MaxRedline

Dirty Bob - A Democratic, Of Course

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson tried to cover up his office's collusion with labor unions after a think tank asked for public records about their communications, according to a lawsuit.

Ferguson is one of several Democrats seeking to resist the Trump administration's directive that would prohibit states from siphoning Medicaid payments away from at-home caregivers and putting them in the pockets of labor unions, such as Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

Ferguson's office has been one of the most ambitious in filing lawsuits against the Trump administration, leading the high-profile lawsuit against the executive order restricting travel from seven majority-Muslim nations. "The whole situation is exhibit A of the collusion taking place between Left Coast state governments and the unions they rely on for political support. The losers in this relationship are taxpayers and, in this case, home caregivers."

Pour money into public employee unions, and they'll give you some back, come election time. The campaigns are all that count. You sure don't.

It's all about the Benjamins, baby.

 

California Dreamin'

Recently, California became the first state in the nation to make solar mandatory for new houses. Beginning in 2020, newly constructed homes must have solar panels, which could be costly for homeowners: According to California's Energy Commission (CEC), that mandate will add between $8,000 and $10,000 to the cost of a new home.

Ain't freedom wonderful?

And of course, roof repairs/maintenance will be totally unaffected by this new mandate, right?

 

Kentucky Sheriff To Residents: Lock And Load

Martin County Sheriff John Kirk had a concerning message for residents after funding didn’t come through: you’re on your own.

Given the level of cuts that had to be made, the sheriff warned residents to prepare to defend themselves, since the police department could no longer offer their services.

“We have always provided police protection but without the funding, we can no longer do this,” Kirk said. “FOLKS, LOCK YOUR DOORS, LOAD YOUR GUNS AND GET YOU A BARKING, BITING DOG. If the Sheriff’s office can’t protect you, WHO WILL?”

Part of the budgeting problem stems from a decline in coal revenue, which the Lexington Herald-Leader reported dropped from $34 million in the Fiscal Year 2012 to just $6.7 million in the Fiscal Year 2018.

Looks like Barry and Pantsuit made good on their promise to put a lot of coal miners out of work.

Coal is bad; solar, wind, and biomass are good, according to Green Religion. But wind and solar produce energy purely on an intermittent basis, whereas biomass, coal, and natural gas produce base loads. And there's a dirty little secret when it comes to the "burning biomass is good, burning coal is bad" mantra: in today's technological environment, given clean-burn coal plants, biomass is presently worse for the environment than coal.

Biomass electricity generation, a heavily subsidized form of “green” energy that relies primarily on the burning of wood, is more polluting and worse for the climate than coal, according to a new analysis of 88 pollution permits for biomass power plants in 25 states. The report found that although wood-burning power plants are often promoted as being good for the climate and carbon neutral, the low efficiency of plants means that they emit almost 50 percent more CO2 than coal per unit of energy produced.

Trees, Trash, and Toxics: How Biomass Energy Has Become the New Coal, released this week and delivered to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by the Partnership for Policy Integrity (PFPI), concludes that biomass power plants across the country are permitted to emit more pollution than comparable coal plants or commercial waste incinerators, even as they are subsidized by state and federal renewable energy dollars. It contains detailed emissions and fuel specifications for a number of facilities, including plants in California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia and Washington.

Biomass plants are dirty because they are markedly inefficient. The report found that per megawatt-hour, a biomass power plant employing “best available control technology” emits more nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, particulate matter and carbon monoxide than a modern coal plant of the same size. "The American Lung Association has opposed granting renewable energy subsidies for biomass combustion precisely because it is so polluting,” said Jeff Seyler, president and CEO of the American Lung Association of the Northeast. “Why we are using taxpayer dollars to subsidize power plants that are more polluting than coal?”

Why? Two words explain it: Green Religion.

Never let a few facts get in the way of dogma.

 

Wrong Target

Down in Jamaica, John Bigbooty made a series of scam calls to a guy who just happened to be the former head of the FBI and then the CIA. Bill Webster's the only person in US history to have served in both positions. As the Jamaican discovered, bad choices carry consequences:

William Webster, who is now 94 years old, and his wife, Lynda, were targeted four years ago by a man who peddled a lottery scam over phone calls and emails. Over multiple phone calls, Keniel Aeon Thomas of Jamaica told the Websters he’d set their house ablaze or have a sniper shoot them in the back of the head if they didn’t pay him thousands of dollars, according to prosecutors’ filings.

Ooopsie.

At his sentencing Friday, Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the district court in Washington noted that Thomas had more than 30 victims and had collected hundreds of thousands of dollars from them. Prosecutors noted in their court papers that lottery scams like these have increased over the last decade. They often turn into violent threats when a target won’t pay. 

Bigbooty's got a new address for the next six years. And it's nothing like Jamaica, Mon.

 

Coming To The Portland Area Soon

You Vill Pay!

Drivers who take a highway exit to avoid having to pay a toll on Virginia's Interstate 81 could end up paying far more after a ticket arrives in the mail. The state Senate Transportation Committee will consider a proposal later today that would authorize tolling on I-81. Introduced by state Senator Mark D. Obenshain (R-Harrisonburg), the measure would also allow private companies to operate a new type of automated photo enforcement camera that issues tickets based on a motorist's choice of route. Those attempting to save a bit of money by taking a side street could be subjected to a fine set by the Commonwealth Transportation Board.

You just know they'll try that here.

I generally drive side-streets, so this approach is geared toward people like me.

