How Cruise Ships Can Help Seabirds

                                            Some seabirds get disoriented by the lights of cruise ships, and fly into the ships. Some seabirds rest on cruise ships, and find later there is insufficient room to take off in order to get back into the air. Some birds get confused about how to get off the ship and return to the wild. It would not take much for cruise ships and other ocean bound ships to have at least one person taught the proper way to handle birds that are not injured to be removed from the ships and returned to the wild.

Russian Televisions' Indefensible Support For The Indiscriminate Bombings Of Civilians In Syria

                                      No matter how much indiscriminate bombing Russia does in Syria, RT(Russian Television) will be there (lackeys as they are that pretend to be progressives), to defend every move of Putin. And no, opposing Assad and the mass murder of civilians by Assad and his Russian, Iranian and Hezbollah allies does not mean support for the ruthless Islamists on the other side that are also genocidal murderers.

The Cruise Ship Industry's Contribution To Coral Reef Destruction

                                     The cruise ship industry has made exotic travel available to millions. There are many benefits to this. There are also significant adverse consequences that can be corrected. Thousands of people are now swimming and snorkeling in coral reef areas that were previously inaccessible or hard to reach. Whether on cruise ship sponsored diving or snorkeling excursions or on snorkeling or diving excursions by companies not affiliated with cruise ships, many more people are now swimming, snorkeling and diving on coral reefs than ever before. This at a time when coral reefs are in great decline. Many people damage coral when they snorkel or dive. I have seen with my own eyes people stand on coral, hit coral with their flippers, raise sediment that smothers coral, and in some instances, break off coral.
                                    What the cruise ship industry can do is set strict guidelines regarding the use of coral reefs. People should not be swimming and snorkeling on top of coral reefs that are in shallow waters and that are most vulnerable to damage. Pathways can be established in shallow coral reef areas to guide people around the coral and not on top of it. People swimming, diving or snorkeling in any coral reef area must be held to the highest standards of care.
                                      The cruise ship industry, if it really wants to protect the oceans as it claims, must make sure it protects vulnerable coral reefs. It cannot keep turning a blind eye to the activities of the millions of people it brings to places that were previously untouched.

Prisoner Of Traffic

                               All over the third world traffic grinds to a halt daily as hundreds of millions of people ride toxic spewing vehicles on roads never designed for the volumn of traffic that now exists. People spend hours each day in polluted traffic that barely moves. One stalled vehicle, one accident can mean hours are added to daily commutes. The waste of time and energy, the assault to the environment and to the health and well being of hundreds of millions is staggering.

The United States Determination To Squander Its Wealth On War And A Bloated Military

                                           The United States learned nothing from Vietnam, and rushed full scale into war in Afghanistan and Iraq, never considering the consequences. There were ways to strike back at the Taliban, which was Saudi sponsored, and Al Quada, without a full scale ground invasion. The United States under the dim witted leadership of George Bush and company did not even look at the Soviet experience and failure in Afghanistan, which partially led to the unraveling of the Soviet Union. Now the United States is bogged down in Afghanistan, trillions of dollars lost with significant loss to life and limb on all sides. And then, without completing anything in Afghanistan, Bush and company rushed into Iraq, lying to the American people about why. Few in the mindless media and few politicians questioned why. Certainly not Hillary Clinton, who bet that supporting war made her look better as a candidate for president.
                                        The Obama and Co. quick retreat from Iraq, which was all about politics, not wisdom, left vulnerable middle east religious minorities defenseless against the savagery of the Islamists. What followed was genocide.
                                         No other country in the world is as determined as the United States to maintain an incredibly expensive, bloated military badly in need of reform. The United States has a need to stay strong, but staying strong is not the same as remaining blind and stupid.

The Massive Giveaway To China Of The U.S. Manufacturing Base That Trump And Clinton Will Continue

                                       Two political candidates making promises neither did anything about during their lifetimes. One as a rich and powerful businessman, the other as a rich from politics politician handed everything on a silver platter. For over thirty years U.S. corporations and businesses have given to China and other nations the industrial and manufacturing capabilities of the United States. Seeking cheap labor no matter the consequence, these companies ensured their executives incredibly bloated salaries while making sure worker wages are kept deflated. Now China is an industrial giant, while the United States has become a low cost service economy with a diminished industrial base. In order to feed the insatiable appetite of wall street and others, no one bothered to ask why making computers, phones, shoes, clothes, bicycles, and thousands of other items were impossible in a country that prided itself on having a strong and vibrant middle class. Now the United States has a weakened middle class, relying instead on cheap labor from overseas, where there are few environmental and work condition standards. Maybe instead of removing ways for middle and working class people to earn a living, people should have asked why it was so important to deflate wages and massively inflate the wealth given to corporate and business elites along with Chinese elites.
                                    Meanwhile, corporations that have no loyalty to countries, find places where labor can best be exploited, and where pollution can be emitted with no outcry. (Pollution in one country eventually makes its way worldwide).
                                      Whoever becomes president never did anything about the aforementioned, and certainly will not start now.

