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6 tick-borne illnesses that will haunt your dreams tonight

by RodOlivares545 Posted on November 16, 2018

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If you live in an area with a few trees and shrubs, you’re likely cohabitating with a network of bloodsucking, disease-ridden arachnids. That’s right, ticks are your next-door neighbors … except the diseases they carry aren’t neighborly at all.

On Wednesday, we were hit with a double whammy on these nasty little buggers. A committee submitted a report to Congress found that tick-borne illnesses are spreading to more people and present “a serious and growing threat to public health.” Take Lyme disease, an illness that’s caused by bacteria carried by blacklegged (AKA deer) ticks. The report found that over the past 25 years, the disease has increased by more than 300 percent in Northeastern states.

Here’s that second whammy: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that the kinds of diseases ticks carry are growing in number as well. The CDC says 2017 was a “record year” for ticks and the freaky bugs they carry.

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In the U.S., there are currently 18 tick-borne illnesses recognized by the CDC, but researchers uncover more regularly that aren’t yet recognized by the agency. “The continued spread of ticks, the discovery of new tick-borne pathogens, and the spreading outbreak of human disease is a near certainty,” the committee report gloomily concludes.

Before we get into which new diseases you should be biting your nails over this year, there’s a big question worth answering: What’s to blame for this Great Tick-ward Expansion?

The answer is multi-faceted, but climate change plays a role. Warmer winters mean more ticks survive the cold season and can travel farther by hitching rides on deer, whose range expands in milder weather. Also at fault: exploding deer populations and human populations expanding into wooded areas. Here’s what new or rising illnesses you should be on the lookout for:

Alpha-gal

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the tick that can make you allergic to meat. Alas, this is not a prank. Lone star ticks, which were first discovered in the Southeast, have army-crawled their way into the Northeast, and their bite can trigger a serious allergy to red meat in humans. Not to mention, they hunt in packs like a gang of aggressive vampires. The cure to the allergy? Stop eating red meat, lol.

Heartland virus

Lone star ticks also carry a recently discovered illness called Heartland virus, which has a 12 percent mortality rate and causes symptoms like fever, diarrhea, and myalgia (muscle pain). Also no cure. Cheers, guys.

B. Miyamotoi

Blacklegged ticks have it all: They carry Lyme in addition to a host of other diseases, including a newly discovered infection called B. miyamotoi. Symptoms include fever, chills, sweats, fatigue, and more flu-like effects. The only real difference between B. miyamotoi and Lyme is that the former doesn’t come with a tell-tale rash. “The better to trick you with, my deer,” says a blacklegged tick, probably, rubbing two of its eight creepy feet together.

Powassan virus

The Powassan virus is a rare illness that causes fevers, confusion, and memory problems. It’s carried by blacklegged ticks as well as some mosquitos and groundhog ticks. Surprised to discover groundhog ticks exist? Same and I’m a real tick aficionado.

Bourbon virus

Pour yourself a stiff drink, because ticks might carry something called Bourbon virus, now (researchers don’t know if it’s ticks for sure, yet, let alone which ones carry it). The first reported case was in Bourbon County, Kansas, in 2014, and the poor guy who had it died. There have been a few other cases since, but that’s pretty much all we know so far.

Bonus tick

S.F.T.S.! It’s not a new acronym the youngsters are using. It’s a syndrome that causes fever and messes with your blood, and it’s carried by a tick called the Asian longhorned tick. Not to be confused with the Asian longhorned beetle, which has its own set of problems — you know what they say! The longer the horn the longer the problem (they don’t really say that).

An Asian longhorned tick infestation was first found in New Jersey in 2017, but the ticks have now spread to seven states in total. None of the ticks found in America so far are diseased, but, in other countries like Asia, the longhorned tick carries S.F.T.S, which kills 15 percent of infected people. Have fun trying to sleep tonight.

