EPA Wipes Its Climate Change Site as Tens of Thousands March in Washington

Washington



Chicago

Toronto

One of my favorite Toronto groups....The Raging Grannies

Boston

Los Angles

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s main climate change website is “undergoing changes” to better reflect “the agency’s new direction” under Donald Trump.

The announcement, made late Friday evening, left empty what was previously the “official government site” providing “comprehensive information on the issue of climate change and global warming”.

The change came a day before thousands gathered in Washington DC and other U.S. cities to protest inaction on climate change, and hours before the symbolic 100-day mark of the Trump administration. In fact demonstrations took place in many countries to protest Mr Trump's attitude.

At the marquee climate protest, the Peoples Climate March in Washington, tens of thousands made their way down Pennsylvania Avenue in sweltering heat on their way to encircle the White House. Temperatures neared 90 degrees Saturday, well above the average high of 71 degrees for April 29, according to Weather.com. It seems global warming was sending it's own message to Mr Trump.

Organizers said about 300 sister marches or rallies were being held around the country, including in Seattle, Boston, Denver and San Francisco. In Chicago, marchers headed from the city’s federal plaza to Trump Tower.

Some of the marches drew celebrity attendees, including former Vice President Al Gore and actor Leonardo DiCaprio in the capital and senator and former candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination Bernie Sanders at an event in Montpelier, Vermont.

“Honored to join Indigenous leaders and native peoples as they fight for climate justice,” DiCaprio tweeted.

Any marchers who used their phones to look at the EPA climate change website would have been greeted with a message from the new administration: “ This page is being updated.”

“As EPA renews its commitment to human health and clean air, land and water, our website needs to reflect the views of the leadership of the agency,” said JP Freire, an associate administrator for public affairs.

Previously, the website housed data on greenhouse gas emissions from large polluters and reports on the effects of climate change and its impact on human health.

“We want to eliminate confusion,” Freire said, “by removing outdated language first and making room to discuss how we’re protecting the environment and human health by partnering with states and working within the law.”

Information from previous administrations is archived as a link from the EPA’s website.

The EPA is currently led by Scott Pruitt, a former Oklahoma attorney general who has denied that carbon dioxide causes global warming.

The Trump administration has called for budget cuts of nearly one-third at the EPA and has sought to weaken protections for human health. For instance, the White House has proposed cutting funding and regulations regarding lead poisoning prevention and is considering rewriting regulations concerning smog.

It has already rolled back a law that prevented coal mining companies from dumping waste in streams.

An article written by Senator Sanders of Vermont made an economic case for a focus on industries meant to ameliorate the effects of climate change, rather than those which contribute to it.

The senator wrote: “No matter what agenda President Trump and his administration of climate deniers push, it is clear that jobs in clean energy like wind and solar are growing much more rapidly than jobs in the coal, oil and gas sectors.”
The truth is that Mr Trump cannot halt progress on climate change, alternate fuels and energy sources. He cannot turn back the clock or obliterate scientific knowledge. If he thinks  he can blindside the American people he is very much mistaken; there are too many intelligent and informed citizens our there.

Life is short...Laugh it up

I was at the bar last night
When the waitress yelled
"anyone know CPR"?
I said, "Hell, I know the whole damn alphabet."
Everyone laughed ...
Well, except for that one guy.

I just loved this one

Artificial 'brain in a dish' is created in a world first: Breakthrough could shed light on conditions such as Alzheimer's

• Scientists have grown the first working 'mini-brains' in a dish
• They could provide future treatments for autism and epilepsy
• The team stimulated two types of neuron to join up as they would in the brain 

Scientists have grown the first working 'mini-brains' in a dish which could provide future treatments for autism and epilepsy. The lab-grown organs have their own brain cells, formed into circuits similar to those of a two-month-old baby in the womb.

Described as 'thrilling science', it is the first time a human forebrain has been seen in action outside the body. Scientists hope to use the mini-brains to watch in real time the triggers for epilepsy, when brain cells become hyperactive, and autism, where they are thought to form bad connections.

