President Joe Biden’s rented Secret Service vehicles burst into flames in a parking lot Monday, just one day after he left his Nantucket vacation.
Biden spent Thanksgiving on the ritzy Massachusetts island with his family last week. The Secret Service rented five vehicles from Hertz to carry the president and his family, and all five of them caught fire in the parking lot, according to footage first obtained by the Nantucket Current.
Footage shows firefighters spraying down the smoldering remains of one vehicle’s engine block. The five vehicles included a Chevy Suburban, Ford Explorer, Infiniti QX80, Ford Expedition and a Jeep Gladiator.
It looks like the culprit was the white Ford Expedition there in the center. Directly in front of it is the Ford Explorer, to its right is the Infinity QX80, the Jeep is across from it on the left, and the Chevy Suburban getting towed away is on its immediate left.
All the burn patterns seem to indicate that the Ford’s smoldering ruins of an engine block were what caused the problem.
The cause of the blaze remains under investigation, but one of the vehicles – a Ford Expedition- was under a safety recall by the manufacturer due to a faulty battery junction box that has caused fires. While it had been scheduled for service under the recall, sources said, it had not been repaired.
Having owned a few Fords in my life, this sadly does not surprise me.
But right now, Ford’s decision to create a battery that explodes the vehicle into molten slag is just a theory. We don’t actually know what caused the fire.
Was it poor, substandard American engineering that’s been declining since 1980 or so?
Was it an act of God with symbolism for the president who is running the nation into the ground while setting the record for the most vacation days on the job?
Was it a disgruntled family member who had to endure Joe Biden creeping on his kids through the windows?
I don’t know that we will ever know for sure, but add it to the list of portents of doom for America!
The Biden administration is expected to soon finalize a rule banning oil and gas leasing near a Native American historical site despite heavy opposition from local Indigenous leaders, who say the administration’s rule would prevent them from collecting royalties on their land.
The rule, which the Department of Interior (DOI) announced in November 2021, would implement a 20-year moratorium on federal oil and gas leasing within a 10-mile radius of the Chaco Culture National Historical Park located in northwest New Mexico. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said the rule, which would amount to a withdrawal of 336,000 acres of public lands from mineral leasing, would protect the environment and “rich cultural legacy” of the region.
“We’re not destroying anything — we are Native Americans ourselves. Nobody is destroying the park,” Delora Hesuse, a Navajo Nation citizen who owns allotted land in the Greater Chaco region, told Fox News Digital in an interview. “The oil companies sure aren’t destroying the park. And they have new technology.”
“It just seems like they are listening more to the environmentalist people,” she continued.
An image showing ancient ruins in Chaco Culture National Historical Park. The Biden administration has proposed a ban on oil and gas leasing within 10 miles of the site for 20 years. (Providence Pictures/PBS via AP)
Hesuse represents a group of Navajo citizens who own land that has been allotted to them by the federal government for generations and which is often leased to oil and gas drilling and exploration companies. The group opposes the Biden administration rule, saying it would prevent them from collecting much-needed royalties on the land they’ve held for decades.
While the administration has stated the rule wouldn’t impact Indian-owned allotments, blocking federal land leasing would ultimately block development on non-federal land, according to Hesuse and other local stakeholders including Navajo Nation leadership.
“In reality, the rule would have a devastating impact because the indirect effects would make the allottee land worthless from the standpoint of energy extraction,” Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez and Vice President Myron Lizer wrote in a letter to President Biden in November slamming the proposal.
“To maximize full extraction of the product, a horizontal lateral crossing of two to four miles of subsurface may be required,” they added. “Due to the cross jurisdictional land status in Navajo Eastern Agency, a proposed horizontal lateral may need to cross federal land.”
The Navajo Nation Council also condemned the proposal, saying it would instead support a five-mile radius, a compromise backed by industry. Council Delegate Mark Freeland said families from the allotted land areas were “ignored” by the DOI.
In addition, the board of county commissioners of San Juan County, New Mexico, passed a resolution in April stating that it “strongly opposes” the Biden administration proposal. The resolution noted the rule would make it impossible for owners of individual Indian allotments to drill for and extract minerals since pipelines must cross federal land below the surface.
“It is really going to make an impact on the allottees if they follow through with the withdrawal of federal lands and public lands around Chaco Canyon,” Hesuse said.
