Water Economics for students

For older students and adults

This is the link to my essay Water Economics, which was published in a different one of my blogs in August 2012.  That page has been read more than 170,000 times, and that is more than half of the readership of that blog.

Chapter 1. The Wet Planet.

The earth is very wet.

Three-quarters of the surface of the earth is covered in water.  The amount of water in all the world's oceans, lakes, rivers, and the clouds in the sky is about 330 cubic miles (1.38 billion cubic kilometers).

Click here to see more information on the amount of water in the earth.

This is what the earth looks like from space. After you see North and South America, you will see a large area of blue.

That large blue area is the Pacific Ocean, the largest ocean in the world.

This is a map of the Pacific Ocean. It is the largest ocean in the world. North America is next to it in the upper-right part of this map. Three states are right next to this ocean. They are California, Oregon, and Washington.  Hawaii, another state, is a group of islands in this ocean.

Chapter 2.  Drought kills.

Some parts of the earth that people live on doesn't have enough water to drink.  This is called a drought.  This paragraph is on the drought page of the United States Geological Service.

A drought is a period of drier-than-normal conditions that results in water-related problems.  When rainfall is less than normal for several weeks, months, or years, the flow of streams and rivers declines, water levels in lakes and reservoirs fall, and the depth to water in wells increases.  If dry weather persists and water-supply problems develop, the dry period can become a drought.

People and animals need water to stay alive.  Every plant also needs water to stay alive, so the amount of water that is in the ground is important to plants.  If there is too much water, which can be caused by a flood, the health of the plant will suffer.  The plant may even die.  If there is not enough water, which can be caused by drought, it also hurts the ability of a plant to stay alive.  Plants, animals, and people can also die from the lack of water.

Drought in India

The plants above are sugarcane plants, but they died from the lack of water. Many Indian farmers have killed themselves.

In the photo below, each of these containers holds water.  These women are carrying it so their families won't go thirsty.

Their families have to make this trip every day, so that they can have water to drink, water to cook their food, and water to wash themselves and their clothes.

In the photo below, this water isn't clean, but it is the only water that his family has, so this boy has to carry it to his family, and they have to drink it and cook with it.  Carrying water to a family is done every day because families need water every day.

Drought in Africa

This photo was taken in eastern Africa in 2011. These animals died of thirst.

	The photo above shows a woman collecting water in a cup.  Each cup of water goes into the large plastic bottle, which she will carry back to her home. This boy's family doesn't have much water, so when he needs a bath, they put him in this.
	This animal hasn't had food or water in so long, you can see where all of its' bones are. The lack of water means that the plants that it wants to eat are dead or dying,

These are the first four paragraphs of a story that was published December 4, 2015 in the Irish Times.

I am sitting here in Malawi wishing it would rain.  I am sure many of you reading this back in Ireland are wishing the exact opposite.

In Malawi the coming of the rains means as much as a warm sunny day in Ireland.  Everyone is in better form, everyone makes the most of it.  The only difference is that Malawians need the rain to survive - literally.

The rain pattern in Malawi has been changing so much over the past number of years that farmers are confused.  I am passing fields every day at the moment that are prepared and waiting to be planted.  But the rural farmers tell me that in the past, the planting would be done by now and the rains would have already begun.  And they could feel confident that they would be able to feed their families for another year.  This is no longer the case.

One day two weeks ago, it did rain for a bit and you could sense the sheer joy and relief everywhere.  But then it stopped and hasn’t come back.  And after eight years living in Zimbabwe and Malawi I think the heat this year is the worst.

This is a clickable link to the whole story.

This is a clickable link to a story that was published by Reuters on December 23, 2015 titled Southern Africa faces food shortages as El Nino drought worsen.

Three quarters of the earth's surface is water, so if some of this water can be sent to India and the African countries, their drought can end.

This can be done with the Water Cycle.

Chapter 3. The Water Cycle.

This four-step process is for elementary school students.

