After seven months and a supreme court battle, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police have finally began releasing video from the officer"s body cameras who breached the room of Stephen Paddock.
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Sometimes it’s easier to have more by simply working less.
Living off the grid is so much more than changing how you source your power. It is usually the door to a radical change in lifestyle – one that offers benefits in health and well-being. Here are five interconnected ways that living off-grid inspires you to work less and live more.
Financial freedom– Many people who want to live off-grid begin with a desire to save money on their energy bills and to not be dependent on a public power supply. Taking the next step requires finding a dwelling place that allows you the ability to power it through other means. This step usually involves leaving an urban area for a rural setting. While there can be some pretty substantialexpenses in setting up your off-grid power system, it eventually pays for itself many times over.
Additionally, people who live off-grid tend to buy or to build modest homes and enjoy having the burden of rent and mortgage payments lifted from their shoulders. Other savings come from not having water bills or waste collection fees.
Living in a smaller space encourages other habits that lead to a debt-free lifestyle. To put it simply, with less space, you desire less stuff. You tend to appreciate quality over quantity. You grow to be content with a pared-down wardrobe, less furniture and fewer toys and gadgets.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health,living with debt negatively affects our mental health. A recent research study published in the Clinical Psychology Review revealed that mental health problems — including depression, anxiety, andpsychotic disorders — are three times more likely to occur among people who have debt.
Healthier living– In addition to the mental health benefits of living better within your financial means come the physical rewards of an off-grid lifestyle. Living away from an urban setting encourages you to do more things for yourself, andthat often involves more physical tasks.
Whether it is chopping wood for the woodstove, hauling feed for the chickens or heading to the stream for water, living off-grid involves hard work. This physical labor is a healthyexercise that translates into a stronger body. (And no expensive gym memberships are required to stay in shape!)
Another common outgrowth of living off-grid is growing and raising your food. Not only does gardening add to your financial freedom through lower grocery bills, but it also helps you eat more nutritious and wholesome foods. You control what you feed your chickens, and you control what you put in your garden.
Learning all the time– Many urban dwellers get stuck in a mental rut. Each workday has a sameness to it that allows little room for creativity and education. Not so, for the off-grid dweller. Tolive successfully off-the-grid, you must learn and sharpen skills all the time.
This new knowledge runs the gamut from carpentry and plumbing know-how to gardening expertise to survival tactics. You read and study through books and workshops in some key areas, and you learn more by establishing friendships with people who have more experience living off-grid than you do.
Becoming a lifelong learner has many health benefits. The Harvard Business Review notes that learning new activities helps preserve cognitive function and memory as we age and can even help delay the symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Smaller ecological footprint— An off-grid lifestyle translates into a less wasteful way of life. You become more aware of what is essential and what isnot. You find that you canget by with less and less. You enjoy the look and feel of natural products and fibers more and seeit tobe both convenient and necessary to reuse and multi-purpose items in your home and on your property.
This new awareness benefits both you and the world around us all.
More time– There are many sayings about what people regret when they are on their deathbeds, but most of them come down to the common theme of lamentingwasted time on unimportant things. Perhaps the best advantage of living off-grid is that you can reclaim some of the time you have lost.
Although it takes work and effort to manage an off-grid home and property, the lifestyle lends itself to you using your time better and more efficiently. Since you don’t care about possessions as much, you need less time looking for them and less money buying them.
You get a natural rhythm to your days that is in better harmony with the daylight and with the seasons. Hard work and fresh air help you sleep better and feel more energized in the morning.
When you are off-grid, you want your power sources to go for the essentials, so that means less time spent on tech-oriented distractions, such as video games and social media. You find that you prefer to spend your time in conversation with your family or in low-tech or no-tech activities such as playing board games, making crafts, repairing and building things or reading together.
Living an off-grid life is not for everybody, but for those who are willing to take the plunge, it can be a joyous and rewarding experience. “We can’t go back,” says Jeff,who lives debt-free and off-grid with his family of seven in rural northern British Columbia. “Gridlessnessis too good.”
Sources
https://hbr.org/2017/02/lifelong-learning-is-good-for-your-health-your-wallet-and-your-social-life
https://www.offthegridnews.com/how-to-2/5-kids-40-acres-and-a-25000-house/
Hillary Clinton shown here looking at Hindu temples and not watching where she’s walking.
Two of America’s most powerful liberal women, Hillary Clinton and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, were both recently injured in new and mysterious falls.