 

Scientists have grown the first working 'mini-brains' in a dish which could provide future treatments for autism and epilepsy. Neurons resembling tissue (pictured) in the lower forebrain migrated and fused to create brain circuitry

THE BRAIN IN A DISH

The brains in a dish are the latest advance for stem cell science.

Human skin cells are transformed into pluripotent stem cells, capable of becoming any part of the body, using four genes in a petri dish. These help them 'unlearn' that they are skin cells and return to the state of a newborn baby's cells.

The 'culture', or nutrient-rich broth they are grown in, is then altered to determine which type of cell they will become – in this case brain cells, or neurons. The result is a 60-day old forebrain like a baby's in the womb, although more scrambled in its connections.

It includes the cerebral cortex, the most highly evolved 'thinking' and decision-making part of the brain. It could pave the way for drugs to treat these conditions, as well as schizophrenia. It is also the next step towards a real-life Frankenstein, suggesting scientists may one day be able to grow an entire human body in the laboratory.

Researchers at Stanford University grew two forebrain circuits, measuring only a sixteenth of an inch across, using only human skin cells.

Then scientists at Harvard University went a step further, growing a mini-organ for more than nine months to create a human retina – the light-sensitive lining at the back of the eye.

Responding to the breakthroughs, Professor Paul Matthews, chair of the brain sciences division at Imperial College London, said: 'These reports describe continued advances of the fundamentally important new methods for generation of self-assembled 'brain organoids'. This is thrilling science.'

China needs to wake up to the danger Kim poses

Kim needs reining in - but China is reluctant to take the lead internationally

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results."

The quotation is attributed to Albert Einstein but after a torrid few days on the Korean peninsula, it's one for Chinese leaders to ponder.
China is simply in the wrong place on North Korea. It is allowing Kim Jong-un's nuclear ambitions to undermine Chinese national interest.
There are complex reasons for this including history, habit and political culture. But among Chinese foreign policy experts and even on social media, unease is beginning to spread.
North Korea's nuclear program has already driven South Korea to agree to the deployment of an American anti-missile system, locking Seoul deeper into a defensive triangle with Japan and the United States.

Relations between Beijing and Seoul are at their worst in a quarter of a century and many South Koreans have been alienated by unofficial Chinese sanctions against the whole spectrum of South Korean interests from supermarkets to boy bands.

This is good for North Korea but for no-one else. It is nonsensical for China to punish South Korea for trying to defend itself against a nuclear threat which even Beijing describes as real and urgent.
And if North Korea continues its drive for nuclear weapons, there may be a worse arms race to come. A nuclear-armed Japan would hardly be in China's national interest.
But despite this catalogue of warning signals and failures, China seems trapped in an unfinished history marked by binary choice: a nuclear-armed North Korea or a reunified Korea with American troops on China's border. Between these choices, it finds a nuclear-armed North Korea preferable.
But if it thinks hard enough, perhaps there is an alternative.

US President Donald Trump has offered China an incentive if it helps resolve the North Korean crisis

In fact, this is a moment of decision for China. President Xi has talked of an Asia led by Asians. Showing flexibility and resolve on fixing Korea in the interests of the region and the world would demonstrate a readiness to lead.
Almost everyone, even China's most suspicious neighbors, would be grateful. President Trump has already promised that American gratitude would take material form in a favorable trade deal.
So China could use the current crisis on the Korean peninsula to demonstrate it's military and economic sanction muscles to N. Korea and cement a partnership with the US. Or it could duck the challenge and let the US lead. A choice put starkly in a tweet from President Trump: "I have great confidence that China will properly deal with North Korea. If they are unable to do so, the US, with its allies, will."
Of course, China's view on what constitutes "dealing with North Korea" does not coincide with Mr Trump's. But there will be no dealing with North Korea of any note that does not require a fundamental shift in how Beijing sees the region and its relationships within it.
China is after all an ideologically insecure one-party state. A profound aversion to liberal internationalism has tied it to a rigid position on non-interference in the internal affairs of another state. A position which now constrains it in managing the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
What's more, in Beijing's worldview, the United States is its long-term rival in Asia and the US system of alliances is a barely concealed strategy of containment.
For decades, China's security planners have war-gamed scenarios of brinkmanship and conflict with the US as enemy in a zero-sum game. There are no established scenarios in which the US presents as a partner in managing a rogue state masquerading as a Chinese ally.