Evaporation of the water from lakes, rivers, and the oceans Condensation of the water into a cloud Precipitation of the cloud (it's raining!) Collection (rainwater goes back into lakes, rivers, and the oceans

5. Go back to Step 1.


This diagram is for middle school students.  It is a more complete diagram because it shows water going into the ground (infiltration) and water going from the ground, through plants, into the air (transpiration).

Condensation Precipitation Surface Runoff and Subsurface Outflow Evaporation and Transpiration The migraton of the clouds because of wind currents.

6. Go back to Step 1.

This is the Water Cycle from the point of view of a plant. The precipitation can be either rain or snow. The roots take water from the soil. The leaves send the water into the air.

These are the parts of a Water Cycle.

1. When clouds pass over a mountain, they leave small drops of moisture at the top of the mountain.


2. These small drops of moisture combine into big drops, which combine into small streams of water that go down the mountain.


3. Two or three small streams combine to form a small river.  Two or three small rivers combine to form a big river.  The map below shows how six different rivers add their water to the Mississippi River.

4. The water in all of these rivers, as well as the water in ponds. lakes, and wetlands, is always evaporating.  The earth's heat and the sun's heat is turning all of this water into steam.  The roots of plants also collect moisture from the water that is in the ground.  This moisture is transpired through the leaves of the plant into the air, and it also becomes steam.


5. All of this steam rises into the air, and when it is high enough, the steam condenses.  We call this condensed moisture "clouds".


6. Wind currents move the clouds to other parts of the earth.


7. Start over again at Step 1.

Chapter 4. The Water Cycle isn't being used in California!

There are parts of the world that do not have enough water, even though almost three-quarters of the earth's surface is covered in water.  This is even true in California.

This is recent information on the drought in California.  In the diagram on the left, the yellow areas have bad drought.  The red area has even worse drought.  The dark red area in the southwestern part of California has the very worst drought.  This is surprising, because the Pacific Ocean is right next to this state, as you can see in the diagram on the right.

The State Government doesn't manage its' water very well.
The state of California doesn't have enough water for its' people, animals, and plants, even though it is right next to the largest ocean in the world.

Not enough rain is falling in that state to allow the farmers to grow the plants that produce food.  Many different kinds of fruit and vegetables used to grow there, but now, the land is so dry, the food plants are starving for water.  Some of these plants have already died.
The photo of a farmer standing next to dead trees and the paragraph immediately below were copied from a web page on the Food and Environment Reporting Network that is dated March 25, 2015.  The clickable link to that page is right after the paragraph.

Fourth-generation Fresno Co. farmer Chris Hurd isn’t sure his farming operation will survive a fourth year of California’s historic drought.  “”I stayed alive last year,” he says,” but I’m not sure I’ll make it this year.  It’s a treacherous, sickening situation.

Link to the March 25, 2015 page of the Food and Environment Reporting Network.

The sign on the fence in the other photo says, "Pray for Rain".  We should all pray that rain falls in California, so that farmer Chris Hurd and many others like him can stay alive.

These are the third and fourth paragraphs of a story on the website Think Progress that was published May 5, 2015.

Agriculture requires water, and large-scale agriculture, like that in California, requires large amounts of water.  So when Governor Brown came under fire for exempting farmers from the mandatory cuts — farmers use 80 percent of the state’s available water — he was unmoved.

“They’re not watering their lawn or taking long showers,” he told ABC’s “The Week” the Sunday after he announced the restrictions.  “They’re providing most of the fruits and vegetables of America to a significant part of the world.”

Link to the May 5, 2015 story on the Think Progress website.

The Governor of California says that farmers in his state are providing most of the fruits and vegetables of America to a significant part of the world, but this will end unless his state can get more rain than it has had recently.

There is another reason to pray for rain in California.  Rain will help to put out the wildfires that are killing people, animals, and plants.

When there are more clouds over California, they can produce more rain.  The rain will help to end these fires.  Rain is part of the Water Cycle.

Chapter 5. Let's cook the recipe for the Water Cycle!