How did Sotomayor really fall and break her Shoulder?
Some mystery surrounding Sotomayor’s broken shoulder for which she is undergoing physical therapy.
Reuters stated that Sotomayor broke her shoulder in a fall at her home but gave no details of the fall. Supreme Court Spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said the Justice will be able to conduct her normal duties despite the accident.
News stories did not say how Sotomayor broke her shoulder and why a Supreme Court spokeswoman did not know which shoulder the justice had broken. The spokeswoman originally said Sotomayor broke her left shoulder, but it was her right shoulder that was actually broken, Reuters reported Tuesday.
Another minor mystery that has not been cleared up is why Sotomayor’s injury was not revealed until an April 17 hearing at the Supreme Court. Reporters only learned about the injury when Sotomayor appeared on the bench with a sling, as the Above the Law blog reported.
This was the second health scare for Sotomayor; who is considered one of the court’s four liberal justices, this year. The Justice; who is diabetic, was treated for low blood sugar by paramedics at her Washington D.C. home in January.
Sotomayor, 63 is one of the youngest Supreme Court Justices, while two of her colleagues are over 80, Bloomberg Politics reported. The oldest Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 85 and rarely falls publically according to reports.
Walk This Way
Ex-first lady and former presidential candidate Hillary R. Clinton fractured her wrist during a book tour in India, on March 13. Clinton was injured in a nasty fall at the Umaid Bhawan Palace in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, Newsweekreported.
Clinton had fallen in London five months earlier on her book tour, showing up on Graham Norton’s Show with a surgical boot. “It hurts, it hurts,” she said to the popular talk show host.
To add to the mystery, different news sources gave different accounts of Clinton’s injuries. Newsweek reported Hillary had been taken to a private hospital at 5 a.m. in the morning. The Times of Indiareported that doctors were sent to the palace to examine Clinton there.
What Really Happened to Hillary in India?
Clinton had to abandon plans to visit the Mehrangarh Fort, an historic site and instead stay in the Bhawan Palace the former residence of Rajasthan’s royal family. Oddly enough, the doctor that treated Clinton, requested anonymity when making a statement to the press about the injuries, Newsweek reported.
A later version of the Newsweek story claimed Clinton slipped and fell in the bathtub. Stranger still, Newsweekclaimed Clinton was in the bathtub at 5 a.m. in the morning. News reports did not say why Clinton was in the tub that early or explain why there are two versions of the same story one dated March 13 and one dated March 16 online.
This was Clinton’s second fall that reporters are aware of during the Indian book tour. The former Secretary of State slipped twice while climbing the stairs at the Jahaz Mahal, a historic fortress in Mandu, Madhya Pradesh, Times Now Newsreported.
Some have speculated that Indian god “Kali” was responsible for the falls, seeing Clinton as a rival for the love and attention of Lord Shiva. Clinton could not be reached for comment. Others were angry that Kali had been brought into the unusual story.
What do you think? Give us your opinion:
Bad footwear for terrain? In a hurry? Gained additional weight? Thinking about other things? Just getting older? Kali? Other?
Christians in Syria can date the origins of their faith as far back as any group on the planet, and many Christians there still speak Aramaic, just like Jesus did. But since the escalated conflict in 2011, the nation’s Christian population has dropped from 30% to less than 10 percent of the populace. Many Christians are being pushed out of their homes, forced to convert to Islam or even murdered.
Is Putin’s Faith A Factor in Syria?
But westerners must understand that religious faith is a serious and significant motivation for Russian involvement in Syria. Western news agencies consider this a non-issue. Don’t be too sure. President Vladimir Putin seems to be following a course of action that caused a major conflict earlier in the 19thCentury.
An evident and historical reason for Russian involvement in the Middle East has been to protect Orthodox Christian shrines in Israel as well as Orthodox Christians that live in the region. Czar Nicholas I pursued a similar policy that led to a disastrous war between Russia, France, Turkey, and the British Empire – the Crimean War.
Nicholas triggered the Crimean War by asserting Russian authority over Christian shrines in Palestine, then part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. The Turks objected to the violation of their sovereignty, and so did French Emperor Napoleon III, who wanted France’s Roman Catholic Church to control the shrines.
Eventually, the British intervened because they were afraid the Russians would conquer Turkey and establish bases on the Mediterranean. War broke out, and troops from all four powers got bogged down in trench warfare in Crimea – the same region seized from Ukraine by Vladimir Putin.