 China shares a border with North Korea and would feel vulnerable if it should fall or have a drastic change of regime       

Outdated stance?

China and North Korea signed a mutual aid treaty in 1961. The treaty says if either ally comes under armed attack, the other should provide immediate assistance, including military support. But it also says both should safeguard peace and security.
Some Chinese experts now argue that Beijing is not obliged to defend North Korea on the grounds that its nuclear weapons breach the mutual defense pact. But in general, China's security policy for the Korean peninsula seems frozen in time.
Despite establishing diplomatic relations with Seoul 25 years ago, and despite the burgeoning economic relationship with South Korea which followed, the security logic has not changed.
And now that China's only formal ally is threatening a nuclear war which would bring incalculable horror to the entire region including China's own citizens, Beijing's position looks a quarter century out of date.
If it wants to claim leadership in Asia, it could say that Pyongyang's threats are completely intolerable and action must be taken. After all, what loyalty does it owe a regime which shows only contempt for Chinese diplomacy and Chinese national interest?
Rather than dragging its feet on economic sanctions and turning a half-blind eye to Chinese companies which supply high-tech components to North Korea's arms program, Beijing could choose to lead the sanctions charge.  The US is presently bringing more economic sanctions to bear on an already heavily burdened North Korea.
Rather than repeating tired rhetoric, urging all parties to refrain from provoking and threatening each other, China could suspend oil exports and foreign currency dealings with N. Korea.
It could host an emergency conference for all of Asia on  how to deal with North Korean nuclear proliferation. The international community hopes that China does not remain frozen in time and tradition. It's time they stepped forward.

Everything's fine

If Mr Trump tells his cerebral cortex
 challenged followers to ignore science,  they will

Five ways Trump has changed the US that you may not have noticed

In his first few months as president, Donald Trump has signed executive orders, a few laws and directed his agencies to start overturning Obama administration policies. Many of these policies have made a lot of noise, but here are some changes you might have missed.



Mr Trump takes an axe to Canadian lumber and a shot at the dairy industry

Twenty-five New Brunswick sawmills owned by 14 companies will be affected if the United States imposes a duty on Canadian softwood lumber, according to the provincial government.
But the government announced Friday it intends to fight for exclusion from border duties on softwood lumber and last month set up a task force with representatives from 11 departments to look at what can be done to mitigate the effects of any duty.
The U.S. Department of Commerce is expected to announce as early as Tuesday a decision on levying duties against Canadian softwood lumber imports. The duties are predicted to be between 20 and 40 per cent.
Treasury board president John Melanson contends the New Brunswick exclusion on softwood duties works for companies on both sides of the border.
"Our businesses here are partners with businesses in the U.S.," he said. "It creates jobs here and jobs in the U.S".
Melanson is confident the Trump administration will agree once the facts about lumber are laid out.
"I can tell you, at the state level, I've been going to the state of Massachusetts and Maine … they get it," he said. "They understand what's going on and they are also advocating, we hope, the benefits of what we're talking about here today, to Washington."
The forestry industry contributes more than $1.45 billion to the provincial economy each year and employs more than 22,000 New Brunswickers, the government said.
"The softwood lumber industry is a valued and important part of the New Brunswick economy," said Energy and Resource Development Minister Rick Doucet.