List of Ingredients

mountains river beds and lake beds warm ground cold air wind currents water

California has almost all of these ingredients.  It has mountains, river beds and lake beds, warm earth, cold air, and it has wind currents, but there is one missing ingredient.

The missing ingredient is water.  There isn't enough water inside California for the people, animals, and plants.  All of these living things are starving for water.  Some of them are dying.  Some of them have already died.

The inside of California doesn't have enough water, but there is an ocean of water outside of California.  Let's send some water from this ocean to a dry valley in eastern California.

A valley is the space between mountains.  There are different kinds of valleys. This valley has a small river that runs through it.

This valley has a lake in between the mountains. It also has a rainbow over the lake, caused by the refraction of the water.

Some valleys have no water at all. The land is so dry, the sun has baked the earth, just as if it had been placed into a hot oven.

This valley is called Death Valley. It is in between the Pinamint Mountain Range and the Amargosa Mountain Range. This valley is 140 miles long, and it is very hot. This animal couldn't get enough water to stay alive, so it died. Many people, animals, and plants have died there.

Death Valley is the green area in this map.  Almost all of it is in California, but a little bit of it is in Nevada.

This is a map of the geography of Death Valley, showing the two mountain ranges that are its' east and west borders.

Most of this valley is lower than the level of the Pacific Ocean.  At its' lowest point, it is 282 feet lower than the midpoint between that ocean's high tide and low tide.

Every valley is like a bowl.  If the valley has water in it, the mountains hold the water in.  The temperature in this valley is very hot, so even when the valley has an occasional flood, the water enters the water cycle.  It evaporates, but the rainwater from the clouds always goes somewhere else because the wind moves the clouds to other parts of the area.

The video on the left shows how hot it can be here. The temperature can be 130° F. That's 55° Celsius. Any time water is in this valley, it quickly evaporates. The water becomes steam.

In most years, there is less than two inches of rainfall in this valley, but in October 2015, there was a flood. The video on the right shows it. It happened very quickly, so it is called a flash flood.

Since Death Valley is hundreds of feet lower than the Pacific Ocean, if there was a pipe that connected the Pacific Ocean to the valley, water from the ocean would flow through the pipe and fill the valley.  This would create a lake in between the two mountain ranges that border this valley.

The photo on the right shows different containers that hold water.  No matter what size or shape of a container is used, if water can flow from any one of these containers to another container, the water level will always be the same.

The Pacific Ocean is held inside the Pacific Basin.  Death Valley is the space between two mountain ranges.  It is also a basin.  If there was a way to transport water from the Pacific Ocean to Death Valley, it would create a lake that has the same water level as the Pacific Ocean.

A lake was created in 1946 in western Massachusetts.  People had to move out of four small towns.  After they did, engineers built a dam on the Swift River.  All of the land in those towns flooded with water.

When all this was done, the lake became a reservoir.  The Quabbin Reservoir holds drinking water for many of the people in Massachusetts to use in their homes, schools, and businesses.

Link to the written history of the Quabbin Reservior.

Link to a very long timeline of events that led to the creation of this reservoir.

A pipe, like the one shown above, could transport water from the Pacific Ocean to Death Valley.  The height of the western end of this pipe would be almost 300 feet higher than the height of the eastern end of the pipe, so water would do downhill through the pipe, and if there were some water pumps added to this pipe, water would fill up Death Valley, creating a lake.

On the right is a diagram of a water pump that is used by companies to transport large amounts of water quickly.

Engineers would decide how many pumps to install so that the valley would fill with water quickly.

In the beginning of this process, most of the water that enters the valley would become groundwater. This would allow people who live in the area to become farmers, growing food crops that would help many others in the area who are hungry.

After the valley becomes a lake, the pumps would not need to transport as much water because they would only need to replace the amount of water that would evaporate in a year.

Start the Water Cycle !!