Is History Repeating Itself in Syria?
Two of the powers attacking Syrian President Bashir Assad, a Russian ally, are Britain and France. Both countries had fought Russia in the Crimean War 160 years ago. It seems as if that history might be repeating itself.
Interestingly enough, Putin is modeling himself on Czar Nicholas I, who ruled from 1825 to 1855. Like Putin, Nicholas organized a police state based on Russian nationalism and strict Orthodox Christianity. Nicholas administered a program of “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality.” Putin has expanded the police state, restored most of the power and authority of the Orthodox Church, and started flexing Russia’ s military muscle.
A key component in the Czars’ ideology was the belief that Russia was the successor state to the Greek Orthodox Byzantine Empire. Several of the Czars, including Nicholas I, Catherine the Great, and Peter the Great, believed they were ordained by God to recapture the Christian lands of the Middle East from the Moslems. Not surprisingly, the Turks did not agree, and the result was centuries of war between the Russian and Ottoman Empires.
Is Moscow the Third Rome?
A fundamental idea in Czarist Russia was that Moscow was the Third Rome, after Constantinople (Istanbul) the Byzantine capital and the original Rome. It was a city destined to be the seat of a new Orthodox Christian Empire. Putin seems to have inherited that idea and may believe that the modern Russian Federation is the current successor state to the Byzantine Empire.
A good case can be made that Putin believes he is the successor to the Czars and that he has a mandate from God to conquer the Middle East. Putin likes to appear with Czarist symbols such as the Imperial Flag, and with soldiers in Czarist, not Communist uniforms.
Is Putin trying to start a Holy War in the Middle East?
Putin has already waged two wars to reclaim Czarist territory, one in Chechnya and one in Crimea. Now he is conducting another war to make Czarist goals a reality in Syria.
Putin has also proven that he is willing to pit his forces against American troops to achieve those goals. News stories have relayed that U.S. forces killed hundreds of Russian mercenaries in Syria before the April 13 airstrikes.
That should worry everybody because it would lead to all-out war between Russia and Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia (a criticalAmerican ally). Such a war would drag in the United States, Israel, NATO, and possibly the People’s Republic of China. The People’s Liberation Army of China established a naval base in Djibouti across the Red Sea from Saudi Arabia in August 2017.
Czar Nicholas I’s Middle Eastern adventure led to a large-scale war that included naval battles in the Baltic Sea. Hopefully, Putin’s attempt to behave like a Czar will not lead to all-out war in the Middle East.
Bitcoin mining “rigs” like this one are growing rapidly in the U.S.
The vast popularity of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin will lead to blackouts and higher electric bills unless something changes fast. Digital currencies are not controlled by the big banks yet, but rather by a network of users who an incredible amount of electrical power while processing tracking, verifying transactions and building complex blockchains.
Cryptocurrency mining; the process by which digital currencies are created, does in fact use vast amounts of electricity. And it’s growing. The amount of electricity used in Bitcoin mining increased by 610% between April 2017 and April 2018, data from Digicomist indicates. Bitcoin miners worldwide now use enough electricity to power 5.5 million American homes.
Disturbingly, Bitcoin (BTC) is just one cryptocurrency; experts think there are now more than 1,000 cryptocurrencies on the market. Those digital coins are attracting a lot of money; over $600 billion was invested in the cryptocurrency market at the end of 2017, Coindesk’s State of Blockchain report estimated. That means the cryptocurrency market is now worth more than the national economy of Argentina – a country of 43.85 million people.
Cryptocurrency Mining is Big Business
Digital currencies have become one of the most lucrative investments around. Coindesk estimated that all significant cryptocurrencies increased in value by more than 1,000% in 2017.
Bitcoin’s price increased from around $900 a Coin at the end of 2016 to a high of approximately $20,000 at the end of 2017, Coindesk estimated. Bitcoin’s price fell to $7,967 on April 16, 2018, but Bitcoin trading volume hit a record high on April 12, MarketWatch reported.
Such gains are attracting big money to cryptocurrency. George Soros and the Rockefeller family have announced plans to invest in altcoins in April 2017. Much of the investment will go into cryptocurrency mining which is very lucrative.