MR TRUMP ALSO TOOK A SHOT AT THE CANADIAN DAIRY INDUSTRY
Dairy farmers in New Brunswick and the rest of the country are rejecting U.S. President Donald Trump's claims that the Canadian dairy industry is to blame for setbacks experienced by dairy farmers south of the border, particularly in New York and Wisconsin.
While speaking in Wisconsin  last week – the heart of dairy country in the U.S. – Trump called trade rules on dairy between the two countries a "complete and total disaster" for the U.S., saying Canada's dairy supply management system is a "one-sided deal" that doesn't let U.S. farmers compete fairly.
A growing trade war between the two countries has been brewing in recent months over one particular product — ultra-filtered milk, which is used in the production of cheese. Last year, Canadian processors started buying ultra-filtered milk from
domestic suppliers at competitive prices, reducing the demand for the U.S. product.
About 70 producers in Wisconsin and New York affected by the change have been struggling since, and have lobbied the U.S. government for action.
Reint Dykstra, a Canadian dairy farmer of 30 years  believes it's over-production of milk that's to blame, not Canada.
"It's easy to point fingers to certain areas," he said. "I think it's the total overproduction of milk that is happening around the world, which is also one of the reasons we have seen a drop in our returns as well."
Meanwhile, the chairman of the Dairy Farmers of New Brunswick, Paul Gaunce, believes the current trade agreement works well for both Canada and the U.S., rejecting's Trump's view it's a one-sided deal.
He finds it hard to believe drastic changes would come about, adding he's confident the federal government will continue to defend the interests of Canadian dairy farmers.


David MacNaughton, Canada's ambassador to the U.S., was in Fredericton Wednesday, part of a country-wide trip briefing provincial cabinets about trade issues in the dairy and lumber industries and other possible sticking points in our trade dealings with the US.
Despite the tough talk, he said the relationship with the new Trump administration has been extremely positive, and his office will continue to work on finding solutions to disputes.
"I think what we've got to really reinforce with the Americans is that our prosperity is intricately tied together," said MacNaughton. "Having trade disputes, I mean, we're always going to have little things we have disagreements about.
"But this relationship is unique in the world. It's the biggest trading relationship in the world, it works extremely well, and I hope that we can work together to try and solve these problems, which is what our goal is, and I think that's what we'll be trying to do."

Scientists and believers around the world... march for science

Washington



Berlin

Switzerland

London


Austria

Sydney Australia

Crowds massed in the US capital and around the world Saturday to support science and evidence-based research -- a protest partly fueled by opposition to President Donald Trump's threats of budget cuts to agencies funding scientists' work.

At the main March for Science, demonstrators gathered at Washington's National Mall to hear speakers laud science as the force moving humanity forward, and rail against policymakers they say are ignoring fact and research in areas including climate change.

"Today we have a great many lawmakers -- not just here but around the world -- deliberately ignoring and actively suppressing science," one of the event's speakers, TV host and scientist Bill Nye, told a rain-soaked crowd from a stage.

"Their inclination is misguided and in no one's best interest. Our lives are in every way improved by having clean water, reliable electricity and access to electronic global information."

Besides the Washington march, organizers said more than 600 "satellite" marches were taking place globally in a protest timed to coincide with Earth Day.

The march, whose beginnings reflect the viral birth of the Women's March on Washington, was billed by its organizers as political but nonpartisan. But many messages were leveled at Trump and his party, which holds majorities in Congress. Scientists have raised alarms over Trump's budget blueprint, which would cut $12.6 billion from the Department of Health and Human Services, including $5.8 billion from the National Institutes of Health alone.

One speaker said the administration "tries but fails to silence scientists." Several contrasted rationality and scientific thought to "alternative facts," a phrase that's attracted popular derision since a White House aide uttered it.

With the White House in view, protesters held signs with messages such as "In peer review we trust" and "It's the environment, stupid."

 

Germany's Neumayer Station is an active research institute in Antarctica. During the Antarctic summer, the station houses up to 50 scientific researchers and support staff.

With the Antarctic winter drawing near, a very small "overwintering" team remains there to conduct research and maintain the station.

On Saturday, this skeleton crew traveled out into the 20°F temperatures and 26 mph gusts to join their voices in support with crowds gathering around the world. Marches for Science have taken place on all seven continents.

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood," reads a quote from renowned scientist Marie Curie on the banner they held. "Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less."

 

MEANWHILE, their colleagues in the Arctic Circle at the other end of the globe ... conducting research in Norway's scientific village of  Ny-Ålesund, braved the 27°F temperatures and spoke out with their fellow scientists in Antarctica and the other marchers around the world, on Saturday.

Standing around a large bust of Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen, they unfurled a banner that read, "Somewhere something incredible is waiting to be known." 

Besides the main march in Washington, organizers said more than 600 "satellite" marches took place globally in a protest timed to coincide with Earth Day.