The Rich And Privileged Lives Of Abundance In A Degraded World

                                    The people with the ability to change this world for the better are the people with the least incentive to do so. The rich and powerful elites live in a world of abundance and plenty. They do not see the depletion that exists in this world. And even if they see it, it is not something they feel. While the world continues to be environmental degraded and contaminated, almost to the point of no return, those with the ability to really change things have the least desire to do so because in their world everything is fine. So they can continue to have charitable events and pay lip service to the world's poverty and degradation, not realizing that environmental catastrophe will not spare them.

The National Highway Of Death And Injury

                                A two lane highway runs across a heavily populated island. Millions of people rely on the highway, which serves as a lifeline for goods and services. But the lifeline is also a death trap. The narrow highway was never designed for this much traffic and this heavy of a population. Traffic accidents are common. Pedestrians sometimes get hit. The hundreds of thousands of dogs and cats living on the streets, most in an emaciated state, also sometimes get hit. Sometimes they are hit and wounded, but not killed. They scream in agony awaiting the arrival of help that will never come. The fumes from cars, trucks and buses are thick and heavy. Humans, no life in fact, were designed for this much traffic, this large of a population. Every day the soft flesh of humans and animals meets the hard steel and aluminum of trucks and cars.

Third World Poverty; The Environmental Movement's Forgotten Child

                                     Every night at dusk along comes the trash fires, where people burn their garbage to rid themselves of trash. This is a third world country, and there is no such thing as garbage pickup except in a few exclusive areas. Which means that almost the entire population, millions upon millions of people, have no garbage pickup. The only way to dispose of garbage is to burn it. Much of the trash consists of plastic, which is everywhere. Poor people by the millions eat the cheap poor nutrition foods (full of salt, sugars, hydrogenated fats) offered up by giant food corporations, all of which is wrapped in plastic. There is nowhere to dispose of the non biodegradable plastic, so it ends up in garbage fires or on the ground. When the rains come, much of it ends up in the rivers and waterways, eventually making its ways to the oceans.
                                    Trash is everywhere. And no matter how much burning takes place, it is quickly replaced by new plastic wrappers, Styrofoam, plastic bags, plastic wrappings. Every nightfall along come the toxic fires, with their thick and foul smell. Millions of these fires are set across the world nightly in nations racked by poverty and poor infrastructure.
                                     Poor people live by the hundreds of millions in desperate poverty. If there is wildlife in close proximity, many will not hesitate to kill anything that moves that can be eaten. Most poaching takes place by the desperately poor, driven by hunger, not by greed. If there are trees that can be cut for charcoal and firewood, many will not hesitate to degrade their environment, thinking only of today, not of tomorrow.
                                      The destruction of the environment and the decimation of wildlife has multiple causes. Pretending there are only some causes, such as greedy corporations and people, while ignoring others, does not help. Many poor people say that if family planning were made available, they would use it. Smaller family sizes helps raise desperately poor people out of poverty. Families should have this choice. Instead, strong religious and political continue to decry global warming or climate change while insisting the world is not overpopulated, purposefully making family planning unavailable.  Recognizing global climate change but ignoring overpopulation means there is nothing seriously being addressed - not poverty and not environmental protection. For those that do not believe humans are changing the climate, what is undeniable is that humans are poisoning the environment.
                                       There is not enough toxic pesticides, not enough resources, not enough man made technology to cope with the devastation people are inflicting upon this world. People in cleaner, orderly parts of the world may consider themselves free of the desperation, but they are not. The toxicity and poisoning that comes from many sources has spread, and continues to spread worldwide.  Humans and animals, even wildlife in remote places, have toxic chemicals and substances in their bodies that never existed in previous generations. Thousands upon thousands of species cannot cope with the man made destruction of the oceans and land. People are not exempt from their own poisons.
                                    