Hesuse noted that the Navajo community is extremely impoverished and that oil and gas revenues are critical for sustaining many individuals.
Navajo Nation leaders and citizens have argued the Biden administration ignored them when moving ahead with the 20-year proposal. (iStock )
There are currently 53 Indian allotments located in the so-called 10-mile buffer zone around Chaco Canyon, generating $6.2 million per year in royalties for an estimated 5,462 allottees, according to the Navajo Nation. In addition, there are 418 unleased allotments in the zone that are associated with more than 16,000 allottees.
“We are very poor. It’s like living in a third world. No help from the government, no help from the tribe,” Jean Armenta, another Navajo citizen with allotted land, told Fox News Digital. “A lot of us don’t have electricity or running water.”
“I’m for drilling, I’m for drilling,” she added. “People need the money.”
Armenta and Hesuse both criticized Haaland for prioritizing the requests of environmentalists over Indigenous people. Navajo leaders have also accused DOI leadership of failing to properly consult with Navajo allottees on the proposal.
President Biden and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland during a White House event on Oct. 8, 2021. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
“Assistant Secretary Newland, BLM Director Stone-Manning and leadership from both of their teams have visited Navajo Nation multiple times to meet with allottees, Navajo leaders and community members,” DOI spokesperson Melissa Schwartz told Fox News Digital. “The public has also had the opportunity to provide comments.”
“We are deeply committed to engaging with the diverse stakeholders on this process as well as the larger Honoring Chaco Initiative, facilitated by the BLM,” she continued.
Last week, the DOI issued guidance to bolster the role of tribes in federal land management. Despite this guidance, the administration hasn’t publicly acknowledged the proposed five-mile buffer zone compromise proposed by the Navajo Nation Council.
“This administration talks a good talk about consulting with the tribes,” Kathleen Sgamma, the president of the Western Energy Alliance, told Fox News Digital in an interview. “But when the tribes pass legislation offering a compromise to the federal government, the federal government has ignored it.”
Sgamma’s group represents companies with active drilling projects in the Chaco region.
“We provide a source of livelihood in an impoverished area,” she continued.
“These are people that own these minerals and are property owners,” she said. “When you have the federal government infringing on Navajo property owners, it’s hard to say that this administration is committed to environmental justice.”
There are currently 53 Indian allotments located in the so-called 10-mile buffer zone around Chaco Canyon, generating $6.2 million per year in royalties for an estimated 5,462 allottees, according to the Navajo Nation. (iStock)
Overall, New Mexico is among the most fossil fuel-rich states in the nation — it produced the second-most crude oil and was a top-ten natural gas producer last year, according to the Energy Information Administration. The state also has 9% of U.S. proved crude oil reserves and 6% of proved natural gas reserves, making it a major contributor to total energy supplies.
The New Mexico energy industry is responsible for about 100,000 jobs and has an economic impact of $12.8 billion per year, according to the New Mexico Oil & Gas Association.
“Over 100,000 of my fellow New Mexicans are employed by the oil and gas industry, which also supports our public education system through royalties and taxes,” Rep. Yvette Herrell, R-N.M., told Fox News Digital in a statement.
“The Biden administration prefers freezing permits, political gimmicks, and putting up roadblocks to domestic energy innovation instead of promoting affordable, reliable, and clean energy, and American families are the ones who will bear the burden.”
Thomas Catenacci is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
(Reuters) – The Center for Biological Diversity on Tuesday sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to prepare a plan to protect endangered gray wolves, arguing the agency has repeatedly attempted to remove protections for the animal despite persistent threats from loss of habitat and human conflict.
The environmental group said in a lawsuit filed in District of Columbia federal court the agency has never developed a nationwide plan to guide recovery efforts for the wolf, which are now listed as endangered, despite a requirement that it do so in the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
Instead of drafting an adequate protection plan, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) said the government in recent years has attempted to remove protections only to be blocked by the courts. In 2020, the Trump administration said the wolves had adequately recovered and moved to remove protections, which opponents said appeared to be an attempt to win over Midwestern voters days before that year’s election.
The lawsuit seeks to force the government to develop such a plan and to conduct a long overdue status review, which is required every five years by the ESA.
“The Service can’t rely on its outdated, unambitious, and piecemeal approach to wolf recovery any longer,” said Sophia Ressler, a staff attorney at the CBD, in a statement.