 

 

The Tides, They Are A-Changin'

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted an injunction forbidding Texas from stripping Planned Parenthood of Medicaid funds Thursday, while stridently criticizing the abortion provider for its rhetoric and medical practices.

Center for Medical Progress (CMP), an anti-abortion group, had produced several undercover films at Plant Parenthood, which PP alleged had been doctored and selectively edited. Professional forensics investigators determined that no such alterations had occurred.

It's harder to beat science these days.

It may well ultimately turn out that abortion may not be a "right" after all.

 

Really Stupid

By now, you've doubtless heard about this:

MELBOURNE, Fla. — A child was transported to the hospital on New Year's Day after falling into the rhinoceros exhibit at the Brevard Zoo in Melbourne, Florida, officials say.

According to officials with Brevard Zoo, on Tuesday afternoon, the child was injured during Rhino Encounter, a hands-on, educational experience with Brevard Zoo’s white rhinoceroses. During the encounter, participants and the rhinoceroses are separated by a series of steel poles. According to witnesses, the child stumbled and fell in between two of the poles and, at this point, the snout of at least one of rhinoceroses made contact with the child.

Zoo officials say that Brevard Zoo has offered this experience daily without incident since 2009.

All the zoo wants is extra cash. While staff and volunteers are routinely tested for TB and other health issues, quite obviously, the guests aren't. So the only reason zoos "offer this experience" is for the money. Animal health is not only not high on their list of important things, it's irrelevant when there's extra cash to be made by providing a "hands-on, educational experience". If an animal contracts a fatal illness from an unmonitored guest, they can always get a replacement animal down the road.

Education isn't really part of the equation.

 

More Union Shenanigans

Union workers loading grain for international shipping at the Port of Portland’s Terminal 5 inflated their own time cards and those of colleagues for more than four years, costing their employer, Columbia Export Terminal, more than $5 million, a federal lawsuit alleges. The suit filed by Columbia Export Terminal claims members of International Longshore and Warehouse Union’s Local 8 and Local 92 engaged in racketeering by conspiring to over bill their employer.

Hanky-panky by the ILWU? Say it isn't so!

Proving once again that they're home to organized crime.

 

Disruption, E-Scooter Style

"This is disruptive technology," said Dr. Christopher Ziebell, emergency room medical director at Austin's Dell Seton Medical Center. "But this time the disruption is disrupting forearms, elbows and heads."

Among other things, like ankles and legs.

And trauma surgeons are reporting daily occurrences in hospitals from San Diego to Denver to Austin. Some of these injuries have been life-threatening; others have left people permanently disabled.

A large part of the problem is that these e-scooter renters don't use helmets or other protective gear; the whole idea behind the things is spur-of-the-moment: "Hey, scooter! Cool!" So their concept is to dump these things onto city streets with no regard for human safety. An added bonus: their "user agreements" embedded into the apps place all responsibility for any issues entirely on the rider. Got an $8000 hospital bill for surgeries, plates, and pins after the brakes failed when rolling downhill? Sorry about your luck.

After Brogan's crash, her husband rushed her to the local urgent care. While waiting to be seen by doctors, she got several in-app messages from Lime saying she hadn't ended her ride and was still accruing charges.

"Scooter unsafe no brakes now in emergency room multiple fractures," Brogan wrote back.

Once out of the hospital, she emailed Lime to fully recount what happened. They had a brief back-and-forth in which Lime told her to file a claim for review. Brogan wrote back saying her out-of-pocket expenses totaled about $8,000 and asked if Lime would repay those losses. She said she never heard from the company again.

Lime declined to comment. Some municipalities are now finally moving to eliminate riders from the equation entirely - they just ban the scooters completely. Many others, however, such as Painfully Regressive Portland, take the opposite approach: "Anything goes, folks; no rules, no protective gear, no problem!"

But hey, let's have a conversation about "common-sense gun control".

 

Skyrocketing Scammers

CLEARWATER — Jaeda Baldizzi was studying for her final exams when she got the call. It had a 727 area code, the same as her own phone number, so she picked up.

On the line was a man asking if she remembered filling out a survey at the mall with a chance to win a cruise, a 50-inch plasma TV or “some absurd amount of money,” recalled Baldizzi, who’s from St. Petersburg but is studying at the University of North Florida.

She didn’t, but curious to see where it would go, she said yes. He launched into personal questions about her relationship status and whether she lived with anyone. Baldizzi, 20, hung up, then searched the phone number on Google.

It traced back to Audibel Hearing Center, a hearing aid company with locations all over the Tampa Bay area and a headquarters in Clearwater. Baldizzi soon learned she was one of thousands of people who got fraudulent calls from Audibel. Scammers “spoofed” the business’ main phone number, (727) 441-3591, meaning they made it appear outgoing calls were coming from Audibel on caller ID even though they had nothing to do with the business.

There's a lot more of that happening, these days. In fact, First Orion - a data transparency company - estimates that about half of all cell phone calls will be scams within the next year. For land-lines, the numbers are already higher than that; we still have a land-line, and about 90% of calls to that number are robocalls. That's actually why I still keep it - it's a great filtration tool. I use Nomorobo for that, so the phone rings once and then kills the connection. It's a great piece of freeware. For cell phones, you can use the free Hiya app, which you can download from Google's "Play" site. It also blocks calls and detects scam callers, so it's a good choice for Android users. There's probably one for iPhones as well.

I don't get a lot of scam calls on the cell - yet. But like a good boy scout, I'm prepared.