Observers think the biggest cryptocurrency miner; China’s Bitmain, made more money than the computer chipmaker NVIDIA, one of the most lucrative tech stocks, CNBC reported. NVIDIA’s income increased by 54.61% to $2.911 billion during 2017, Bitmain might have made a profit of $3 billion to $4 billion in 2017.
How Cryptocurrency Mining Threatens Electricity Supplies
Bitmain is one of the companies identified as a threat to the electricity supply in the nation of Iceland. Bitmain operates mining farms; datacenters that harvest cryptocurrency and sells computers designed for mining or mining rigs to investors.
Iceland’s residents are worried that cryptocurrency miners will use up most of their island’s very cheap electricity, The Washington Post reported. The fear is that miners might use so much electrical power that they might monopolize the island’s limited electricity supply.
Cryptocurrency Mining popular in the US
Cryptocurrency mining is not widespread in the United States yet, but it’s coming.
The Eastman Kodak Company unveiled plans to sell a cryptocurrency mining rig called the KashMiner to the public in January. Kodak plans to install mining rigs at its headquarters in Rochester, New York, to augment the company’s income.
News stories did not say how much electricity the KashMiner uses, but if it becomes popular, it can cause shortages or blackouts. If Kodak is successful, other companies might follow its lead.
Cryptocurrency mining by individuals is already extremely popular in the United States. There is a severe shortage of computer-graphics cards; that are used in mining, at retailers like Best Buy, Ars Technica reported in January. The shortage developed because of all the people trying cryptocurrency mining.
Individual mining is hard to stop because almost anybody with a computer, an internet connection, and a graphics card can do it. Even though it is easy, miners can make several hundred dollars a month.
Another threat is that largescale commercial cryptocurrency mining might start in areas of the US with cheap electricity such; as Washington State, or Louisiana. Major miners have ignored North America so far, but CNBC reported Bitmain has plans to mine in Canada.
Watch out for Cryptocurrency Mining
Cryptocurrency mining has not caused significant power grid blackouts yet, but it could happen. In fact, it can happen in any country where inflation destroys the buying power of the currency while increasing the value of cryptocurrencies. This currency issue has already happened in Venezuela.
Households and individuals should prepare for such shortages by installing their own backup power systems. People that mine cryptocurrency should definitely invest part of their profits in a backup power system so they can keep mining during blackouts.
A former New Jersey cop who was considered a fugitive from justice has been captured and arrested following an FBI sting on multiple counts related to child sex trafficking.
The post Former New Jersey Cop Busted in FBI Sting, Charged with Child Sex Trafficking appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
As the United States provokes what could be the start of World War III, here are five damning facts explaining what is really going on in Syria.
The post Five Fast Facts You Need to Know About the US-Led ‘One-Time’ Strikes on Syria appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
The first videos and photos have emerged on social media showing what appear to be the strikes by the US, the UK and French militaries in the Syrian capital.
The post BREAKING: Trump Orders Military Strike on Syria—US, UK, France Provoke World War III appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
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Rebecca Shaw spent five months in jail because a sheriff’s deputy conducted a field test that could not tell the difference between vitamins and oxycodone pills.
To make matters worse, it took a year for the state crime lab to test the pills and clear Shaw’s name.
“He does the field drug test and because it tests positive, nothing else mattered,” Shaw’s attorney, Patrick LeDuc, said of a Pasco County, Fla., deputy. “It didn’t matter she had no prior record, it didn’t matter she was out of gas.”
Shaw’s nightmare began in September 2015 when her car ran out of gas. A deputy received permission to search her vehicle, found the pills, ran the test and arrested her, The Miami Herald reported.
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“He said, ‘They don’t look like vitamins. They look like oxycodone,’” Shaw said of the deputy, according to Fox 13 in Tampa.
She added, “It felt like my whole life was over. It was terrible. My kids were devastated. I was away for five months. I cried constantly.”
She was arrested on drug trafficking charges, and placed in jail for five months. She stayed there until her husband was able to raise $5,000 in bail money. It took another seven months for a Florida crime lab to retest the pills and discover they were vitamins. That caused prosecutors to finally drop the charges.
“We have men and women sitting in jail languishing if they cannot make bond awaiting that scientific testing that should be performed immediately,” Hillsborough Circuit Judge Gregory Holder told Fox 13.
Shaw is just one of many people who were jailed because of faulty field tests. Fox 13 went to a lab and had the kits themselves tested.