The Fish and Wildlife Service proposed removing protections after the last status review, conducted in 2012, and in 2020 issued a final rule doing so, according to the lawsuit. That final rule was challenged in court by CBD and other environmental groups, and a D.C. appeals court vacated that ruling earlier this year.
The wolves occupy less than 15% of their historical range in the contiguous United States with a total population of likely less than 7,000 individuals, according to CBD. The group said that represents an improvement since 1978, but that “grave threats remain.”
Fish and Wildlife Service didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
The case is Center for Biological Diversity v. Haaland, United States District Court for the District of Columbia, No. 1:22-cv-03588.
Today, when there has been very little wind power, how much has solar power provided?
.
Just let that soak in.
In total we use about 840 GWh a day at this time of year. So solar has contributed less than 1% of our power, and little at the times of peak demand in early morning and evening.
Solar capacity is not 14 GW, which means that today all of the solar farms up and down the country have worked at just 1.6% of their capacity.
Twitter, after all, may have affected the 2020 US election by protecting Hunter Biden and the FBI. It also may have protected Big Pharma by suppressing bad news on vaccines and good news on cheap antivirals. There is a body count in this free speech debate? and Elon Musk recognises the gravity of the situation.
In reply to this dangerous free speech concept new signups at Twitter are at an all time high, but Apple has withdrawn advertising on Twitter. To which Elon Musk asks ?Do they…
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) ripped into Apple for restricting certain iPhone functions for the protestors in China while also threatening to remove Twitter from the App Store in America; “Elon Musk is actually opening it up to free speech!”
This #GivingTuesday help The Gentle Barn open a new sanctuary in NEW YORK and make a HUGE impact for animals! We're coming to open a new location, rescue animals, and be part of the solution to the horse carriage industry: https://t.co/YFzUFuidcfpic.twitter.com/Sn9gdoaUUH
A Biden administration official has been charged with felony theft and is facing prison time.
Sam Brinton was accused of stealing a mother’s Vera Bradley suitcase from an airport in Minnesota.
Brinton works at the US Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy.
A Biden administration official has been charged with felony theft and is on leave from their post after being accused of stealing a mother’s Vera Bradley suitcase from an airport in Minnesota, according to court documents and the federal government.
Sam Brinton, the deputy assistant secretary of the Office of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition at the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy, was accused of taking the luggage from baggage claim at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport on September 16, according to a complaint filed last month.
The 26-inch navy blue hard-sided roller bag and its contents were estimated to be worth $2,325, according to the court documents obtained by Insider.
PETITION TARGET: The U.S. House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee Chair Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ)
In overcrowded and disease-ridden fur farms, helpless newborn mink are jammed into tiny, metal cages and held there until they’re slaughtered at about six months old. Their lives are filled with fear, stress, parasites, and illness.
But now, a bill making its way through the U.S. House of Representatives would ban the cruel and inhumane treatment of minks in the United States, effectively abolishing mink farming and eliminating a potential source of new COVID-19 variants in these horrifying facilities.
If passed, the United States would join a growing list of nations that have already banned mink farming.
The market for mink and other furs has shrunk in recent years as major fashion companies — including luxury giant Neiman Marcus — are moving away from selling animal furs. Opposition to fur farming also has increased in recent years over growing concerns that COVID-19 spreading among mink and other farmed animals could lead to deadly mutations of the virus.
It’s time to end mink fur farming in the United States.
Sign this petition urging the U.S. House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee Chair Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ) to support this critical legislation that could save countless mink and human lives.
PETITION TARGETS: Rep. Donald Beyer, Health Subcommittee Chairperson Anna G. Eshoo, House Committee on Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr.
Intelligent donkeys are being crammed en masse into transport trucks, bludgeoned to death with hammers and axes, and then skinned so their stolen hides can be boiled to create a “hide glue” that can sell for as much as $400 a pound on the black market.
An estimated 4.8 million donkeys are dying each year to cater to increasing demand for Ejiao (pronounced eh-gee-ow) — the gelatin released from the donkeys’ boiled skins that is unnecessarily used for beauty products, snacks, and candy.
Donkeys are extremely intelligent, sentient beings who form lifelong bonds. But their journeys — and their deaths — for the cruel Ejiao trade are brutal.