Does any of this mean you shouldn’t step outside anymore? Hell no! We can’t just hand the great outdoors over to the ticks. That means they win. And doctors, by the by, agree with me. I’m sure as heck not gonna let a bunch of hungry sesame seeds scare me out of living my life, and neither should you. For more information about how to avoid getting bitten by these mean bloodsuckers go here.

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6 tick-borne illnesses that will haunt your dreams tonight

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Deadly Camp Fire sparks new lawsuit against California utility

by LNNMelcuqdrxx Posted on November 15, 2018

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On Tuesday, about two dozen victims from the Northern California town of Paradise, which was destroyed in last week’s deadly Camp Fire, filed suit against Pacific Gas and Electric Co (PG&E) alleging that the company’s lax maintenance and “inexcusable behavior” contributed to the cause of the blaze.

“Most of [the victims] are aware of PG&E’s history of starting wildfires and trying to get away with it,” Mike Danko, a lawyer from one of the three law firms representing the wildfire victims, told Grist. “They want their voice to be heard.”

The victims of the fire who are now suing PG&E lost their homes and possessions, many barely escaping with their lives. The Camp Fire — the deadliest wildfire in California’s history — has already claimed the lives of at least 56 people, with 130 still missing as of Thursday morning.

PG&E and another major utility, Southern California Edison, reported to regulators they experienced problems with transmission lines around the time the blazes started On top of that, just prior to the Camp Fire, PG&E began warning customers it might turn off power because of the high risk of wildfires. But the company ultimately decided to cancel the anti-fire measure, according to a press release:

“Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) has determined that it will not proceed with plans today for a Public Safety Power Shutoff in portions of eight Northern California counties, as weather conditions did not warrant this safety measure,” reads the statement published November 8 — the same day the Camp Fire began.

The cause of the Camp Fire has yet to be determined — something PG&E officials are quick to point out. “Right now, our primary focus is on the communities, supporting first responders and getting our crews positioned and ready to respond when we get access so that we can safely restore gas and electricity to our customers,” the company said in a statement.

Danko calls PG&E’s comment “empty words.” This is not the first time the utility has been accused of being responsible for a major wildfire. In 2017, Cal Fire concluded that PG&E broke safety laws — namely, poor maintenance of trees along power lines — which led to a wildfire that took the lives of 22 people.

The new suit cites 18 separate fires and explosions caused by PG&E infrastructure since 1991, including a 2010 explosion at a PG&E natural gas pipeline that killed eight people and led to a fine to the tune of $1.6 billion from state regulators and a felony conviction issued by a jury in federal court.

If PG&E is found liable for the Camp Fire, the company’s payout could exceed its insurance coverage. This could spell financial trouble, not only for PG&E but for California customers. In September, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill designed to help PG&E cope with the fire-related costs of 2017’s wildfires by allowing the utility to pass on some of those costs on to their customers — including those who lost their homes to the wildfires.

The bill was met with swift opposition by consumer advocates who saw the bill as a bailout for a company with a damming record of lax safety oversights. “We don’t think this is safety for Main Street — we think this is safety for Wall Street,” said Mindy Spatt, a spokesperson for The Utility Reform Network consumer group. “We urged the Legislature to do something that would protect consumers and residents, but this wasn’t it.”

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Deadly Camp Fire sparks new lawsuit against California utility

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The bizarre and frightening conditions that sparked the Camp Fire

by SanfordMora Posted on November 15, 2018

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The Camp Fire, which destroyed the town of Paradise, is now the most destructive to ever hit California and the deadliest wildfire in modern American history. As of Wednesday night, 56 people are known to have died, and 130 are still missing. The last fire this deadly was back in 1918 in Minnesota — before professional firefighting or meteorological science.

“This is the kind of urban conflagration Americans thought they had banished in the early 20th century,” wrote fire historian Stephen Pyne for Slate. “It’s like watching measles or polio return.”