“We watched as aspirin, cough medicine, coffee and spices like oregano … tested positive for illegal drugs,” Fox 13 reporter Gloria Gomez reported. “These are the same kits used by law enforcement all over the country to make drug arrests.”
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Young people should be demanding a repeal of the Second Amendment, a former U.S. Supreme Court Justice says.
“[T]he demonstrators should seek more effective and more lasting reform,” John Paul Stevens wrote of large crowds of gun-control protestors in a Tuesday New York Times op-ed. “They should demand a repeal of the Second Amendment.”
“… That simple but dramatic action would move Saturday’s marchers closer to their objective than any other possible reform,” Stevens wrote. “It would eliminate the only legal rule that protects sellers of firearms in the United States — unlike every other market in the world.
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“It would make our schoolchildren safer than they have been since 2008 and honor the memories of the many, indeed far too many, victims of recent gun violence,” Stevens claimed.
Stevens believes repeal is the only way to overturn the Supreme Courts’ Heller Decision, which found the Second Amendment granted an individual right to bear arms. Stevens was among the four justices who dissented in the Heller case in 2008.
“Overturning that decision via a constitutional amendment to get rid of the Second Amendment would be simple and would do more to weaken the NRA’s ability to stymie legislative debate and block constructive gun control legislation than any other available option,” Stevens wrote.
The history of interpretation of the Second Amendment, Stevens argued, does not support an individual right to own guns.
“For over 200 years after the adoption of the Second Amendment, it was uniformly understood as not placing any limit on either federal or state authority to enact gun-control legislation,” Stevens wrote. “In 1939 the Supreme Court unanimously held that Congress could prohibit the possession of a sawed-off shotgun because that weapon had no reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a “well-regulated militia.’”
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Surveillance video from inside the Mandalay Bay Casino has just been released showing how Stephen Paddock used the service elevators and hotel staff to load his arsenal into his suite on the 32nd floor.
The post BREAKING: Video of Vegas Shooter Finally Released, Showing How He Brought In the Guns appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
A Christian couple lost custody of their two girls because they did not want to lie and teach them the Easter Bunny was real, a Canadian judge has ruled.
In a ruling for the couple, Justice Andrew Goodman of Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice wrote that the foster children were wrongly taken by Children’s Aid Society from Frances and Derek Baars because of their beliefs about the Easter Bunny and should be returned.
“There is ample evidence to support the fact that the children were removed because the Baars refused to either tell or imply that the Easter Bunny was delivering chocolate to the Baars’ home,” Goodman wrote.
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“It appears that the society would not be satisfied with anything other than confirmation from the Baars that they would lie about the Easter Bunny,” Goodman wrote.
The Children’s Aid Society of Hamilton, Ontario, took the three and four year old girls from the Baars, The National Post reported. The Baars are devout Christians who believe that all lying is a sin — even lies about the Easter Bunny.
Action Harmed Children
Goodman charged that the actions by the government-approved agency could have traumatized the children.
“By taking the children away on such short notice, the Society took that away from them and contributed to the turmoil these children had already faced in their short lives,” Goodman wrote. “As (a CAS case worker) states in one of her case notes, ‘Is it more important to have the Easter Bunny or permanency?’ The Society very clearly chose the Easter Bunny.”
The Baars were willing to celebrate Easter with the girls but not tell them about the Bunny, the BBC reported.
“I am more than satisfied that the society actions interfered substantially with the Baars’ religious beliefs,” Goodman wrote.
Goodman’s judgement will clear the Baars’ names and let them be foster parents in the future.
The CAS is a non-profit organization that oversees foster homes and child welfare for the province in Ontario. The Baars are members of the Reformed Presbyterian Church.
Even the head of the CAS admits his organization went too far.
“I apologize for what the foster parents went through,” Dominic Verticchio, executive director of the Hamilton CAS, told The National Post. “We recognize what our mistakes were.”
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According to a new report, the FBI was given a massive amount evidence that they were told not to investigate in the Vegas shooting, including evidence of multiple shooters, accomplices, and motives.
The post ‘It’s a Movie Script’: FBI Insiders Reportedly Expose ‘Official’ Vegas Narrative as Entirely False appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
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Children at a British school are no longer allowed to touch snow in the name of safety.
“The rules are don’t touch the snow,” head teacher (principal) Ges Smith told the TV show Good Morning Britain. “If you don’t touch the snow you’re not going to throw it.”
Smith is afraid that kids who touch snow might start making snowballs and tossing them at each other, The Telegraph reported.
