To jump, or not to jump?

Well folks, if they decide to go ahead, Toronto has just under two weeks to announce if it's going to start vying for the 2024 summer Olympics. If the city says yes, Mayor John Tory wants to seek private sector funding to help cover the cost of a bid, which could run between $50-$60 million.

 

None of the city's budget committee members currently support a bid, as revealed after yesterday's budgetary meeting. Some councillors are wary of spending tens of millions of dollars on an opportunity that may never pan out.

 

According to the Star, Los Angeles (which is expected to formally submit its bid soon), amassed $35 million in private funding for its bid. Other cities already in the running include Hamburg, Rome, Paris and Budapest. (These are heavyweight contenders, bunky!)

Toronto has until September 15 to submit a letter to the International Olympic Committee if it plans to follow through with a bid. Tory says city council will ultimately vote on the final decision.

(No word yet on a 2015 Expo bid! -Ed.)

http://www.blogto.com/city/2015/09/tory_wants_private_sector_to_cover_toronto_olympic_bid/

--------------------------------------

Well folks, it's September and just about time for the Republicans down in the States to attempt another screwing of the American public.

Two years ago they shut down the Government in an attempt to deprive U.S. citizens of affordable health care, last year they wanted to get rid of all the immigrants who were doing jobs nobody else wanted to do, AND THIS YEAR THEY WANT TO BAN ABORTION ...................., COMPLETELY! (Even though abortions only account for 5% of Planned Parenthood's budget, the rest goes to women's health issues!)

With federal funding set to expire on September 30, conservatives are once again demanding a standoff that Boehner and McConnell are hell-bent on avoiding. This time around, the issue that might prevent an orderly—if temporary—extension of funding is Planned Parenthood. Along with Cruz, House conservatives insist that any spending bill sent to President Obama’s desk explicitly prohibit taxpayer dollars from going to the women’s health organization, which has come under fire over undercover videos that purportedly show its officials discussing the sale of fetal tissue. Democrats have rallied around Planned Parenthood, and an effort to ax its approximately $500 million in annual funding is likely to fall short, either by running into a filibuster in the Senate or a presidential veto.

(Ladies and Gentlemen, what confuses the heck out of me is how the Republicans can get ANYONE to vote for them, let alone the core base of supporters that they have! -Ed.)

For Republicans like Mulvaney, the rise of Trump and the strength of other anti-establishment candidates like Carson, Fiorina, and, Cruz is proof that GOP leaders like Boehner and McConnell have been vastly underestimating the party’s grassroots. What Boehner and McConnell like to dismiss as the fringe, in other words, is actually the majority.

Anti-abortion conservatives view the defunding of Planned Parenthood as a no-brainer, both substantively and politically. “This is so wrong that there is no way we can allow taxpayer money to continue to go to this organization,” said Representative Jim Jordan, who leads a newly formed group called the House Freedom Caucus. 

 http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/the-plot-against-planned-parenthood-and-john-boehner/403348/

---------------------------------------

HERE'S A HEADLINE THAT WILL SEND SHIVERS UP AND DOWN YOUR SPINE: This year's El Nino will be the strongest in 18 years, WMO says!

The current El Nino weather phenomenon is expected peak between October and January and could turn into one of the strongest on record, experts from the World Meteorological Organization said at a news conference on Tuesday.
Climate models and experts suggest surface waters in the east-central Pacific Ocean are likely to be more than 2 degrees hotter than average, potentially making this El Nino one of the strongest ever.
Climate scientists are better prepared than ever with prediction models and data on El Nino patterns, but the impact of this El Nino in the northern hemisphere is hard to forecast because there is also an Arctic warming effect at work on the Atlantic jetstream current.

Warm air above the eastern Pacific as a result of El Nino is causing increased precipitation over the west coast of South America and dry conditions over the Australia, Indonesia archipelago and Southeast Asia region, said Maxx Dilley, director of the WMO's Climate Prediction and Adaptation Branch during a press conference Tuesday. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via Associated Press)

"The truth is we don't know what will happen. Will the two patterns reinforce each other? Will they cancel each other? Are they going to act in sequence? Are they going to be regional? We really don't know," said David Carlson, the director of the World Climate Research Programme.
This El Nino could also be followed abruptly by a cooling La Nina, which, along with the advance of global warming, was adding to the uncertainty, Carlson said.
"I think we all think that there's some climate warming signals starting to show up in the El Nino record," he said.
But he added that it is still unclear how global warming is affected the frequency or magnitude of El Nino events.
Since 1950, strong El Nino events occurred in 1972-3, 1982-3 and 1997-8.

 http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/this-year-s-el-nino-will-be-the-strongest-in-18-years-wmo-says-1.3212589?cmp=rss