Our unnaturally warming climate set the stage for the return of this type of devastating fire. The Camp Fire, and the escalating onslaught of weather emergencies like it, crystalizes the urgency of the climate challenge: Without radical changes, there will be more fire catastrophes like Paradise.

According to local meteorologist Rob Elvington, the Camp Fire began under atmospheric conditions with “no analog/comparison” in history for the date. Northern California’s vegetation dryness was off the charts — exceeding the 99th percentile for any single day as far back as local records go. “Worse than no rain is negative rain,” wrote Elvington. The land was so dry, it was sucking water out of the air.

That warranted an “extremely critical” fire weather alert by the National Weather Service, which was really an understatement for the direness of the situation. According to the U.S. Forest Service, fighting a fire in such conditions is almost by definition a losing battle: “Direct attack is rarely possible, and may be dangerous, except immediately after ignition. Fires that develop headway in heavy slash or in conifer stands may be unmanageable while the extreme burning condition lasts.”

The Camp Fire burned so hot that it cremated people in their homes and cars. Lizzie Johnson, a San Francisco Chronicle reporter embedded with one of the area’s cadaver search-and-rescue teams, has been candid about her experience. “There are some things you can’t unsee while reporting,” she wrote on Twitter.

Fire disasters on a scale recently considered inconceivable now appear to be the inevitable. Six of the 10 most destructive wildfires in California history have ignited in the past three years. In little more than a year, two other California towns (Redding and Santa Rosa) have been similarly devastated by fires. As long as we continue on a business-as-usual path, it’s a matter of where, not when, another California town will be erased from the map.

Like the Camp Fire, future fires catastrophes are inescapable — on our current path. It may take generations for California’s forests to adapt to the warming and drying climate. Nearly every square mile of the state’s forests may need to burn for that to happen — for new life to emerge and for new tree species to migrate northward toward new water sources and cooler air.

We can’t continue on as if the fate of Paradise was just a fluke. By failing to take appropriate action on climate change, we are actively choosing to create the ideal conditions for future, unfightable fires. The fact that millions of people around the world are being subjected to increasingly extreme weather is a choice we make every day.

We know the kinds of bold, radical plans that scientists say are now necessary to steer the world toward a safer future — including remaking the American economy to rapidly reduce emissions immediately. We have the money, the time, and the knowledge to implement them. Future fires are a given, but we can avoid future tragedies at the level of Paradise. It’s our choice whether last week’s fires become a cautionary tale, or the new normal. It doesn’t have to be this way.

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The bizarre and frightening conditions that sparked the Camp Fire

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Young activists and Ocasio-Cortez push Pelosi for Green New Deal

by JIYKelle8195347 Posted on November 15, 2018

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The young climate activists clustered into California Representative Nancy Pelosi’s office this week to demand a “Green New Deal” hadn’t wasted any time. As soon as it became clear that Democrats will have a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, they descended on Washington to exert whatever clout they had.

The protest in Pelosi’s office was organized by the Sunrise Movement, a group of young people who have been pushing for climate action for a little over a year. They may have some sway with Pelosi, who issued a supportive statement while they were occupying her office on Tuesday. But with a Republican-held Senate and Donald Trump in the White House, the chances of enacting meaningful climate legislation next year are close to zero. So what’s their strategy here?

Varshini Prakash, Sunrise’s co-founder and communications director (and one of our Grist 50), said they have two objectives. First, they want all Democrats in leadership positions to stop accepting contributions from fossil fuel interests. And they want Pelosi to back something along the lines of a “Green New Deal,” a massive government mobilization to build a new, non-polluting, economy while also creating jobs.

Prakash said she was under no illusions about Pelosi’s ability to drive a climate bill through a Republican-controlled Senate, but she believes both of the group’s objectives could still be satisfied. Politicians don’t need anyone’s permission to stop taking oil money, and Democrats could set up a select committee in the House to begin laying the groundwork for a massive climate jobs program. As it happens, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the newly elected Representative from New York, joined the protesters outside Pelosi’s office, and has already proposed such a committee.

