Okay seriously, what is it with Donald Trump and water?

Can someone please explain to me why President (COUGHbabyhandsCOUGH) Trump needs two hands to drink a glass of water?pic.twitter.com/zsBhcv9fsv#MondayMotivation
via @atrupar

— Holly O'Reilly (@AynRandPaulRyan) December 18, 2017

Weird right?

And this woman is by no means the only one to have noticed this.

Had Trump drank water from a glass before he became President? pic.twitter.com/mLreSQ3U1D

— Barstool News Network (@BarstoolNewsN) December 18, 2017

Get you a man (or a woman) who holds you as delicately as Trump holds his water. pic.twitter.com/7aqxyHo02N

— April Michelle (@aprilmichelle00) December 18, 2017

And keep in mind that he actually mocked Marco Rubio for drinking water during a speech.

Trump actually drinking water is almost more awkward than Trump mocking Marco Rubio for drinking water. pic.twitter.com/eMxoEYoHFF

— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) December 18, 2017

Look I know that when it comes to Donald Trump there are much bigger things to be concerned about, but this is still really, really odd.

H/T to the Huffington Post.

I'll just leave this here.

"They don't have water? That's OK.": Trump gets parched during his televised remarks on his Asia trip pic.twitter.com/ybNOHm6iLJ

— POLITICO (@politico) November 15, 2017

And this too.

More than a tweet, there's also a video of Trump mocking Rubio's SOTU water moment. pic.twitter.com/dkKyrOIUGO

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 15, 2017

I think yesterday was one of Marco Rubio's favorite days.

NASA has discovered liquid water on Mars. Just thought you should know that this morning.

Courtesy of CNN: 

Potentially life-giving water still flows across the ancient surface of Mars from time to time, NASA scientists said Monday in revealing a potential breakthrough in both the search for life beyond Earth and human hopes to one day travel there. 

While the discovery doesn't by itself offer evidence of life on Mars, either past or present, it does boost hopes of that the harsh landscape still offers some refuge to life. 

"The existence of liquid water, even if it is super salty briny water, gives the possibility that if there's life on Mars, that we have a way to describe how it might survive," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA.

So that is just one of the things that science has discovered this week.

But remember there is no reason to focus on teaching it to our children, or spending tax payer money on it, after all its not like it provides answers to any of the important questions about our origins or the survival of our species or anything.

In fact Rush Limbaugh does not even believe that NASA found anything.

The politicians of Wasilla, Alaska, making people around the world happy they don't have to live there.

I found this quote the other day from an Alaska state senator who hails from Wasilla, over at Crooks and Liars who posted it under the headline "What In The Hell Is In Wasilla Water, Anyway?"

Sen. Charlie Huggins, R-Wasilla, offered what he called a “completely seat of the pants” observation at a Senate State Affairs Committee meeting during the introduction of a criminal justice reform bill. 

“With some degree of confidence, I think that by the time particularly young men, but maybe young men and women, are in middle school, we can already predict the ones we need to get their DNA samples,” Huggins told a room that included the state’s corrections commissioner, Ron Taylor. “Because they’re going to go see Mr. Taylor in a few years. That’s unfortunate but it’s all too true.” 

It appeared that he thought DNA samples from the suspect middle school students should be taken so that they can be compared later with samples taken at crime scenes or from crime victims.

Yeah nothing like rounding up a bunch of Middle School kids and taking a sample of their DNA, without permission from their parents, and stomping all over their constitution rights in order to save a little legwork if they someday become a suspect in a crime, right?

Of course this is not at all surprising for those of us familiar with the people of Wasilla. After all Sarah Palin is certainly not the only moron to emerge from that batshit crazy environment.

I particalry like the title of this article as it reminds of something that Dennis Zaki used to say when he lived with his son out in that area.

Dennis was convinced that there was something in the water that was making people stupid and decided to uproot his family and leave before his son, who tests at the genius level, became too dumbed down to tie his own shoes.

Looks like he might have been on to something. 

Science vs Religion.

The above graphic may seem a little over the top, I mean who in their right minds would drink from the glass on the right? (Personally I would have to be damn thirsty to drink from the one on the left either.)

However it is really not as exaggerated as you might want to believe.

For example in India millions of devoted Hindus travel to the Ganges River for its supposed purification capabilities, but in fact it is terribly polluted and potentially fatal.