Often sold for “quick cash” in impoverished countries, the donkeys are forced to march hundreds of miles without food, water, or rest, or are herded into transport trucks, where handlers often tie their legs together and pile them on top of eachother or even strap the living animals to the tops of the trucks, according to Science.
Donkeys often arrive at slaughterhouses with broken or severed limbs and serious injuries, only to be killed with hammers, axes, or knives before their skins are exported and their bloody corpses are cast aside as unusable, according to nonprofit The Donkey Sanctuary.
While the brutality toward these innocent donkeys takes part overseas, the United States has a significant role in their suffering as the third largest importer of products containing Ejiao.
Now, a bill could help end this vicious cycle of cruelty — but it’s running out of time in this year’s legislative session.
HR 5203, also known as The Ejiao Act, would prohibit the knowing sale or transport of Ejiao or products containing Ejiao in interstate or foreign commerce. But the bill has been stuck in the Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Health since September 2021.
It’s critical that legislators act quickly on this lifesaving legislation — or re-introduce the legislation for timely passage in the next one.
Sign our petition urging legislators to revive and quickly pass the Ejiao Act, which would help save the lives of countless donkeys by curbing demand for this product created from donkeys’ serious pain and suffering.
Target: Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
Victoria Paige
Goal: Demand stricter prosecution of animal abusers to protect animals and people from violence.
Each year, over 10 million animals are abused to death throughout the U.S., with countless others suffering from severe, human-inflicted physical and psychological trauma. While animal cruelty is typically regarded as an isolated issue, the link between animal cruelty and violence against humans and other illegal activities has been relatively well established. One study found over 71% of perpetrators of domestic violence abused their pets as well, while an estimated 88% of child abusers were also reported animal abusers.
The Animal Cruelty Enforcement Act of 2021 was introduced to the House in hopes of dedicating more substantial legal resources towards prosecuting animal abusers. This act recognizes that the lack of a dedicated animal crimes enforcement unit in the U.S. has resulted in an insufficient and delayed responses to animal cruelty crimes. If passed, Congress would establish an Animal Cruelty Crimes Section within the Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division. This section would be able to enforce federal laws prohibiting animal cruelty to allow for more direct, and effective responses towards investigating and prosecuting cases of animal abuse.
Sign this petition to demand the Animal Cruelty Enforcement Act of 2021 be passed, and that animals receive greater legal protections under federal law.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear Speaker Pelosi,
Cruelty towards animals has been connected to violence towards humans and other illegal activities, including domestic violence, child abuse, sexual assault, homicide, and drug trafficking. However, current federal approaches to cases of animal abuse are slow and ineffective, and tens of millions of animals are left to suffer severe physical and psychological trauma at the hands of their abusers. The introduction of the Animal Cruelty Enforcement Act of 2021 to Congress provides a new hope for animals and people affected by human-inflicted violence. Through establishing an Animal Cruelty Crimes Section within the Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, this act would allow for more adequate investigation and prosecution of animal abuse.
We are asking you, Speaker Pelosi, to support this act and encourage more federal protections for animals throughout the country.
A sweet senior dog was killed and skinned outside of a family home, and his bloody and mostly hairless corpse left for his distraught guardian, just three miles away from where four University of Idaho students were stabbed to death, according to news reports.
Buddy, a 12-year-old mini Australian Shepherd, was let out into the yard surrounding his 10-acre home in a peaceful community in Moscow, Idaho, in October. His guardians, Pam and Jim Colbert, said the intelligent dog never left their property – but that night he never returned.
A neighbor later found the dog, raised a community alarm, and alerted the Colberts that someone had skinned Buddy – leaving fur only on his face and his legs.
“They cut him around the neck and just skinned him,” Pam Colbert told the Daily Mail. “The other side of him was as though they had filleted him like they were about to eat him.”
The bereaved couple found Buddy’s collar, but not his stolen skin. Jim Colbert also discovered the corpse of a rabbit nearby whose head had been cut open and brain exposed.
Moscow Police have determined that Buddy’s killer was human. While the department hasn’t definitively linked the dog’s death to the students’ stabbings 23 days later, the community is living in fear, according to news reports.
This heinous act of fatal animal cruelty must be taken seriously. Numerous studies have linked cruelty against animals to future cruelty against humans.