1. The water will form a lake
2. Water will evaporate from that valley, forming clouds.
3. The clouds will migrate to other parts of the area.
4. Wherever the wind moves the clouds, it will eventually rain.
5. When the wind moves the clouds over California, it will rain there.
6. Go back to step 1.

The cycle can begin at any one of the steps, because it is a cycle.  Water travels all through the steps of the cycle in many parts of the world, and so, this process can take place in California, too.


Do you live in California?  Do you like eating locally-grown fruit?  Tell your friends how much you want to see fruit trees growing in California.  You'll be my Chef of the Day!

Chapter 6. The Water Cycle begins ! Step 1. The sun's heat and the earth's heat turns some of this liquid water into water vapor. The water vapor rises into the atmosphere.
	Step 2. When the water vapor is high enough in the air, it gets cold and it condenses. It changes back into liquid, forming clouds.
Cumulus = pieces of floating cotton

Step 3. The wind blows !!

The wind moves the droplets of water through the atmosphere from Death Valley to other parts of the southwest. The direction of the wind will change sometimes.

Link to a page that shows the direction of wind currents in southern California right now.

Sometimes, the water droplets in the clouds will go west from Death Valley to the areas of California that have been suffering from drought for years.

The photo below was taken in Rancho Mirage, California.  The white area is sand.  It is hard to grow anything in sand, and it is impossible to grow orange trees or grape vines in sand, so the food that these people eat must travel a long way from where it is grown to where it is consumed.

	Step 4. The clouds precipitate their moisture. It can be rain, snow, sleet, or hail in most areas of the country, but snow doesn't happen very often in California.
When the moisture falls in California, it will add water to lakes, rivers, and to groundwater. This photo shows the Hollywood Walk of Fame during a rainstorm.

This video is a 3-D animation of a growing tree. When there is more rainfall in California, you will see more trees growing there. Some of these trees will have fruit on them. California will also have more grape vines.

California will have lots of juicy fruit for its' families to eat, including oranges and grapes !

I love oranges, especially the juicy ones, and I love grapes, too! Farmers can't grow juicy oranges and grapes unless the ground is moist.

Chapter 7. Transporting water in Ancient Rome

In 300 B.C. there were already ways to transport water across great distances. The water traveled downhill for miles before it reached the City of Rome, where people were waiting to drink it, cook with it, and take baths in it.


Sometimes, the water traveled in man-made tunnels through mountains, and other times, the water traveled across valleys on structures called aqueducts.

The photo below shows an aqueduct that was built centuries ago.

These two videos tell the history of the heroic engineering achievement that was made so that those ancient people could have water to drink.

Chapter 8. Let's Get Started !

Let's build an aqueduct, using pipes like this, from the Pacific Ocean to Death Valley.

I'm already hungry for a California orange!

Another reply to a GOP fundraising letter

This is the third time I have sent a reply to one of these letters and the third time that I transcribed my reply into a blog page.

This is the letter that was e-mailed to me on June 29, 2016.  I copied and pasted it into this blog page.

It came from an e-mail address called info@Bongino.com, named for Dan Bongino, who is a candidate for the U.S. House in the 19th Congressional District in Florida, but the author of the letter is U.S. Senator Mike Lee of Utah.

Note: The "Donate" button that is included in this letter is clickable, if you're foolish enough to give money to someone who won't thank you by performing one act as a member of Congress to stop an evil man like Barak Hussein Obama.

---

David

In 2010, I was elected to the United States Senate by people like you.

You, the conservative army. You who saw big-government gaining more and more power. You who fought against the abandonment of our Constitution.

You who banded together and formed the largest movement of grassroots conservatives this country has seen since 1776.

Dan Bongino was one of you then. He still is. He was with you at the start of this fight and he's never left you since.

That is why I am proud to endorse his run for United States Congress.

Yesterday, Dan launched a conservative money-bomb. Big-government elites of both parties don't want another no-nonsense, conservative warrior in Congress- and they're doing everything in their power to make sure he loses.