There was also a report in 2013 that the holy water used in Catholic ceremonies could prove lethal.

And then of course there are the times when religious people drink what they believe to be miracle water only to discover that it's actually aphid excrement.

But then I guess one could simply rationalize explosive diarrhea as God working in mysterious ways.

New study may prove to be the death knell for the Pebble Mine Project in Alaska. If fish could applaud they would be doing so.

Bristol Bay

Courtesy of the Juneau Empire: 

A government report indicates a large-scale copper and gold mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region could have devastating effects on the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery and adversely affect Alaska Natives, whose culture is built around salmon. 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday released its final assessment of the impact of mining in the Bristol Bay region. Its findings are similar to those of an earlier draft report, concluding that, depending on the size of the mine, up to 94 miles of streams would be destroyed in the mere build-out of the project, including losses of between 5 and 22 miles of streams known to provide salmon spawning and rearing habitat. Up to 5,350 acres of wetlands, ponds and lakes also would be lost due to the mine footprint. 

The report concludes that “large-scale mining in the Bristol Bay watershed poses significant near- and long-term risk to salmon, wildlife and Native Alaska cultures,” EPA regional administrator Dennis McLerran said in a conference call with reporters. 

The battle over the proposed Pebble Mine has been waged for years and extended beyond Alaska’s borders, with environmental activists like actor Robert Redford opposing development. Multinational jewelers have said they won’t use minerals mined from the Alaska prospect, and pension fund managers from California and New York City last year asked London-based Rio Tinto, a shareholder of mine owner Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd., to divest, a request Rio Tinto said it planned to consider. 

This battle over the Pebble Mine has been waging now for over five years, and it may never have even began if Sarah Palin had not interfered in the the early initiative process: 

The two sides spent more than $10 million -- unprecedented for such efforts in Alaska -- and throughout it all, the state's highly popular first-term governor, Sarah Palin, held back. Alaska law forbids state officials from using state resources to advocate on ballot initiatives. 

Then, six days before the Aug. 26 vote, with the race looking close, Palin broke her silence. Asked about the initiative at a news conference, she invoked "personal privilege" to give an opinion. "Let me take my governor's hat off for just a minute here and tell you, personally, Prop. 4 -- I vote no on that," she said. "I have all the confidence in the world that [the Department of Environmental Conservation] and our [Department of Natural Resources] have great, very stringent regulations and policies already in place. We're going to make sure that mines operate only safely, soundly." 

Palin's comments rocked the contest. Within a day, the pro-mining coalition fighting the referendum had placed full-page ads with a picture of the governor and the word "NO." The initiative went down to defeat, with 57 percent of voters rejecting it. 

Three days later, Palin was named Republican Sen. John McCain's running mate, throwing Alaska into a media frenzy. But the fallout has lingered from an episode that may stand as one of the most consequential in Palin's 21-month tenure. The state ethics panel is examining whether her comments violated the law against state advocacy on ballot measures; it had already ruled that a state Web site was improperly slanted toward mining interests.

So one of Palin's last acts before being tapped by McCain was to help start a war up here between the fishermen and the supporters of the Pebble Mine. And people wonder why Alaskans dislike her so much.

Anyhow this new report might be the nail that we have been searching for to finally close the coffin on the Pebble Mine for good.

At least I certainly hope so.

Nice way to look at it.

There was a time when I would have predicted that by now the rock would be no more than a pebble.

Oh well, time favors the water, not the rock.

Pastors tell believers that bottled water can cure their cancer. Gee what could go wrong?

Courtesy of BBC News:  

Doctors have warned that patients with HIV are giving up their medicine after being told by Pentecostal church pastors to rely on faith in God instead. 

Medical staff working with children and young people say the lives of some church members are being put in danger because they are wrongly being told they can be cured. 

In one case, an HIV-sufferer was given a plastic bottle of water by his pastor and told it would heal him. He later stopped taking his medicine and his condition worsened.

Go ahead, ask me again how blind faith could possibly hurt people?

When people have more faith in  religious leaders than scientists or doctors the end result is always tragic.

P.S. The link above has a video with more information.

Texas awash in oil, but nary a drop to drink.

Courtesy of Mother Jones:  

Beverly McGuire saw the warning signs before the town well went dry: sand in the toilet bowl, the sputter of air in the tap, a pump working overtime to no effect. But it still did not prepare her for the night in June when she turned on the tap and discovered the tiny town where she had made her home for 35 years was out of water. 

