Warmest Winter on record? Climate Change? Nahhhhhhh

climate change

USA Today:

((Doyle Rice)

The winter of 2012-13 in the USA was both warmer and wetter than average, according to data released Monday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Meteorological winter is considered to be the three months of December, January and February.

The average temperature for the contiguous U.S. during the winter season was 34.3 degrees, which is 1.9 degrees above the 20th-century average, marking the 20th-warmest winter on record, NOAA reported.

As for precipitation, while the Southeast and upper Midwest were wetter than average, much of the West was quite dry, especially in January and February, contributing to below-average snowpack in the Sierra and Rockies.

“Drought conditions continued to plague much of the Great Plains and West,” according to the NOAA report.

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Stonehaven Development, the next big taxpayer subsidy!

Here we go again folks.  For all those people with their axel’s rapped around a pole over the tax rate, bad development’s like Stonehaven is what ultimately drives our taxes into the ground.  Who builds the schools to support these developments?  Yes, that’s right, taxpayers.  Who builds the roads to support the several thousand people now crowding roads?  Yes, that’s right, the taxpayers.  Who has to build more firehouses and hire more police?  Yes, that’s right, the taxpayers.

Stonehaven is a wolf in sheep’s clothing and the Grizzly Football leadership (via their most recent blast  email begging members to support Stonehaven), once again, is doing the bidding of Wally Covington and Corey Stewart.  It wasn’t enough that they were instrumental in providing cover for the intrusion in the Rural Crescent via Avondale?   If the Grizzly leadership team had any sense, they would understand that advocating for massive development will NOT solve our infrastructure problems, it will only contribute to more overcrowding of schools and roads. Sort of like needing to lose weight but eating hot fudge triple ice cream sundaes in hopes you will drop a few pounds.  BTW, if only that were true!

Corey Stewart, lo many elections cycles ago (well, only 2006 actually), ran on a smart growth platfrom, I even had one of his huge signs, practically a billboard, on the frontage of my property “Corey Stewart, Supporting Smarth Growth”!  Guess what project was his poster boy for a poor land use decision that would ultimately cost tax payers?  Yes,  you are correct, Brentswood.  Well, Stonehaven is simply a reduced reincarnation of Brentswood.

I hope our BOCS votes no tomorrow to initiate this CPA, if Corey, Wally,  and Pete truly want to wear the mantle of low taxes, they have no choice but to vote no.  Turning a few hundred housed into a few thousand  houses is fiscal stupidity, plain and simple.

 

write to the BOCS and urge them to just say NO and protect your tax dollars!

 

[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sequestration hits the National Parks

arches

USAtoday.com:

National park supervisors are preparing to open roads later, close visitor centers, furlough park police and hire fewer seasonal workers to meet the 5% sequestration budget cuts  mandated  by Congress and President Obama.

National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis issued a memo Friday stating   that about 1,000 fewer seasonal workers will be hired this year, down from 10,000 last year. In a memo to Park Service employees,  he said furloughs should be expected among park police, and that a $12 billion backlog in park maintenance will worsen.

There were an estimated 279 million visitors to national parks in 2011, the last year figures were available. Visitors this year are already seeing sequestration-related cuts; at some sites, the 5% reduction will be less obvious right away:

— The National Capital Region, which oversees parks and Civil War battlefields in and around Washington, D.C., is contemplating everything from less lawn-mowing and garbage pickup in Rock Creek Park to limiting hours of, or closing altogether, the visitor center at Antietam National Battlefield in Maryland, according to Park Service spokeswoman Jennifer Mummart. She said the region may hire only half the 400-450 seasonal employees it normally does.

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