Conservatives came through- this is no surprise. But Dan is still $11,000 short of the End-of-Quarter deadline, and he must make it up by midnight tomorrow or his entire campaign is in jeopardy.

I'm asking you to help me fight back against the Washington Establishment, just as Dan did for me in 2010, when they tried to stop me from winning too.

He must raise $11,000 before the June 30th deadline to show his campaign can continue forward.

Humbly, I ask you join me in supporting a fellow patriot who fights for limited government, personal liberty and a return to Constitutional order:

DONATE

Dan believes in American exceptionalism. He has spent his life defending it, first as a police officer, then as as agent in the United States Secret Service. He is a husband and father- a man of great faith and love of country.

He is also a standout among a new generation of conservative leaders.

He has fought side-by-side with the grassroots from day one. He helped elect people like me to the Senate when the media and the elites did everything in their power to disparage the Tea Party.

I want to return the favor. Help me say "thank you" to Dan Bongino and the conservative movement by contributing anything you can to his campaign BEFORE tomorrow's critical deadline.

We need fighters like him in Congress- men of action, not men of words.

For America,
Mike Lee

---

When I replied, I used a large font, which is replicated here.  Every word you see here was sent in my reply to that e-mail address.  I can only hope that both House Candidate Dan Bongino and his friend, Senator Mike Lee read my words.

---

As a conservative, I hate the fact that

• Obama thinks like a dictator.
• he has politicized nationwide tragedies.
• he has increased racial tensions.
• he has used his agencies to fine and regulate U.S. businesses so harshly, they don't have any money to grow the U.S. economy.
• he has ignored the genocide of Christians in the Middle East.
• he has broadcast our military strategy and sometimes our tactics in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and other countries where shooting wars are being fought, so that our enemies will know how to defend themselves against us.

As a conservative, I DEMAND that the Republicans in the House and Senate take action NOW to stop him from hurting our nation even more than he has done already.

If you want our money so badly, EARN IT with your actions, GOD DAMN IT !!!

The A.C.L.U. and the mother

For the benefit of my international readers, the A.C.L.U. is an acronym for an advocacy group called the American Civil Liberties Union.  This page has frequently asked questions about this organization.

These are the first nine paragraphs of a May 31, 2016 article on the website Lifesite News.  The two links in these paragraphs were in their article.

The African-American woman who leads a state chapter of the ACLU has resigned, citing her own daughters' “frightened” reaction to biological males using the women's restroom.

The organization's increasing focus on legislating the transgender lobby's concerns pushed Maya Dillard Smith, interim director of the Georgia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, to tender her resignation.

“I have shared my personal experience of having taken my elementary school age daughters into a women’s restroom when shortly after three transgender young adults, over six feet [tall] with deep voices, entered,” she wrote.

“My children were visibly frightened, concerned about their safety and left asking lots of questions for which I, like many parents, was ill-prepared to answer,” she continued.

In a statement, she said that the ACLU has become “a special interest organization that promotes not all, but certain progressive rights.”

The “hierarchy of rights” the ACLU chooses to defend or ignore, she wrote, is “based on who is funding the organization’s lobbying activities." She did not elaborate on the group's funding.

Dillard Smith is no conservative. She earned a degree in economics from Berkeley and a masters degree at Harvard, while working for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the California Supreme Court.

She is a 2003 graduate of the program Emerge America, which states its “goal is clear: to increase the number of Democratic women in public office.”

But this self-described “progressive” who called herself “unapologetically black” cannot go along with the ACLU's transgender legal agenda.

This is the link to the Georgia branch of the A.C.L.U.

The video on the left shows Megyn Kelly of Fox News interviewing Maya Dillard Smith, the statewide head of the A.C.L.U. in Georgia. Listen to what this mother said after one minute and 35 seconds: My children were visibly frightened. This video was uploaded by Fox News to YouTube on June 2, 2016.

A website called Political Forum reprinted the Lifesite article.  A website called Reddit linked to the Lifesite article and posted hundreds of comments from their subscribers.  Most of the clickable websites listed below include a link to the Lifesite article.  They are listed in chronological order.