"The day that we ran out of water I turned on my faucet and nothing was there and at that moment I knew the whole of Barnhart was down the tubes," she said, blinking back tears. "I went: 'Dear God, help us.' That was the first thought that came to mind." 

Across the Southwest, residents of small communities like Barnhart are confronting the reality that something as basic as running water, as unthinking as turning on a tap, can no longer be taken for granted. 

Three years of drought, decades of overuse and now the oil industry's outsize demands on water for fracking are running down reservoirs and underground aquifers. And climate change is making things worse. 

In Texas alone, about 30 communities could run out of water by the end of the year, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. 

Nearly 15 million people are living under some form of water rationing, barred from freely sprinkling their lawns or refilling their swimming pools. In Barnhart's case, the well appears to have run dry because the water was being extracted for shale gas fracking. 

The town—a gas station, a community hall, and a taco truck—sits in the midst of the great Texan oil rush, on the eastern edge of the Permian Basin. 

A few years ago, it seemed like a place on the way out. Now McGuire said she can see nine oil wells from her back porch, and there are dozens of RVs parked outside town, full of oil workers. 

But soon after the first frack trucks pulled up two years ago, the well on McGuire's property ran dry.

I cannot think of a more ironic story than this one. At least not recently.

Texas is the very epitome of trading your soul for profit, and in this case it has taken on a material form as they have traded money making oil for live giving water.

I read years ago that someday wars will not be fought for oil, land, or power. They will be fought over water, and they will make the great wars of the past pale by comparison.

Now THIS is a Christmas miracle.! And it comes from science, like all good miracles should.

From the Guardian:

A simple reactor that mimics plants by turning sunlight into fuel has been demonstrated in the laboratory, boosting hopes for a large-scale renewable source of liquid fuel.

"We have a big energy problem and we have to think big," said Prof Sossina Haile, at the California Institute of Technology, who led the research.

Haile estimates that a rooftop reactor could produce about three gallons of fuel a day. She thinks transport fuels would be the first application of the reactor, if it goes on to commercial use. But she said an equally important use for the renewable fuels would be to store solar energy so it is available at times of peak demand, and overnight. She says the first improvements that will be made to the existing reactor will be to improve the insulation to help stop heat loss, a simple move that she expects to treble the current efficiency.

The key component is made from the metal cerium, which is almost as abundant as copper, unlike other rare and expensive metals frequently used as catalysts, such as platinum. Therefore, said Haile, availability would not limit the use of the device. "There is nothing cost prohibitive in our set-up," she said. "And there is plenty of cerium for this technology to make a major contribution to global gasoline supplies."

The fossil fuels used by vehicles, ships and aeroplanes pose the biggest challenge in the search for low-carbon energy, as they are highly energy-dense and portable, unlike alternatives such as batteries or nuclear reactors. An efficient, large-scale way of converting solar energy into a renewable liquid fuel could play a major role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and tackling climate change.

You know this could be really good news for Alaska. 

I mean it looks like the main components are water and sunshine.

Well we have millions of gallon of water and we have lots of sunsh.....uh.....did I mention we have millions of gallons of water?

Well maybe we could team up with another state? 

How about Arizona?  They have LOTS of sunshine, and very little water. Perfect!

The only kink in that plan would be if we screwed it up by sending some of our most ignorant and useless people to their state.  Uh oh.

Okay we can stop worrying about saving our planet, we may have found a replacement.

Evidence of water has been detected for the first time in a planet outside our solar system, an astronomer said on Tuesday, a tantalizing find for scientists eager to know whether life exists beyond Earth.

Travis Barman, an astronomer at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, said water vapor has been found in the atmosphere of a large, Jupiter-like gaseous planet located 150 light years from Earth in the constellation Pegasus. The planet is known as HD 209458b.

Thank God I can now drive my giant gas guzzling SUV over small animals while sipping my Starbucks Caffe' Verona on the way to my job of using reams of paper for useless documents and depleting our rain forests without feeling a stitch of guilt. Some of that was really starting to bother me.

I wonder how soon I can purchase my ticket to my new home on planet HD 209458b? I hope I get there before all of the pristine water vapor gets sucked up for some assholes jacuzzi.