The crowds of people marching Saturday in Rio, Berlin, Washington, Boston, London and Paris, among other places, are voicing support of science and evidence-based research in a protest fueled by opposition to President Donald Trump's environmental and energy policies, which are selfish, uninformed, blind and motivated by industry...

AND SUCK!

The happy ending you expect

doesn't look like this ---

But I guess we should count our blessings

Bill O'Reilly booted to the curb by Fox

Bill O'Reilly has lost his job at Fox News Channel following reports that five women had been paid millions of dollars to keep quiet about harassment allegations.
21st Century Fox issued a statement Wednesday that "after a thorough and careful review of the allegations, the company and Bill O'Reilly have agreed that he will not be returning to the Fox News Channel."
He had been scheduled to return from a vacation next Monday. O'Reilly was photographed in Rome shaking Pope Francis' hand on Wednesday.
It marks a stunning end to a near-perfect marriage between a pugnacious personality and network. For two decades, O'Reilly has ruled the "no spin zone" with cable news' most popular show, and his ratings had never been higher.
In a memo to Fox staff on Wednesday, the Murdochs said the decision followed an extensive review done in collaboration with an outside counsel.
Fox said that Tucker Carlson's show would move to 8 p.m. to replace O'Reilly and that the panel talk show "The Five" would take Carlson's time slot at 9 p.m.
The fast-moving story took shape with an April 2 report in The New York Times that five women had been paid a total of $13 million to keep quiet about unpleasant encounters with O'Reilly, who has denied any wrongdoing. Dozens of his show's advertisers fled, even though O'Reilly's viewership increased. O'Reilly has denied wrongdoing.
Even though at least one of the harassment cases against O'Reilly dated back more than a decade and was widely reported then, the accumulation of cases outlined in the Times damaged him much more extensively. It wasn't clear when those stories would end, with a group of women demonstrating in front of Fox's headquarters Tuesday and another woman, a former clerical worker at Fox, calling a harassment hotline and accusing the host of boorish behaviour.
"I'm not going away," said Lisa Bloom, attorney for the latest accuser and another woman who alleges her career stalled because she spurned O'Reilly's advances. "My phone is ringing off the hook."
O'Reilly's attorney, Marc Kasowitz, charged that his client was being subjected to a "brutal campaign of character assassination" and that there is a smear campaign orchestrated by far-left organizations bent on destroying O'Reilly for political and financial reasons.
Conservative personality Glenn Beck -- who once lost a job at Fox News Channel because a similar campaign choked his program of paying advertisers -- came to O'Reilly's defence of Wednesday, but it was too late.
"You need to write and call Fox News Channel today and tell them, you can lose your advertisers or you can lose your viewers," Beck said on his radio show. "But you have to put some spine back into the Murdoch family and the Fox News Channel board because you are about to lose Bill O'Reilly."
O'Reilly's fans aren't likely to be happy about him losing his job, particularly on a controversy set in motion by the Times. His show's viewership increased the week after the story appeared -- O'Reilly didn't address it on the air -- and has sunk since he left for vacation. Potential successors like Dana Perino, Eric Bolling and Greg Gutfeld have substituted for O'Reilly since he left for vacation.
Vatican spokesman Greg Burke confirmed O'Reilly was in the VIP section for the pope's Wednesday appearance. Burke, a former Fox News correspondent in Rome, denied having facilitated the tickets. Such tickets can be obtained via special request to the papal household from embassies, high-ranking churchmen or Vatican officials.
Francis always swings by the VIP seats at the end of his audience for a quick round of handshakes. A photographer from the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano snapped a photo of Francis reaching out to shake his hand. My guess is the pope had no idea who he was or he would have washed his hands.

Did Women Priests Once Roam the Vatican

Vatican unveils frescoes hinting that women held power in the early Church

• The 230-240 AD frescoes were found in the Catacombs of Priscilla of Rome
• One fresco shows a group of women celebrating banquet of the Eucharist
• Another shows woman with outstretched arms like those of a priest
• Vatican says assertions that these women were priests are 'fairy tales'

Newly restored Italian frescoes have revealed what could have been women priests in the early Christian Church.
The frescoes, dating back to between 230 to 240 AD, are housed inside the Catacombs of Priscilla of Rome and were unveiled by the Vatican this week.
Proponents of a female priesthood have said that the frescoes prove there were women priests in early Christianity. The Vatican, however, has responded by saying that such assertions are sensationalist 'fairy tales'.