This sweet dog did not deserve such a torturous death, and a thorough investigation into the killing may lead to information that could relate to the University of Idaho murders; or, it could allow police to apprehend a separate individual who may cause additional harm to other innocent animals or people.
Sign our petition urging the Moscow Police to use all available resources to identify Buddy’s killer and hold the individual(s) accountable for this act of serious and intentional violence.
We have published pieces in the past warning consumers about the unregulated use of the term “natural” on packaging by manufacturers of food and personal care products. We have published similar warnings about the plethora of ingredients in so-called “natural” skincare products that have led to an increase in consumer allergic reactions. Now, a team of dermatologists have examined the ingredient lists of 1,651 products on the U.S. market, including lotions, soaps and moisturizers, and revealed that the vast majority of skincare products labeled “natural” contain ingredients that can cause allergic reactions. More specifically, nearly 90 percent of the personal skin care products studied contained at least one of the top 100 most common allergens known to cause contact dermatitis*.
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Study overview
Researchers examined product ingredient lists from the websites of three US retailers and checked them against the American Contact Dermatitis Society online database that lists…
Target: Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
Victoria Paige
Goal: Prohibit the sale of animal-tested cosmetic products and help save hundreds of thousands of animals from unethical, unnecessary laboratory procedures.
Despite majority public opposition, the use of animals in cosmetic testing is still widely legal in parts of the U.S. Cosmetic tests typically involve exposing animals—mostly mice, rats, rabbits, and guinea pigs—to irritation tests, where animals have potentially toxic chemicals rubbed on their shaven skin and dripped into their eyes. Other common procedures include force-feeding ingredients to animals to determine the long-term effects, or injecting them with chemicals to observe the bodily response. These sentient creatures suffer tremendously throughout the testing process, and once they are no longer of use are brutally killed by means of asphyxiation, neck-breaking or decapitation.
Not only is cosmetic testing cruel, but it is entirely unnecessary. We already know of thousands upon thousands of safe ingredients that can be mixed and morphed into millions of new and improved formulas. Plus, due to advancements in technology, tons of other viable alternatives to direct animal testing now exist. The Humane Cosmetics Act of 2021 was introduced to the House as a way of limiting cosmetic animal testing in the U.S. While many other countries, including Israel, India, and the European Union have all banned the sale of any cosmetics that have been tested on animals, these products and ingredients are still entirely available at mainstream stores and sites throughout America.
The U.S. is lagging behind so many other nations in our treatment of animals. Demand an end to the sale of animal-tested cosmetics.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear Representative Pelosi,
The continued use of animals in cosmetic testing throughout the U.S. is rather appalling. Animals—including mice, rats, rabbits, and guinea pigs—are force-fed substances, injected with toxins, and have potentially lethal chemicals dripped into their sensitive eyes. In the face of equally successful alternative methods of testing, cosmetic animal-testing is antiquated and unnecessary. Not to mention there are already hundreds of thousands of ingredients we know to be safe for human use.
The Humane Cosmetics Act of 2021 was recently introduced to the House in hopes that the U.S. would follow the lead of many other countries—such as Israel, India, and the European Union—in banning the sale and distribution of animal-tested cosmetic products. We are asking you, Speaker Pelosi, to support this act and help reduce the number of animals used in cosmetic testing. No being should suffer for our physical preferences.
A new investigation has revealed that suppliers of beef to McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, Kroger grocery chains and Walmart are sourcing meat from US factory farms that use antibiotics linked to the spread of dangerous superbugs. More specifically, unpublished US government records obtained by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the Guardian show factory farms producing beef for meat packing firms Cargill, JBS, and Green Bay are risking public health by still using antibiotics classed as the “highest priority critically important” to human health (HP-CIAs)*. A warning from the World Health Organization (WHO) states that such drugs are so essential to human medicine and that their use in livestock farming should be stopped. The HP-CIA drugs are often the last line or one of limited treatments available for serious bacterial infections in humans. The overuse of such antibiotics means they can become less effective.
The deaths of almost 2,000 manatees in Florida’s coastal and inland waterways over the last two years has provoked an alliance of environmental groups to demand an urgent reclassification of the species to officially endangered.
The advocates, led by the non-profit Center for Biological Diversity, insist the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) made a critical error in 2017 by prematurely downgrading the status of the giant aquatic mammals from endangered to merely threatened*.