Forget About Animal Abuse,Wildlife Decimation,Third World Poverty-Its Easier To Focus On Politics And Presidents

                                 It is easier and more enjoyable to write about politics, presidents and presidential campaigns than write about intractable problems that people ignore, exploit, or do nothing about. Things like animal abuse, environmental concerns, wildlife, third world poverty and more which have made a number of animal, conservation, wildlife and other organizations wealthy along with a number of individuals. Along for the easy money ride are certain media/cable/communication companies with their insufferable programs and people that create the illusion serious problems are actually being meaningfully addressed.

Burning Plastic. Third World Poverty, The Global Climate Change Movement's Forgotten Child

                                     As night falls, people are burning their piles of trash, much of which contain plastic and Styrofoam. This is a poor country, one of many, in which the official government position is to not burn trash because of global climate change, and yet the infrastructure does not exist to pick up trash except for in the affluent areas where life is orderly. For the vast majority of people, most of whom live in poverty, there is no such thing as garbage pickup. Trash is everywhere, as people eat the cheap, low quality foods served up by big multinational food corporations, wrapped in plastic, where the only option is to throw the plastic to the ground. The people living in their shacks collect the plastic from the ground when enough of it is present to burn in an open fire. The fires, they say, have a benefit in warding off mosquitoes. And even after the fires, trash and plastic is still everywhere. When there is enough rain, much of it will end up in waters leading to the ocean, where the plastic will become part of the toxic stew already adversely affecting the oceans.
                                     The trash fires, which are everywhere at nightfall, release toxic clouds of foul smelling smoke. A business owner said to me, "There is no garbage pickup like in the states. We are not supposed to burn garbage and plastic because of global warming, but there is no alternative."
                                      People are unwittingly poisoning themselves from these toxic fires. And when the day comes when they will need medical care, they will become part of the millions upon millions of people that will receive no care from the already overwhelmed and inadequate health care services provided by most countries.
                                       In the orderly and affluent world, where climate change is of great concern, the whole environmental movement is now big business fully integrated into their sanitized, orderly view of the world.
                                    Meanwhile, the toxic fires continue, far from the eyes of the world's movers and shakers, where feeling good and business still trumps facing and changing terrible realities. The impact of third world poverty on the environment and its enormous cost in human suffering continues. Overpopulation and the failure to provide safe family planning in the face of religious and political resistance continues.The world continues to burn, continues to be contaminated, as humans as a species destroy their habitat, and people unwittingly poison themselves.

The Tragedy Of Syria Continues. Fake Progressives Of RT Television?

                                      For Russian Television, RT, is the tragedy of Syria the carnage, or the allegedly false accusations against Russia? Are they progressives as they like to portray themselves, or are they fake and selective progressives that ignore or defend anything critical of Russia?
                                       The Assad regime has committed, and is committing, mass murder. The Islamists on the other side are no better.  The U.S. and Russia should be on the side of sanity, not choosing one evil side or the other. Do not expect RT television, which uses as its slogan question more, to question anything that does not fit into their Kremlin dictated agenda. What a shame that there exists corporate presses, government presses as in the case of RT and Al Jazeera, but no independent and free press.

Over A Million Children Starving In Yemen While Iran And Saudi Seek Dominance

                                    Over a million children are said to be starving in Yemen from that conflict. Ports are closed, and food and medicine are not coming in. Fighting, shelling, bombings are occurring every day. It is hardly in the news. Saudi and Iran are involved. While they play their ruthless geopolitical games, children starve. There is only one reason why the world is silent. Because Israel is not involved.

The Retired Diplomat's Excuse For Hamas And Gaza

                                      The retired diplomat, referred to in an earlier blog, had this to say about Gaza, "Hamas fired rockets that were little more than firecrackers. Israel had no right to respond." He then accused Israel of war crimes for the children that died in Gaza from when Israel did respond militarily. I asked him why Hamas fired the rockets in the first place if they were so harmless, (which they are not), knowing full well that Israel would respond militarily and that would result in the loss of life. The retired diplomat had no response. I said to him that excusing Hamas from any and all responsibility was the surest way to ensure they will continue waging war and that more innocent people will die. Regarding the hundreds of thousands of children that have died in the military conflicts in the neighborhood where Israel exists, he remained silent. He is another in a long line where life does not matter unless somehow there is a way to implicate Israel.