Smith, of Jo Richardson Community School in Dagenham, East London, became an object of scorn in the UK after the media learned about the ban.
“It only takes one student, one piece of grit, one stone in a snowball in an eye, with an injury and we change our view,” Smith said.
Smith is standing firm on the ban. He called the snow touching ban a “duty of care issue.”
Snow makes kids wet and “unfit for school,” Smith complained. He also claimed to be protecting the school from a lawsuit.
Even Piers Morgan thought Smith went too far with the ban. The outspoken host complained that Smith’s “duty of care” would leave kids “unprepared for life,” The Telegraph noted.
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Homeschool families in California might get a visit from the fire marshal if proposed legislation becomes law.
Assembly Bill (AB) 2756 would require fire inspections for home schools.
“The bill would require the Superintendent to prepare a list of private schools with five or fewer pupils and to provide the list directly to the State Fire Marshal, the chief of a city or county fire department or district providing fire protection services to the area in which the school is located, and the chief’s authorized representatives to fulfill a specified annual inspection,” The Legislative Counsel’s Digest said of AB 2756.
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The bill would direct the State Fire Marshal to prepare minimum requirements for any school with less than less than five students. The State Fire Marshal or city or county fire departments would then have to inspect homeschools for compliance every year.
The bill would allow for warrantless searches of homeschool families’ homes, Mike Smith of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) charged.
“Government officials would be empowered to enter a home without a warrant, reasonable cause, or consent,” Smith wrote of AB 2756. “In other words, this is a clear violation of protections we have under both the federal and state constitutions. Our homes are meant to be free from this type of unlawful state actions.”
Smith also alleged that fire safety is not the real intent of AB 2756.
“The intent of the bill is to protect children from abuse, but there is no evidence that homeschooled children are more likely to be abused than other children,” Smith wrote. “The bill unreasonably and unjustly singles out homeschooling families for this invasion of their homes. If every home with children were subject to this type of scrutiny, society would not stand for it.”
AB 2756 was introduced by assembly members Jose Medina (D-Riverside), Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton) and Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher (D-San Diego). It was co-written by Assembly Member Freddie Rodriquez (D-Pomona).
“Because of its reputation as a political and cultural trend-setter, passage of additional homeschool restrictions in California could influence lawmakers in others states to propose similar laws,” Smith warned.
Would you support such a bill? Share your thoughts in the section below:
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The country where the internal combustion engine originated might be among the first to ban it.
Germany’s Federal Administrative Court ruled Tuesday that cities have the right to ban gasoline and diesel vehicles in an attempt to curb pollution.
“These vehicles have no place in our cities anymore,” Jürgen Resch, the managing director of an environmental group called Deutsche Umwelthilfe, told The New York Times. Resch’s group brought suit after German governments who had failed to take action against polluting vehicles.
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The suit demanded that German cities start enforcing air quality standards mandated by the European Union (EU), The Times reported. Enforcing those standards would require cities to ban many older diesel vehicles.
“Limited bans for certain diesel cars are within the law,” the court ruled. The Federal Administrative Court is one of the highest in Germany.
The city of Paris, which has some of the worst smog in Europe, has already banned vehicles built before 1997, Car Insurance Samurai reported. The French government wants to get rid of all gas and diesel vehicles by 2040.
Three German cities — Stuttgart, Munich and Dusseldorf — are considering banning diesel. Resch expects the first diesel bans in Germany to be enacted by fall of this year. It is not known how the ban would impact Germany’s auto industry, which has promoted diesel for decades and employs 800,000 people.
Germany was the country where the automobile was invented by Karl Benz in 1885.
“The days of flooding the inner cities with poisonous diesel emissions are over,” Resch said.
Many people around the world seem to agree with his sentiment.
City governments in Madrid and Athens want to ban diesel vehicles completely, and officials in the United Kingdom hope to ban diesel completely by 2040, The New York Times reported. The government of India wants to require all cars to be electric by 2030, CNN Money reported.
China Vice Minister of Information Zin Guobin told reporters his government wants to ban the sale of new fossil fuel burning vehicles by 2030, The Economist reported. Closer to home, Mary Nichols, the chairman of California’s Air Resources board, said she would like to see a ban on internal combustion vehicles by 2040.
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A Texas woman might face time in jail after being slapped with two felonies because she posted something she heard from an acquaintance on her Facebook page.