May 31, 2016 Georgia Voice	June 1, 2016 Women of Grace
June 1, 2016 Power Line Blog	June 1, 2016 Christian Examiner
June 2, 2016 Downtrend	June 2, 2016 Conservative Tribune
June 2, 2016 Breitbart	June 2, 2016 New York Post
June 2, 2016 Weasel Zippers reprinted the Powerline Blog	June 2, 2016 Louder with Crowder (a Podcast link but no written article)
June 2, 2016 Daily Caller	June 2, 2016 Conservative Review
June 2, 2016 NewsMax	June 2, 2016 Charlotte (N.C.) Observer
June 2, 2016 California Political Review	June 2, 2016 Western Journalism
June 2, 2016 Right Wing News	June 2, 2016 Independent Sentinel
June 2, 2016 Nebraska Family Alliance	June 3, 2016 Snopes
June 3, 2016 Christian Broadcast Network	June 4, 2016 The Christian Times

On the night of June 5-6, 2016, around 12:45am, I searched the New York Times for "Georgia ACLU".  There were no stories in their newspaper about this issue.

I then searched the Los Angeles Times for "Georgia ACLU".  They had no stories about this issue.

I then searched the Chicago Sun-Times.  They also had no stories.

None of these newspapers had a story about the resignation of the Georgia branch of the ACLU:

The Denver Post, The Detroit Free Press, The Boston Globe, The Dallas Morning News, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Kansas City Star, The Cleveland Plain-Dealer, The Cincinnati Inquirer, The Miami Herald, The Indianapolis Star, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, The Detroit News, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, The Bowling Green Times, The Arizona Republic, or The Oklahoman.

I even searched the Wall Street Journal on Monday, June 6th, and there were no results of my search for "Georgia ACLU" either.

This cartoon accurately describes what happened to the Chairwoman of the Georgia A.C.L.U. when she took her daughters into a public rest room.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a newspaper that is headquartered in Georgia, didn't put a story in their paper until June 4th, and it wasn't even a real story, just a writer's blog, written by Greg Bluestein (@Bluestein on Twitter).  He is a political reporter for the paper, but the "story" was in the blog section of the website, not the news section.

These are the first paragraphs of the June 2, 2016 New York Post story.  The link to that story has been provided above.

Crusading for “gender identity” rights just lost the American Civil Liberties Union its Georgia director.

Maya Dillard Smith resigned while complaining that the ACLU has become “a special-interest organization that promotes not all, but certain progressive rights.”

She was one of just three African-Americans running a state chapter. She’s also a mom — which provided her breaking point.

Hello, Target. Your market cap is down 20.8% since you started letting Bruno into Betsy's bathroom. https://t.co/f6ffHIywbz

— Bryan Fischer (@BryanJFischer) June 10, 2016

These are most of the last three paragraphs of the same story.  I will let the New York Post have the last word on this issue, at least for now.

[The A.C.L.U.] insists on the absolute right to use the restrooms (and locker rooms) of the gender you “identify” with — no matter how hostile an environment that might create for others.

The “hierarchy of rights” the ACLU opts to protect, she charges, is “based on who is funding the organization’s lobbying activities.”

Here’s to one progressive who insists on putting principle ahead of the paymasters.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is mismanaged

These are the first four paragraphs of an article dated January 1, 2016 in the mobile edition of the New York Times.  The link in the third paragraph was in their story.

WASHINGTON — The question from the congressman to the Obama administration official was straightforward enough:  How many foreign visitors overstay their visas every year?

The reply was simple too, but not in a satisfying way.  “We don’t know,” the official said.

The testy exchange during a recent congressional hearing between Representative Mark Meadows, Republican of North Carolina, and Alan Bersin, the assistant secretary for international affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, highlights what some law enforcement officials call a critical weakness in the United States foreign visa program.