The alliance, which includes Harvard Law School’s animal law and policy clinic, the Save the Manatee Club and Miami Waterkeeper, has petitioned the interior secretary, Deb Haaland, and FWS director, Martha Williams, for the change. (source)
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“With Florida’s manatees dying by the hundreds, it’s painfully clear that the 2017 federal decision to down-list the species was scientifically baseless.
“The Fish and Wildlife Service now has the opportunity to correct its mistake and protect…
From investigating school board parents to raiding Mar-a-Lago, the FBI is on a rampage! Who will they raid next? It could be you!
To help you protect yourself, The Babylon Bee has consulted law enforcement experts to learn the top 10 signs the FBI is about to kick your door down:
A windowless van labeled “Fiber Board Installers” has been parked outside your house all week: And there’s a satellite dish on the roof. Weird.
The bush in your front yard is a foot closer to the house every time you look at it: You could’ve sworn it was by the road when you planted it. Are those eyes?!
You were dumb enough to engage in drug and sex trafficking without being Biden’s son: Classic rookie mistake!
Your door dash delivery guy is showered and clean-shaven: He’s clearly a Fed.
Your wife keeps shooing pesky FBI agents rummaging through her closet: Too late! You’re already being raided!
You were the president and took the nuclear codes home with you: Hopefully, they’ll be lenient since you made America great again.
You attended a school board meeting in the last 12 weeks: You monster!
You’re alone in your house and you sneeze and a mysterious voice behind the wall says “bless you”: At least they’re polite.
The kid delivering your newspaper is clearly an adult midget with a 5 o’clock shadow dressed as a kid: Oops — sorry, we meant “little person.”
You just clicked on this Babylon Bee article: Oh no! You’re on the watchlist forever now!
Over the past few years, Dakota USA native Tom A Warner and his colleagues have been filming lightning on high-speed cameras. They have captured 776 naturally occurring lightning flashes, recording speeds as high as 100,000 images per second. Forty-one of the flashes were upward flashes originating from tall towers in Rapid City. Recording at speeds this high allows a detailed examination of what happens during lightning strikes, and Tom has done a lot of work on upward lightning.
Upward Lightning
The most important finding about upward lightning is that it primarily occurs when there is a nearby positive cloud-to-ground flash. The electric field change caused by the preceding flash causes an upward positive leader to initiate from a tall object such as a building, tower or wind turbine. The shape of the tall object and the resulting enhancement in the electrical field makes it possible for an upward leader to form following a nearby flash. Tom and his colleagues call this lightning-triggered upward lightning, and the upward leader would not develop if the tall object were not present. This is shown below in a fascinating high-speed video.
Source: Lightning captured at 7,207 images per second from ZT Research on Vimeo.
During winter snow storms, Tom’s research also shows that tall objects can initiate upward leaders without preceding triggering flashes. These findings are very important because many tall structures are being built, especially wind turbines. These structures are experiencing lightning currents from upward lightning at a much higher rate than they might experience from normal downward lightning, even up to 100 times more often. Therefore, there is a much greater chance of damage. Also, it is unclear what global atmospheric impacts (i.e. atmospheric chemistry), if any, may result from the increase in lightning (specifically upward lightning) due to artificial tall objects.
Tom’s high-speed captures use Vision Research Phantom cameras which can record over 100,000 images per second. The cameras are operated manually. Even with 16 GB of memory, the camera can only record about 2 secs video. Therefore, it continually records using a buffer loop. When a flash occurs, they trigger the camera system at the end of the flash, and the system saves the preceding 2 sec of video. The captured flash is somewhere in the saved recording, which they then download to hard drives.
The video plays back on the computer at 30 images per second, so watching a 1-sec flash recorded at 10,000 images per second would take 5 1/2 minutes. Likewise, a 1-sec flash recorded at 100,000 images per second would take over 55 min to watch. Tom and fellow students, therefore, spend most of their winter looking at and analyzing the high-speed recordings.
Tom was born in the USA in 1965 and has a first degree in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of California and a Masters in Atmospheric Science from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. He worked as a research scientist for the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences, Rapid City, South Dakota, from 2000 to 2004, where he piloted the armour-plated T-28 Storm Penetrating Aircraft.
Tom is currently working toward a PhD degree in Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.
Tom is also a photographer specializing in aerial, weather, lightning and night/low-light still imagery. In 2007, he used high-speed digital cameras to capture lightning.
