Ice forms at the Santa Fe dam.
Winter is upon us, however, complete with ice even forming at the Santa Fe dam.
Snow. Really. Someday.
Category Archives: News
Board of Supervisors meet December 18th
The next meeting of the Coconino County Board of Supervisors will be Tuesday, December 18th from 6 pm to 9 pm. The location is 219 East Cherry Ave in Flagstaff.
County offices will be closed December 25th for Christmas.
“Drug cartels’ bank,” HSBC, to see no arrests
(CBS News) As bank slogans go, they don’t come worse than this: “The preferred financial institution of drug cartels and money launderers.”
That’s a quote Tuesday in a U.S. Department of Justice report about HSBC Holdings, one of the largest banks in the world.
To avoid criminal prosecution, HSBC admitted Tuesday that it laundered more than $800 million for Mexican drug cartels, and covered up illegal transactions for Burma, Iran, Sudan, Cuba, and Libya.
Those nations were under banking sanctions because of human rights atrocities, terrorism, or — in Iran’s case — a nuclear program.
The British bank will pay $1.9 billion to the U.S. government, the largest such fine in history.
Read more at CBS News
Pipe dreams: Claims of legalized pot benefits quickly busted in Colo. and Wash.
Patricia Campion
The Examiner
While pot is still banned under federal law, voters in Colorado and Washington passed referendums legalizing marijuana for recreational use on Nov. 6. Despite claims by advocates that legalization would reduce crime, The Los Angeles Times reported Monday that “two University of Colorado Boulder students face multiple felony charges after the marijuana-laced brownies they brought to class put their professor in the hospital.”
Thomas Ricardo Cunningham, 21, and Mary Elizabeth Essa, 19, were arrested on suspicion of planning and intentionally committing second-degree assault and inducing consumption of controlled substances by fraudulent means.
Officials said “two other students were hospitalized with anxiety and lightheadedness, and five more had a ‘bad reaction.'”
“Putting marijuana into a food product and providing it to somebody without their knowledge has always been illegal, and that will continue to be illegal, even after Amendment 64,” campus police spokesman Ryan Huff said Sunday. “So I just want to make this clear that these are serious felony cases and we take these very seriously.”
Read more at The Examiner
SEAL Killed in Rescue Mission Identified
The Pentagon has identified Petty Officer 1st Class Nicolas Checque as the Navy SEAL who died of injuries sustained in the successful rescue of an American doctor from the Taliban over the weekend.
Checque, who hailed from Monroeville, Pa., died of “combat related injuries,” according to a Pentagon release. Though the release only said Checque was assigned to “an East Coast-based Naval Special Warfare unit,” ABC News previously reported the fallen servicemember was a part of the Navy’s elite SEAL Team 6, the same unit that killed Osama bin Laden.
Checque, 28, sustained his mortal injuries while on a nighttime mission Saturday to free Dr. Dilip Joseph, an American doctor who worked for an non-governmental organization based in Kabul. Joseph was kidnapped by the Taliban earlier this month and American officials believed he was in imminent danger.
Read more at ABC News
Transparency not an option?
The Internet is abuzz with the story that the January 20th swearing in of Barrack Obama may be a private affair. Apparently the word is that Obama intends not to allow the media that installed him to attend the ceremony. Alana Goodman of Commentary Magazine reported, “Politico reports that Obama’s second inaugural oath for the ‘most transparent administration in history’ might be administered privately, without any media present.”
The web site Politico reported a quote from the NBC News White House correspondent. “Call me shell-shocked. I’m stunned that this is even an issue; it boggles the mind,” Chuck Todd told POLITICO. “This is not their oath, this is the constitutional oath. It’s not for them. It’s for the public, the citizens of the United Sates. It just boggles the mind. How is this even a debate?”
In his original swearing in ceremony, there were mistakes in the oath of office that he took. Some said that mistake nullified the oath causing another swearing in ceremony to be conducted in the White House in private.
According to the Politico office, the White House intends a public ceremony after the private ceremony. Apparently they intend to reverse the process from the first gaffed ceremony.
The excuse of the White House is alleged to be that January 20th falls on a Sunday, they will hold the ceremony privately and hold a public ceremony the following day.
“The White House Correspondents Association has reason to be concerned,” Goodman wrote in her commentary. “While Obama’s second oath of office in 2009 (if you remember, he had to do it twice) wasn’t completely closed to the media, only four reporters were allowed to attend, writes Dylan Byers.”
Despite Tax Increase, California State Revenues in Freefall
California State Controller John Chiang has announced that total state revenue for the month of November 2012 fell $806.8 million, or 10.8%, below budget.
