Sunday, August 18, 2013
Saturday, August 17, 2013
RECENT VIRGINIA CHURCH SERVICE
Friday, August 16, 2013
Atlanta's high temperature on Thursday was only 73 degrees which is the coolest high temperature on record for August 15.
"Atlanta's high temperature on Thursday was only 73 degrees which is the coolest high temperature on record for August 15.
The previous record was a high of only 77 degrees from 1908.
The average high temperature for this time of year is 88 degrees, putting Thursday's high 15 degrees below average.
Atlanta has seen a cooler-than-average summer due to a lot of rain. We're about 15 inches above average on rainfall this year."
Global cooling folks, global cooling a far worse scenario than global warming....
Thursday, August 15, 2013
I like spy stuff....The Government Now Admits There's an 'Area 51'
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/08/government-now-admits-theres-area-51/68389/
Newly declassified documents, obtained by George Washington University's National Security Archive, appear to for the first time acknowledge the existence of Area 51. Hundreds of pages describe the genesis of the Nevada site that was home to the government's spy plane program for decades. The documents do not, however, mention aliens.
The project started humbly. In the pre-drone era about a decade after the end of World War II, President Eisenhower signed off on a project aimed at building a high-altitude, long-range, manned aircraft that could photograph remote targets. Working together, the Air Force and Lockheed developed a craft that could hold the high-resolution cameras required for the images, a craft that became the U-2. Why "U-2"?
They decided that they could not call the project aircraft a bomber, fighter, or transport plane, and they did not want anyone to know that the new plane was for reconnaissance, so [Air Force officers] Geary and Culbertson decided that it should come under the utility aircraft category. At the time, there were only two utility aircraft on the books, a U-1 and a U-3. told Culbertson that the Lockheed CL-282 was going to be known officially as the U-2.
The next step was to find a place from which the top-secret aircraft could be flown.
Recognizing that people might not be excited about moving to a place called "Area 51" in the middle of the desert, a new name was offered: "Paradise Ranch, which was soon shortened to the Ranch." It was less appealing, however, in popular culture.
DOJ, FBI admit they inflated claims about mortgage fraud crackdown last year
DOJ, FBI admit they inflated claims about mortgage fraud crackdown last year
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/14/doj-fbi-admit-inflated-claims-about-mortgage-fraud-crackdown-last-year/#ixzz2c4pXYbSz
The Justice Department and FBI have quietly acknowledged they grossly overstated the scope of a mortgage fraud crackdown, which the administration heralded with much fanfare a few weeks before last year's presidential election.
According to a memo circulated by the FBI and a correction posted online by the Justice Department, the number of defendants, the number of victims and the size of the losses are, in reality, a fraction of what officials claimed last October.
Attorney General Eric Holder and other law enforcement officials claimed in early October that the initiative charged 530 criminal defendants on behalf of 73,000 victims who suffered over $1 billion in losses. The so-called Distressed Homeowner Initiative, which targeted fraud schemes against distressed homeowners, was highlighted in a press release and press conference at the time.
Holder, talking to the cameras on Oct. 9, called it "a groundbreaking, year-long mortgage fraud enforcement effort."
The real numbers, it turns out, were far smaller. The feds now admit that the number of criminal defendants charged was more like 107, not 530. The number of victims was 17,185 -- still a large number, but roughtly one fourth the size of the original headcount. And the losses totaled $95 million -- not $1 billion, as originally claimed.
The DOJ and FBI had long been dogged by claims that their numbers were inflated. Bloomberg has been reporting since October that the cases cited by Holder included charges filed during the George W. Bush administration.
Bloomberg continued to press for clarification. The administration went dark on the issue until Friday, when the FBI acknowledged in a memo that it had conducted an "extensive review" and found problems. The original figures included defendants who "were the subject of other prosecutive actions," as well as defendants charged in cases that did not fall under the anti-mortgage fraud program in question, according to the memo, obtained by FoxNews.com.
"As a result, the public announcement overstated the number of defendants that should have been included as part of the Distressed Homeowner Initiative, as well as the corresponding estimated loss amount and number of victims," the memo said.
The Justice Department also updated its own October release
-- as well as the transcript for remarks delivered by Holder -- with a correction, saying prior versions "inadvertently contained inaccurate numbers."
-- as well as the transcript for remarks delivered by Holder -- with a correction, saying prior versions "inadvertently contained inaccurate numbers."
The administration is still getting hammered for the revisions, though. Bloomberg columnist Jonathan Weil called on Holder to apologize, and explain how this happened.
called on Holder to apologize, and explain how this happened.
"He used a press conference with the cameras rolling to give out numbers that proved to be false -- and they appear to have been willfully false," Weil wrote. "He should be just as eager to hold another press conference to set the record straight, answer any questions about his apparent sleight of hand when it comes to financial-fraud metrics and apologize to the American people."
On climate change, Obama, EPA plan action without Congress
BOULDER, Colo. | EPA chief Gina McCarthy said Wednesday that the Obama administration is finished waiting for Congress to act on climate change and plans to bypass the legislative branch in developing a federal response.
Ms. McCarthy, who was confirmed last month as Environmental Protection Agency administrator, cited President Obama’s June 25 speech at Georgetown University, in which he unveiled his Climate Action Plan and vowed to make combatting climate change a priority of his second term.
Mr. Obama gave “what I really think is a most remarkable speech by a president of the United States,” said Ms. McCarthy in remarks at the University of Colorado Boulder.
“Essentially, he said that it is time to act,” she said. “And he said he wasn’t going to wait for Congress, but that he had administrative authorities and that it was time to start utilizing those more effectively and in a more concerted way.”
She insisted that reducing greenhouse-gas emissions could be accomplished without harming economic growth, calling the tension between the two priorities a “false choice.”
“We’re going to do this this year, next year, the following year, until people understand these are not scary things to do, these are actions we can all do, they’re actions that benefit everybody, that will grow the economy, and they’re actions that will protect the health and safety of individuals,” Ms. McCarthy said.
The president’s Climate Action Plan has come under criticism from Republicans, led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who said in June the plan amounted to a “war on coal” and a “war on jobs.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)