Newly restored Italian frescoes have revealed what could have been women priests in the early Christian church. The female pictured in this fresco has her arms outstretched as if holding Mass

Dug out from the second to fifth centuries, the Catacombs of Priscilla are a complex labyrinth of underground burial chambers stretching eight miles beneath the northern half of the city.The area is often called the ‘Queen of the catacombs’ because it features burial chambers of popes and a tiny, delicate fresco of the Madonna nursing Jesus dating from around 230 to 240 AD - the earliest known image of the Madonna and Child.
Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the Vatican's culture minister, opened the ‘Cubicle of Lazzaro’ which is a tiny burial chamber featuring 4th century images of biblical scenes, the Apostles Peter and Paul, and one of the early Romans buried there in bunk-bed-like stacks as was common in antiquity.

A fresco depicting women celebrating the Eucharist is pictured inside the catacomb of Priscilla in Rome. The catacomb, used for Christian burials from the late 2nd century through to the 4th century, reopened on Tuesday to the public after years of restoration

The 230-240 AD frescoes, found in the Catacombs of Priscilla of Rome, were unveiled by the Vatican this week

Proponents of a female priesthood say frescoes prove there were women priests in early Christianity. The Vatican says such assertions are 'sensationalist fairy tales'

More controversially, the catacomb has two scenes said by proponents of the women's ordination movement to show women priests.
One fresco in the ochre-hued Greek Chapel features a group of women celebrating a banquet, said to be the banquet of the Eucharist.  Another image, in a room called the 'Cubiculum of the Veiled Woman,' shows a woman whose arms are outstretched like those of a priest saying Mass. She wears what the catacombs' Italian website calls 'a rich liturgical garment'. She also wears what appears to be a stole, a vestment worn by priests.
The Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests holds the images up as evidence that there were women priests in the early Christian church - and that therefore there should be women priests today.
But Fabrizio Bisconti, the superintendent of the Vatican's sacred archaeology commission, said such a reading of the frescoes was pure ‘fable, a legend.’ Even though the catacombs' official guide says there is ‘a clear reference to the banquet of the Holy Eucharist’ in the fresco, Bisconti said the scene of the banquet wasn't a Eucharistic banquet but a funeral banquet.

A marble low-relief decorating a sarcophagus is pictured inside the catacomb of Priscilla in Rome

The Vatican has restricted the priesthood for men, arguing that Jesus chose only men as his apostles. Here a man's face from the Roman catacombs is pictured.He said that even though women were present they weren't celebrating Mass

Bisconti said the other fresco of the woman with her hands up in prayer was just that - a woman praying.

‘These are readings of the past that are a bit sensationalistic but aren't trustworthy,’ he said. Asked about the scenes, Ravasi professed ignorance and referred comment to Bisconti.

A skull is pictured inside the catacomb of Priscilla in Rome. Lost for centuries after its entrances were sealed in ancient time, the catacombs were re-discovered in the 16th century and plundered of many gravestones, sarcophagi and bodies

 

Google Maps has, for the first time, gone into the Roman catacombs, providing a virtual tour of the Priscilla complex available to anyone who can't visit the real thing
The Vatican has restricted the priesthood for men, arguing that Jesus chose only men as his apostles.
Google Maps has, for the first time, gone into the Roman catacombs, providing a virtual tour of the Priscilla complex available to anyone who can't visit the real thing.
Lost for centuries after its entrances were sealed in ancient time, the catacombs were re-discovered in the 16th century and plundered of many gravestones, sarcophagi and were bodies. Excavations in modern times began in the 19th century.



The catacombs of Priscilla, on Rome's Via Salaria, have been fully reopened after a five-year project that included laser technology to clean some of the ancient frescoes


Dug from the second to fifth centuries, the catacombs are a complex labyrinth of underground burial chambers stretching miles beneath the northern half of Rome