The issue has taken on added urgency as part of a broader examination of immigration policy following the mass shootings in San Bernardino, Calif., that left 14 people dead and 22 wounded. Tashfeen Malik, one of the attackers, was granted entry to the United States under a K-1 visa, also known as a fiancé visa.  Her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, was an American-born citizen.  Both died in a shootout with the police.  While Ms. Malik did not overstay her visa, the attack added to fears that a terrorist could exploit gaps in the system.

Picture this. Someone lives in a country where religious violence happens every day, like Syria, Pakistan, or Nigeria.  He hates America passionately because he believes that it isn't promoting Islam strongly enough.  He is willing to kill Americans, and he is willing to die in the process because he believes that Allah, a god who preaches violence against unbelievers, will continue the fight after he dies.  Link to a web page that lists some of the violent passages in the Koran.

These are the second, third, and fourth paragraphs of a Breitbart article published January 1, 2016.  Indonesian police beat a young couple with canes because they violated Shari'a Law by being alone together.

“The form of Islamic law is enforced in a very strict way in the area, including prohibiting unmarried people of different genders from being alone together,” CNN observes.

Four other people were caned for gambling at the same public beating in front of a mosque in Banda Aceh.

The UK Daily Mail adds that the “frisky” couple — whose offense involved merely being “close proximity” to each other — were university students.

This man applies for a U.S. visa.  His application says that he is a tourist.  He sells everything he owns, and buys a one-way airplane ticket to an American airport.  After he lands, he lives for awhile with other people from his country who help him get a job.  He marries a woman who also believes that America isn't promoting Islam.  Sometime after his visa expires, he sees people celebrating Christmas, he is outraged, he leaves the party, and he returns home.

He and his wife put their automatic weapons and their explosive devices in their car.  They drive to the site of the party.  They kill 14 people and injure another 22 people.

Link to my December 2015 essay Radical Islam is a dangerous mental illness, which documents these circumstances, except for the visa overstay.

If she had taken a different path, 14 people would be alive today.  They and 22 other people would have enjoyed a peaceful Christmas party at their workplace.

Tashfeen Malik.  She hated Christians.

A Catholic nun.  She loves everybody.

Verse 002.191 in the Koran, copied from a page on the website of the University of Southern California.

And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have Turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter; but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque, unless they (first) fight you there; but if they fight you, slay them.  Such is the reward of those who suppress faith.

The Islamic faith is the only possible faith in the eyes and hearts of intolerant people.

Everyone else must be killed, says the messenger of Allah.

These are the first three paragraphs of a September 19, 2016 Associated Press story.

The U.S. government has mistakenly granted citizenship to at least 858 immigrants from countries of concern to national security or with high rates of immigration fraud who had pending deportation orders, according to an internal Homeland Security audit released Monday.

The Homeland Security Department's inspector general found that the immigrants used different names or birthdates to apply for citizenship with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and such discrepancies weren't caught because their fingerprints were missing from government databases.

The report does not identify any of the immigrants by name, but Inspector General John Roth's auditors said they were all from "special interest countries" — those that present a national security concern for the United States — or neighboring countries with high rates of immigration fraud. The report did not identify those countries.

A similar story was published by: (listed in chronological order, oldest first)

• Fox News on September 19, 2016
• CBS News September 19, 2016
• Politico, September 19, 2016 
• MSN, September 19, 2016 This web page includes a Fox News video. 
• KTLA, Los Angeles, California, September 19, 2016
• KDWN, Las Vegas, Nevada, September 19, 2016
• A blog called the Daily Wire, September 19, 2016
• National Public Radio, September 20, 2016
• The Hill, September 27, 2016

Fox News video

CNN video

These are the first four paragraphs of a September 19, 2016 World Net Daily story.  The link in the first paragraph was in their story.

It was a single word in Monday’s reports about how the federal government had given citizenship to 858 illegal immigrants from various countries that cause concern over national security – or “with high rates of immigration fraud who had pending deportation orders,” that caught the attention of William Gheen, of the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC.

It was the word that the government “mistakenly” took the action.