“In my opinion, this is the government’s attempt to silence my client,” Priscilla Villarreal’s attorney, Sergio Lozano, told The Texas Monthly.
Villarreal was arrested by Laredo, Texas, police on Dec. 13 and charged with “misuse of official information.”
Her crime was posting on Facebook the fact that a U.S. Border Patrol agent had committed suicide. Police claim that Villarreal violated the law because she asked Laredo Police Officer Barbara Goodman about the suicide, and then put the information on Facebook. Villarreal posted the information before the department released it to the public.
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“Information provided by Officer Goodman pertaining to the case in question was used by Priscilla Villarreal in her Facebook page ‘Lagordiloca News Laredo TX,’ immediately notifying her followers of the incident,” the complaint against Villarreal states.
Her Facebook page has 86,482 followers and is described as one of the most popular news sources in Laredo. “Lagordiloca” means “night crawler” in Spanish.
Villareal drives around Laredo on the Texas/Mexico border at night looking for news. Often, that includes posting live streaming video of police interactions with citizens.
“This is something that should trouble all news outlets in any medium, because otherwise, how do you get this information from the entities?” Lozano asked. “Whoever gets to it first gets the most readers, or ‘likes,’ or whatever. The Laredo Morning Times has subscribers, they sell ads, so why is Lagordiloca being treated differently?”
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A school district tried to prosecute a Pennsylvania mom because her son’s health problems kept him from attending school – and the school didn’t back down until an attorney got involved.
The controversy began when Leslie Sacks’ son entered high school and began having anxiety attacks. The mom kept him home “numerous days” while she “searched for a doctor who could help,” according to the Home School Legal Defense Association’s Darren Jones, who represented Sacks.
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She finally found an “out-of-state specialist who put her son on a long-term medical protocol” and who noted that the boy’s health problems were exacerbated by being in large groups. The high school’s special education department was unwilling to help. So, she decided to homeschool him.
“Unfortunately, by this time, her son had missed several days that the school claimed were ‘unexcused,’ and the school charged him with ‘Violation of Compulsory School Attendance,’” Jones wrote. “For three weeks, the school also began robo-calling every day at 10:02 a.m. to inform Leslie that her son was illegally out of school.”
The case ended up in court, where Sacks fortunately found a sympathetic judge.
“So between the judge, the school, Leslie, and me, we worked out a deal that we thought was best for everyone,” Jones wrote. “Leslie would continue homeschooling her son, who was already making very good academic and physical progress at home. Once she finished out the year, she would let the school district know she was done, and they would pass that information on to the judge, who would dismiss the case. The judge didn’t put any other requirements on Leslie at all.”
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Gun store and other business owners are now required to install security cameras to help law enforcement in Saginaw, Mich.
The new ordinance in the city requires most businesses to install at least three security cameras by March 1, 2019.
The cameras will take pictures of the face of every person entering and leaving businesses, and every person who walks up to the cash register, Michigan Live reported. Cameras will cover the parking lot, too.
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“The individuals who have the businesses will receive a certificate from the police department when they have been approved for their lighting and for their camera system,” Saginaw Police Chief Bob Ruth told Michigan Live.
Businesses that refuse to follow the new law will face a civil infraction, Ruth said.
“I think the extra work that we’re doing is far outweighed by the quality of work we’re going to get in the end, on the way we’ll be able to solve cases,” Ruth said. “It’s really going to help us.”
Businesses required to install the cameras include: gun dealers, banks, coin dealers, scrap dealers, hotels, motels, gas stations, party stores, phone sellers, pawnbrokers, pool halls, dance halls, and second-hand merchants, Michigan Live reported.
Civil libertarians acknowledged the benefit of security cameras to catch criminals but opposed the idea of cities forcing businesses to install them.
“It’s not unusual for a city or a police department to attempt to force a business to shell out for surveillance equipment and other costly security demands when violent crime or drug dealing frequently takes place on or near the premises,” Scott Shackford of Reason.com wrote. “… It’s less common for a city to make these demands in advance and absent any evidence that a particular business is a crime incubator.”
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Spartansburg, PA elected a convicted pedophile as their fire chief. The mayor voiced her support for the firemen’s decision to appoint the pedophile as their superior. But a national outcry from good people had an amazing effect.
The post Town Elected Convicted Child Rapist as Fire Chief, So America Fired Back to Stop It and It Worked appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