Democrats thought they could hammer “the rich” by convincing voters to pass Proposition 30 to create the highest state income tax in the nation. But it now appears that high income earners have already “voted with their feet” by moving themselves and their businesses out of state, resulting in over $1 billion shortfall in corporate and income taxes last month and the beginning of a new financial crisis.
Passage of Proposition 30 set off euphoria and expectations of higher spending for public employees. The California Teachers’ Association (CTA) trumpeted: “California students and working families won a clear victory today as voters clearly demonstrated their willingness to invest in our public schools and colleges and also rejected a deceptive ballot measure aimed at silencing educators, other workers and their unions.”
State bureaucrats immediately ramped up deficit spending far beyond the state’s $6 billion annual tax increase, with the Departments of Health Services and Developmental Services increasing this month’s spending by over $1 billion versus last year. The lower tax collection and higher spending drove the State’s deficit after the tax increase to $2.7 billion for the first 5 months of this fiscal year. State Controller John Chiang reported:
November’s disappointing revenues stand in stark contrast to recent news that California is leading the nation in job growth, has significantly improved its cash liquidity to pay bills, and even long-distressed home values are starting to inch upward… This serves as a sobering reminder that, while the economy is expanding, it is doing so at a slow and uneven pace that will require the State to exercise care and discipline in how its fiscal affairs are managed in the coming year.
The improved “cash liquidity” Chiang referred to turns out to be $24.9 billion of debt.
Read more at BreitBart News
Like there’s snow tomorrow
WILLIAMS—The long range weather forecast indicates a 10% chance of snow tomorrow clearing up by the evening. The chance of snow picks up again Thursday through and Friday with the weather cooling throughout the week.
Soros Remakes America into Narco Nation
As more states embrace legalization of marijuana—a pet cause of George Soros for decades—the British publication The Independent has published a groundbreaking series of articles by journalist Patrick Cockburn on how his son went insane smoking the drug.
Cockburn and his son Henry, who was treated for psychosis and partially recovered, have written an article in which Patrick Cockburn is quoted as saying his son played Russian roulette with cannabis “and lost.”
Henry, who smoked marijuana daily for seven years and was in mental hospitals for about eight years as a result, says, “When I reached a mental hospital, called St Martin’s, I spent three hours walking around the lunch tables trying to listen to my shoes. I thought my shoes were talking to me.”
Patrick Cockburn spent months speaking to the experts in the field and reports on the substantial evidence linking sustained marijuana use with mental illness. One expert, Sir William Paton, professor of pharmacology at Oxford University, reveals “that even limited social use of cannabis could precipitate schizophrenia in people who previously had no psychological problems,” and noted that “smoking a single joint could induce schizophrenia-like symptoms such as hallucinations, paranoia and fragmented thought processes.”
Read more at Accuracy in Media
Bill of Rights monument dedication in Phoenix on Bill of Rights day
PHOENIX—The Bill of Rights Day celebration for Arizona will be particularly special this year. With the mast of the U.S.S. Arizona celebrating the remembrance of Pearl Harbor, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer will dedicate a monument to the Bill of Rights at the State capitol on Wesley Bowlin Plaza. Arizona will be the first to complete a monument dedicated to the Bill of Rights through the effort of Chris Bliss of My Bill of Rights.
During this season, the attention of kids and adults are directed more to the material matter that they will receive in ten days over matters related to their natural rights and liberties. Rarely is this season interrupted with ceremonies relating to the fact that on December 15th, 1791, Ten Amendments were added to the Constitution, “… in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its [the National government] powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.”
The Ten Amendments in fact it is the first of the Ten Amendments that protects the sanctity of this season and the right of people to worship God in schools and other public places.
On Saturday, December 15th from 10 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., Governor Brewer will dedicate a monument containing the inalienable Bill of Rights engraved on them.
The monument is part of an effort by Chris Bliss of the My Bill of Rights organization to get Bill of Rights monuments placed in civic spaces across the country. The organization hopes to promote awareness of the guarantees of the Bill of Rights through this effort.
In addition, the Phoenix Elks Lodge will host a $22 buffet dinner with cash bar and keynote speaker Russell Pierce. The Cartridge Family band is scheduled to appear and a portrayal of Patrick Henry by Dr. Lance Hurley. To RSVP for the dinner, call 602-942-9281. The dinner begins at 6 p.m.
Alan Korwin, author of several books on gun and self defense laws, will also be in attendance.
See Also: Committee for the Bill of Rights