As in AP’s report that, “The U.S. government has mistakenly granted citizenship to at least 858 immigrants…”

“The main issue was the claim in the article, the assumption that this was accidental,” Gheen told WND on Monday.  “Don’t believe this is accidental.  There’s no reason we should believe any of this is accidental.  They are intentionally letting people in this country who are dangerous.”

I agree with the statement in the fourth paragraph.  Giving citizenship to these people was not an accident.

"They are intentionally letting people in this country who are dangerous.”

This September 22, 2016 article in Front Page Mag takes the position that some immigrants come here with the goal of becoming weapons in a jihad against the United States.  Their article is long, detailed, and documented.  It is hard to disagree with their conclusion, expressed in the subtitle of the article.

"Suicide is not an act of compassion."

The Department of Homeland Security is mismanaged, and B. Hussein Obama must be arrested and prosecuted for his crimes.

To blame or not to blame, that is the question

The right answer is a consistent policy.

Consistency is often a necessary ingredient when solving complex issues.

If President Obama believes that wealthy people should pay more in taxes, then he should ensure that wealthy members of his own party (including the two wealthiest Americans, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett) also pay more.

If, on the other hand, Obama believes that wealthy people (like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett) should pay a more moderate tax rate, then that tax rate should also be available to wealthy Republicans, America's other party.

This policy represents consistency, which in turn represents the fairness that Obama has said, repeatedly, that he wants in many of his policies.  Fairness was implicit in the speech he made last night (December 6, 2015) when he said that people who are too dangerous to become airplane passengers should also be legally considered too dangerous to buy a gun.

Any consistently fair policy regarding the identification of terrorists would either include Muslims or else, it would exclude uniformed police officers, as shown in the photo above.

Thank you to Dr. Marty Fox, whose Twitter account provided the above photo on December 7, 2015.  His account is @DrMartyFox

The words "To be or not to be" are part of a Shakespeare play called Hamlet. This video is part of a movie that is based on the play. Lawrence Olivier plays the Danish king in this movie. He was chosen to be a member of Great Britain's House of Lords, but he preferred to be known for his knighthood, as Sir Lawrence Olivier.

The entry for him in Encyclopedia Britanica.

The entry for him on the Biography Channel.

Fairness also means that when a British man has accomplished as much as he has, there should be an entry for him in the Encyclopedia Britannica and on the Biography Channel.

Fairness also means that when a large percentage of the Muslims in any country violently demands the world-wide acceptance of Sharia Law and other aspects of Muslim culture, then that nation's elected government should consider them to be trouble-makers, not members of a peaceful religion.

Link to my January 2013 essay The religion of peace is not peaceful or tolerant.

If the set of photos that are re-printed at the top of this page is an accurate portrayal of President Obama's inconsistent policies, then he is being unfair, either by criticizing the police unfairly or by not criticizing violent Muslims when they should be criticized.

To blame or not to blame.  That is the question he must answer if he is to be truly called a fair president.  The only alternative is to be called a biased president and unfair by the very definition of the word.

Refugee roulette

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This is the headline of a story dated September 5, 2015 in the U.K. Daily Mail.

More violent clashes in Lesbos as police struggle to cope with thousands of desperate migrants rushing to Greek Island before entering mainland Europe 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3223558/More-violent-clashes-Lesbos-police-struggle-cope-thousands-desperate-migrants-rushing-Greek-Island-entering-mainland-Europe.html#ixzz3tHPnVey9

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The news story says that 15,000 people have already arrived in that Greek island (Lesbos), hoping to leave there and enter Europe, where they will, I'm sure, cause more trouble with every law enforcement agency there.

Thousands of these invaders, masquerading as "Syrian refugees", have already arrived in America, thanks to the determined efforts of our Muslim President Barak Obama, who is hiding their religious status and even their travel plans from the Governors of our states.

Link to a story dated November 19, 2015 on the CNN website that says that more than half of our 50 Governors will refuse to admit any of these "refugees".