House Democrats need to start hammering out policy now, Prakash said, so that they will have strong legislation to pass when climate-conscious politicians take the Senate. In the meantime, Sunrise will be building a campaign to elect politicians who will support their cause at both the state and federal level. “This is definitely not a one-off event,” she said.

In a statement, Pelosi said she welcomed “the presence of these activists” and noted that she has already recommended reviving a select committee on climate change, which Republicans disbanded when they took the House in 2011.

That’s not enough for Prakash. “The old committee was toothless,” she said “It had no funding and no ability to put forward legislation — its purpose was to make connections and raise awareness. The time for messaging to the public about climate change is over, we need action.”

Pelosi’s office had no comment when we requested a response, but Representative Frank Pallone, a Democrat from New Jersey, told reporters that even Pelosi’s proposal for a select committee goes too far. It’s unnecessary, Pallone said, because the environmental policy committee he is expected to lead can handle the job.

In her statement, Pelosi said that many Democrats had campaigned on something that looks very much like a Green New Deal. “House Democrats ran on and won on our bold campaign for a $1 trillion investment in our infrastructure that will make our communities more resilient to the climate crisis, while creating 16 million new good-paying jobs across the country.”

Environmental journalist Mark Hertsgaard, who might have been the first person to use the term “Green New Deal” back in 1998, said Pelosi needs to embrace the rhetoric of young activists if she wants this idea to take fire.

“The next step is to get Pelosi to use those words, Green New Deal,” Hertsgaard said. “She’s already on board, but her statement about 16 million jobs and $1 billion investment in infrastructure, that’s policy wonk talk out of Washington.The average person can understand what a Green New Deal is.”

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Young activists and Ocasio-Cortez push Pelosi for Green New Deal

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On-the-ground snapshots from California’s Camp Fire show devastation and bravery

by TatianaXDFC Posted on November 14, 2018

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The Camp Fire has torn a scar across Northern California, doing the majority of its damage within the first six hours after it formed last Thursday. It’s now the deadliest, most destructive wildfire in state history and as of Tuesday night has claimed 48 lives.

The fire was a shock to the people of Paradise, the mid-sized town that it very nearly destroyed entirely. Soon after the fire began, stories from survivors fleeing the flames began to filter out through local and social media.

Journalists on the ground reported sentiments of heartbreak and hope, tales of families torn apart, and the occasionally happy news of pets reunited with their owners. They heard stories of heroism — doctors huddled on the hospital’s helipad, waiting to airlift patients to safety.

Below are some of the striking moments from the early days of the fire:

On Friday morning, images emerged that suggested that much of Paradise had been lost. The fire was so intense and the destruction so complete that the town’s reservoir ran dry after its waters leaked through miles of damaged pipes.

Paradise residents worried about what happened to the local hospital as pictures surfaced of patients waiting on the tarmac to be airlifted out. A TV news crew from nearby Redding captured eerie footage of what was left of Feather River Hospital:

The burnt shells of cars and overwhelming loss of homes was an indication that many of Paradise’s residents likely didn’t survive the blaze. In addition to the nearly 50 deaths caused by the Camp Fire, hundreds are still missing. There was a man who saved himself by jumping into a nearby stream — but couldn’t save his friends. Family members pleaded with loved ones to get out — after a while, those remaining in Paradise didn’t pick up.

But as the weekend progressed, heroic stories of people rescuing neighbors and pets began to mix with the reports of destruction.

Reporters were clearly impacted by covering the devastation. Trained to be dispassionate observers, they embraced survivors and paused for personal reflections. Over and over, they made it clear that this kind of fire isn’t normal. As California’s fire season lengthens and droughts become more frequent and severe with climate change, the chances of megafires, like the Camp Fire, are going up.

As area residents grapple with its loss, it’s unclear what happens next. Donated goods have poured in, and neighbors have sought one another out to share stories and rebuild their community. The hope is that the reports of structures that were miraculously spared and other examples of resilience and kindness will help Paradise heal.

