bullshit our culture is capable of. Replacing education with touchy-feely fear and trembling aids nothing more than ignorance.
Stuffed tiger on car roof prompts 911 call
Image/Connor Zuvich
Police in Washington state…responded to an emergency call about a Bengal tiger lounging on top of a car, but it turned out the cat was actually a big stuffed animal.
A concerned citizen called 911 on Monday after seeing what appeared to be a live tiger riding atop a sport utility vehicle at Lacamas Lake, a popular recreation area, according to police in the city of Camas.
“This person thought it was real and called it in,” Camas police Sergeant Rob Skeens said, adding no report was taken during the Monday incident because there is no law against strapping stuffed animals to the top of a car.
According to the Columbian newspaper, Connor Zuvich, 19, of Vancouver, Washington, had found the stuffed tiger among some trash bags at the lake and decided to strap it to the top of his black SUV.
Connor has kept the tiger on his truck since the 911 call. No further news. Yet.
Deputies find stolen cabin — huh? wha?
Authorities say a log cabin that a family reported stolen off its foundation has been found in rural northeast Washington.
Stevens County Sheriff Kendle Allen says deputies following a tip found the cabin Thursday morning about 10 miles from its original location. He says the structure had been placed on stilts and was sitting at the end of a private road east of Springdale.
Chris Hempel tells The Spokesman-Review newspaper in Spokane that her family drove to their cabin Tuesday and found the entire 10-by-20-foot structure missing.
Investigators think that whoever took the cabin was living in it.
Allen says deputies are getting a search warrant to get onto the property and inside the cabin. He says he has identified suspects but declined to name them.
Do Tiny Homes come with a VIN number?
Eideard 