Last Debate, Another Opportunity Squandered By Trump. Why The Obama And Co. Withdrawal From Iraq Matters

                                           Insulting someone is not respectful, especially when a man insults a woman. It makes the person look weak. It certainly is not presidential.
                                            Regarding accepting the election results- who cares if Trump accepts it or not. Some people cannot accept loss or failure, and always need to blame someone else.
                                            The Obama administration, which included Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, made a huge mistake pulling out of Iraq, knowing full well it left behind a vacuum. It left vulnerable religious minorities unprotected. The worst came to pass, which could have been avoided if the U.S. did not withdraw as it did, which has been the genocide of middle east Christians, Yazidis, and others. The demented Islamists still hold thousands of young Yazidi girls and women as sex slave captives. These poor girls and young women are being raped and brutalized daily. Many have committed suicide.
                                            Bush and company never should have gone into Iraq, and should be held responsible for this massive failure and loss to life and treasury. Obama and company should never have rushed out of Iraq. Over 70 years after WW2, the U.S. still has bases in Germany and Japan. Pulling out of Iraq as Obama and company did was shameful, and blood is on their hands, just as blood is on the hands of the Bush administration. If Hillary Clinton gets elected to president, a position she does not deserve, Donald Trump has only himself to blame.

A Retired Diplomat's Israel Obsession And Iranian Love Affair

                        I had several conversations with a retired diplomat from North America. I did more listening than talking, until I finally started challenging his assertions, at which time he became withdrawn and defensive. In this man's eyes, Iran is not a sponsor of Shia terror. He believes only Sunni terrorism exists. He completely rejects that Iran is an oppressive regime, including against its own own minorities such as the Bahais, insisting criticism of Iran is nothing but western propaganda and biased reporting. He was particularly critical of Israel, completely ignoring the mass murders and genocide taking place in Israel's neighborhood. If Israel was not involved, he could care less. The man let me know he was of a Jewish background, which he thinks means his criticisms against Israel should be noteworthy, even though he has nothing to do with anything Jewish.
                         The obsessive focus on Israel, the continued demonizing of Israel, makes certain people feel smug and morally superior. Real victims of terror, torture, genocide, oppressive regimes continue to be ignored by this obsessive focus. Palestinian Arabs and Israelis are brought no closer to a resolution to their conflict by these flawed people that carry their emotional baggage into their professional and political worlds.

Trump's Only Hope

                                Take the campaign out of the sewer, and focus on issues. Be clear as to what a Trump presidency will provide that is different than what presently exists. Character assassination does not work for either candidate because they are both deeply flawed. The United States needs candidates that for once offer clear and precise policies, and how they will be implemented.

Trunp's Gift To Clinton; The Presidency

                                  Once again the United States provides a selection of unqualified, undeserving political candidates, in this case for president. In regards to Trump, a rich person is not necessarily a competent and qualified person. Being wealthy might mean the person is good at the thing that made him or her rich, but that does not translate to having expertise anywhere else. The flawed record of Hillary Clinton and her lack of honesty and integrity should never have brought her this far. She could not have asked for better in her republican opponent.
                                  

Political Office Should Never Be The Road To Riches

                              Besides choosing political candidates based on their beliefs and ideology, it would be good if there was a character litmus test based on whether or not they choose public office to serve the public, or in order to enrich themselves, or a combination of both. Public office should never be the road to riches. It is a red flag and wrong when politicians or any public servant becomes rich from their public service.

Clinton Or Trump, It Would Be A Better Choice If One Of Their Children, Not Them, Were Running

                                          The best thing the two presidential candidates have going for themselves are each other. One is an opportunistic woman with little principle. The other is a thin skinned egomaniac.
                                           

Radioactive Water From The Damaged Nuclear Reactor In Japan Still Pours Into the Pacific

                                               Radioactive water from the damaged nuclear reactor in Japan still pours into the Pacific. This should not be escaping public attention and concern. Mankind will not escape the assault and destruction of the oceans.

Election Time - More Nonsense About How Not To Improve Police Departments

                                                      Clout and patronage needs to be completely removed from professional policing and promotions. Professional police departments do not have layers upon layers of politically connected people and top heavy police brass that do little to nothing day in and day out except throw their weight around. Professional police departments are not wasting time and taxpayer money with nonsense paperwork, public relations games, and administrators.
                                                     Cops need to work the streets, from the top level down. They cannot be tied up in a fictitious world of policing, including the new world of community policing, that is nothing but time wasting meetings, paperwork, and administration. Real community policing means cops patrol the streets, including patrolling neighborhoods on foot. One hundred years ago, when cops walked beats and knew their neighborhoods, that was the true standard for what community policing should be. Not the university and elitist concocted programs that exist now.
                                                       Police work is about patrolling, serving and protecting.  No clout, no patronage, no cronyism, no deviation from the basic mission.