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On-the-ground snapshots from California’s Camp Fire show devastation and bravery

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Here’s what 3 Newark residents had to say about the city’s lead crisis

by PhilDrechsler Posted on November 14, 2018

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Four years after lead was discovered in Flint’s drinking water, a similar public health crisis is playing out in New Jersey’s most populous city, Newark.

Residents of Newark say over the past year and a half, top city and state officials assured them that their water supply was safe. But as early as 2016, state-run tests that showed elevated lead levels at local schools.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, together with the Newark Education Workers’ Caucus, filed a lawsuit against the city in June, accusing it of violating federal safe drinking water laws. The suit alleges Newark both failed to treat its water properly to prevent lead from leaching off old service pipes into residents’ drinking water and failed to notify residents about the elevated lead levels.

For most of 2018, Newark’s website read: “NEWARK’S WATER IS ABSOLUTELY SAFE TO DRINK,” according to the New York Times. Since the lawsuit was filed, the city has sprung into action, giving away 40,000 water filters across the city of 285,000 people and telling parents their children should not drink the water.

The situation has drawn parallels to the Flint water crisis. “The actual facts of what happened in Flint may not be the exact same, but the overall arc of what happened is,” Mae Wu, an attorney and water expert at the NRDC, told Grist.

The revelation of this potentially widening public health crisis has angered many Newark residents. Here are three community members’ experiences, as told to Grist reporter Paola Rosa-Aquino. Their statements have been edited for length and clarity.

Though the city of Newark is distributing water filters, like these, for residents to mitigate lead levels in their homes, residents say there are not enough for those who need them. Image courtesy of Shakima Thomas

Debra Salters, community activist

I live in a building in the East Ward. We didn’t get water filters. The people who had something to say about it — the activists — we were turned away. We’re actually meeting with our building’s owners next week to find out what the situation is and if they can get the water tested.

Even now, not everyone who lives here knows about the lead in the water. More and more people are finding out, from family members out of state and other cities. Not only are we drinking the water, we’re bathing in it. We’re brushing our teeth in it. We’re washing our hair with it. It’s affecting our entire life here and no one seems to care, until the lawsuit, until they were made to care.

None of the top officials have really done anything to make the public aware of the public health crisis. They denied there was a problem when we, the citizens, were digging up information and bringing it to them to make sure. First, we found out about the lead in schools, and they tried to tell us the water was OK to drink at home. If you’re saying the water is not good in the schools, then how is it fine in our homes, if it’s all coming from the same source? We were shooed away like gnats at a barbecue.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka (left) looks on as Senior Aide Andrea Mason (center) speaks to residents at a town hall concerning the city’s lead problem.Image courtesy of Shakima Thomas

Yvette Jordan, teacher and member of Newark Education Workers Caucus

My concern as well as other educators who I have spoken with, of course, is our students as well as small children and those most vulnerable, including elderly and women who are pregnant. We felt we represented a cross-section of our city and especially of those who would be impacted. A couple of us who were homeowners or parents of small children — we felt emotional about this. We could really speak to it with some credibility. My own home’s water was found to be 42.2 parts per billion which is over the federal threshold for lead.

Our teachers’ group was approached by the Natural Resource Defense Council and they asked if we could join them in a lawsuit against the City of Newark. We asked, “Why?” They said, “Well, your water actually rivals Flint, Michigan.” We were alarmed. We said we’d join them.

I mentioned it in my classroom with my students. Some students have heard something and others don’t know what I’m talking about. I feel it’s a failure of public trust in coming forward and saying exactly what is happening.

I think a lot of times people who are affiliated with those who are in power try to downplay what is going on. They try to say to those who are speaking out about it are being irresponsible, that we shouldn’t say anything because it will scare the public. Well, guess what? They should be scared.