Lightning can strike the ground, the air, or inside clouds, but there are roughly 5 to 10 times more cloud flashes than cloud-to-ground flashes. Discover the different types of lightning in this MetMatters post.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Things got tense in the White House briefing room today after several journalists in the press pool asked Jean-Pierre to answer some questions.
“Listen here — it’s not my job to stand here and answer your questions all day like some sort of press secretary,” said Jean-Pierre while furiously flipping through her 3-ring binder to find a pre-written comeback that would shut the journalists down once and for all. “For goodness’ sake, I’m a human being, not some wind-up toy or magic 8-ball you can shake up and ask whatever question you want to! What do you take me for? A member of the White House communications team?”
Several journalists in the audience rudely raised their hands to ask further questions, apparently unaware of how poorly they were behaving.
“Come on, we all know the drill here. You ask the questions given to you by my team, I recite the answers given to me by my team, we pretend it’s spontaneous, and we all go home, ok? Get off your high horse, everyone!”
At publishing time, Jean-Pierre had informed the journalists that any more out-of-turn questions would result in them being sent to the time-out room with no cookies or juice boxes.
NOT FAKE NEWS: Join us at THE BABYLON BEE LIVE for an exclusive night of live comedy, food, drinks, and all the satire you can handle from your favorite personalities at The Babylon Bee.
RALEIGH, NC — A local retailer is making waves after announcing its most dramatic Black Friday sale ever, in which every item in the store is marked down to whatever the price was before Biden became President.
“Yeah, we’re going to lose a bundle on this deal since everything was so much cheaper under Trump,” said Store Manager Franzlie McBorgendern to reporters as thousands gathered outside awaiting store opening. “But we have to get people in the doors so we can stay in business — at least until Amazon runs us out of business in a couple of months.”
The sale is expected to fuel America’s nostalgia for a time when gas was affordable, groceries didn’t cost $500 per week, and the country wasn’t fighting a proxy war with Russia. “Merry Christmas! We hope you enjoy this little look back in time to 3 years ago!” said MCBorgendern before quietly weeping into a display of 50%-off bathroom towels.
At publishing time, interest in the sale plummeted after the store revealed that mask mandates would also be the same as they were right before Biden was President.
By Stephen MessengerPublished on 11/3/2022 at 3:58 PM
Along with the assortment of letters, bills and packages he typically drops off each day along his route, this particular postal worker delivers something far more warmly received.
He delivers joy to a handsome cat named Zeppelin.Marisa Jaffe
About a year ago, Zeppelin came to discover a recurring event at home. Every morning, around the same time, a man dressed in blue would arrive outside the front door and slip mail through the mail slot — papery playthings Zeppelin grew fond of pawing at.
The mailman, realizing Zeppelin had made a game of his daily deliveries, began making that moment all the more fun for him. And from there, an adorable friendship blossomed.Marisa Jaffe
“Zeppelin waits by the window, and when he sees the mailman coming down the street, he gets so excited and runs to the door!” Marisa Jaffe, Zeppelin’s owner, told The Dodo. “Highlight of his morning, for sure!”
Here’s video of Zeppelin and the mailman in action:
When the mailman arrives with his deliveries, artfully placed with Zeppelin in mind, the cat gets a big, happy boost.
“Zeppelin is as feisty and playful as he seems,” Jaffe said.Marisa Jaffe
For the mailman, it’s no doubt an amusing highlight of his morning also — bringing a little joy to a random cat on his route. Seeing them enjoy their sweet routine, Jaffe can’t help but feel joy as well.
“I’m very grateful for their friendship,” Jaffe said. “And because of it, now I have a friendship with the mailman, too.”
Top Picks to Spoil Your Cat
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I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. —Soren Kierkegaard. "...truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it. That is why truth does not yield to opinion, fashion, numbers, office, or sincerity--it is simply true and that is the end of it" - Os Guinness, Time for Truth, pg.39. “He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” - Blaise Pascal. "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" – George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. We live in a “post-truth” world. According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their low information tabloid reality show news with a distractional superficial focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting – this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard
Following in the spirit of Britain's Queen Boudica, Queen of the Iceni. A boudica.us site. I am an opinionator, do your own research, verification. Reposts, reblogs do not neccessarily reflect our views.
"OUR WORLD" 