Shakima Thomas’s son, 4, bathes in water in Newark, New Jersey.Image courtesy of Shakima Thomas

Shakima Thomas, social worker

I pay for water and it’s really confusing for me that I have to pay for toxic water. What I’m paying is not adding up to the service that I’m getting. I don’t appreciate it, especially as a hard working person. Even as a mom, I have to protect my son, who’s a four-year-old. He’s okay and doesn’t have any elevated levels of lead in his bloodstream, but this still is a public health disaster.

It’s people’s lives. Who wants to have lead in your bloodstream? Who wants that? None of us. We were just exposed to this toxic water. It’s horrible. I think it should be a federal class action lawsuit against this city. That’s what I would think. And I think that we should be reimbursed from the time that administration knew about the lead in the water up until now. From 2016 to now, I feel as though my fees for water should be waived, because I was buying poison, and it wasn’t even consensual. I’m not just going to go out there willingly purchasing poison. I’m just not gonna do that. So, that’s what makes this even more of a scandal.

The mayor keeps saying that this isn’t like Flint. It is the same as Flint in the way that they tried to cover it up. It’s the same thing. We were victimized by this administration. They gamble with our health. They put politics first before justice.

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Here’s what 3 Newark residents had to say about the city’s lead crisis

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What were Ocasio-Cortez and 150 young activists doing in Nancy Pelosi’s office?

by payoneerreview91 Posted on November 13, 2018

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Democrats successfully flipped the House last week, and they’ve set their priorities for January: reforming voting, government ethics, and campaign finance laws. Surprise! Climate change isn’t on the list. Not exactly a shocker considering that Democrats don’t even have an economy-wide plan to tackle climate change yet.

Guess who does? Young people and newly elected Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. A group of 150 youth activists held an hour-long sit-in in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s office in D.C. on Tuesday. Their goal was to get Democrats to embrace a sweeping plan called the Green New Deal, and they came prepared with a draft resolution.

The protestors are members of a climate group called the Sunrise Movement and a progressive organization called the Justice Democrats. Two of Sunrise Movement’s leaders, Evan Weber and Varshini Prakash, have been on the Grist 50 — our annual list of up-and-coming changemakers. The activists were joined by Ocasio-Cortez, who voiced support for the Green New Deal — a plank of her campaign platform. But what is this “Green New Deal,” anyway? This video tells all:

It’s unlikely such legislation would fare well in the Republican-controlled Senate. Even some Democrats might hesitate to back it: After all, many of them are still taking oil money to try and win elections, as representative-elect Lizzie Fletcher did in Texas’ 7th District.

Nancy Pelosi was quick to respond to the protestors, saying that her office was “inspired” by their advocacy. Pelosi has indicated she intends to revive a committee on climate change that was established back in 2007 and disbanded in 2011. Unimpressed, the Sunrise Movement tweeted that Pelosi’s plan is akin to “bringing a squirt gun to a wildfire.”

There is new evidence that a Green New Deal would be embraced by voters, according to a new nationwide poll from survey group YouGov. As Alexander Kaufman of HuffPost reports, around half of folks who cast ballots in the midterms either “strongly” or “somewhat” support charging companies pollution fees and giving unemployed Americans green jobs.

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What were Ocasio-Cortez and 150 young activists doing in Nancy Pelosi’s office?

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The Grail Bird – Tim Gallagher

by Myrna Posted on November 13, 2018

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The Grail Bird
The Rediscovery of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker
Tim Gallagher

Genre: Nature

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: April 25, 2017

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Seller: OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC


“ The Grail Bird is an enjoyable read . . . A powerful call for conservation, and an exciting bird adventure” ( The Boston Globe ).   What is it about the ivory-billed woodpecker? Why does this ghost of the southern swamps arouse such an obsessive level of passion in its devotees, who range from respected researchers to the flakiest Loch Ness monster fanatics and Elvis chasers?   Since the early twentieth century, scientists have been trying their best to prove that the ivory-bill is extinct. But every time they think they’ve finally closed the door, the bird makes an unexpected appearance.   To unravel the mystery, author Tim Gallagher heads south, deep into the eerie swamps and bayous of the vast Mississippi Delta, searching for people who claim to have seen this rarest of birds and following up—sometimes more than thirty years after the fact—on their sightings. What follows is his own Eureka moment with his buddy Bobby Harrison, a true son of the South from Alabama. A huge woodpecker flies in front of their canoe, and they both cry out, “Ivory-bill!” This sighting—the first time since 1944 that two qualified observers positively identify an ivory-billed woodpecker in the United States—quickly leads to the largest search ever launched to find a rare bird, as researchers fan out across the bayou, hoping to document the existence of this most iconic of birds.   “ The Grail Bird is less an ecological study than a portrait of human obsession.” — The New York Times

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The Grail Bird – Tim Gallagher

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Axl Rose is Twitter feuding with Trump over California wildfires

by MargheritaLord Posted on November 13, 2018

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California is on fire again. In an alternate universe, the president of the United States would acknowledge the effects of climate change on wildfires as she directed a barrage of federal resources to the afflicted state. In this universe, however, the president blamed forest management and threatened to withhold funds. And then … Guns N’ Roses lead singer Axl Rose got involved? Here’s what happened.

On Saturday, as a trio of wildfires whipped through California and terrified people evacuated, President Trump took to Twitter to berate the state. Yes, at least 31 people died in the Camp Fire and the president thought now would be a good time to threaten to withhold federal relief:

“There is no reason” for the wildfires except for forest mismanagement? Sir! Poor management is certainly one element of a complex problem, but most forests in the state are managed by the federal government. And rising temperatures play a role too: They make wildfires like the Camp Fire bigger and more common by creating drier conditions.

The lead singer of an iconic ‘80s band isn’t exactly the first person you’d call on to debunk Trump’s tweet, but Twitter is a bizarro melting pot so of course Axl Rose hit back at the president with some wildfire knowledge.

We can’t speak to the “demented n’ truly pathetic” part of the tweet, but the lack of federal funding bit is spot on. The U.S. Forest Service can barely keep up with fire suppression, let alone prevention.

California does need more prescribed burns in order to alleviate some of the state’s fuel load (not the commercial logging that the Trump administration would like to promote but rather the small trees, shrubs, and brush that build up). Less fuel load equals more manageable forest fires. But doing so costs billions of dollars — money that policymakers aren’t sending to the state.

N’ what about climate change? Axl didn’t fit that detail in his Tweet. One person remembered though: the Los Angeles County fire chief. In response to Trump’s tweet, Chief Daryl Osby said, “We’re in extreme climate change right now.”

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Axl Rose is Twitter feuding with Trump over California wildfires

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Animal Communication Made Easy – Pea Horsely

by Myrna Posted on November 11, 2018

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Animal Communication Made Easy
Strengthen Your Bond and Deepen Your Connection with Animals
Pea Horsely

Genre: Nature

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: September 18, 2018

Publisher: Hay House

Seller: Penguin Random House LLC


A practical and inspiring introductory guide to communicating with pets and wild animals. Your step-by-step guide to forming a deeper connection with animals. Do you love animals but wish you could understand what they’re trying to tell you? Do some of their behaviours leave you baffled? In this book, world-renowned animal communicator Pea Horsley teaches you the essentials of animal communication to enable you to communicate intuitively with the animals you love. Pea leads you through grounding preparation processes to calm your body and release your mind, and then her effective five-step method to create a deep, spiritual connection with your animal. Drawing on her many years of experience teaching people to communicate with both wild and domesticated creatures, Pea’s unique blend of exercises, affirmations and meditations will empower you to connect with all living beings. Communicating with animals is fun, profound and healing. It’s the best thing you can do for both yourself and your animals, and will transform how you experience life.

Original article: 

Animal Communication Made Easy – Pea Horsely

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