I'm procrastinating right now

Guy coaxing a litter of curious baby bunnies out of his garden 

The fact that a 12-year-old has to take the initiative…

On Sixth Anniversary Of Flint Water Crisis, Flint Still Has No Backup Water Source

Flint, MI–On the sixth anniversary of the Flint water crisis, Flint is again in the midst of a crisis.

Six years after the disastrous switch to the Flint River as a source of drinking water for the city, which led to an outbreak of Legionnaire’s Disease and toxic levels of lead leaching into the water, the city remains in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act for not having a reliable secondary drinking water source.

Mayor Sheldon Neeley sent a stern message to Flint city council Monday to, “finish the job,” referring to the 21-inch diameter, five-and-a-half-mile pipe, that would connect Genesee County’s water system to Flint. The pipe would ensure that should the current system, which pulls Lake Huron water via Detroit, fail, Flint would have a readily available source of water.

As of now, the only backup source the city has are water reservoirs, which would only supply residents with drinkable water for a matter of days. If anything, such as a major line break or any other unpredictable event that could compromise the city’s water, it’s unclear where Flint would go next once the reservoirs run dry. “The results could be catastrophic,” Neeley said.

The city, per federal law, must have a secondary source of water. The proposed project would be paid for by an Obama era bill, the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation (WIIN) Act. The act authorized $100 million in funding for “Flint, Mich., to recover from the lead contamination in its drinking water system.” According to the EPA, $87 million of that money has not been spent.

The proposed backup system was due to be completed in December of 2019 at a cost of $14.7 million in federal funds. On Monday, the council again voted 4 to 4 delaying construction.  A majority vote of six would be needed from the nine-person council to reconsider the contract before they could revisit the project.

“My cat is known for her arm flops. So I recorded some more for you. Hope you enjoy it!“ 

I’m a pilot, and thus like 85% of my friends are ALSO pilots and one of them is just this delightful older guy that named Bruce. Bruce is a man of simple pleasures, he likes mediocre bbq and to take his vintage J3 Piper Cub out like, every other week just to have the old girl not look so sad in the hangar. We also live about 30NM south of an air base and, according to him, there was a squad of fighter planes out and they wanted some guys to go up in their planes for intercept practice (with pay, obviously) so the guys could get real time practice looking for unfamiliar aircraft.

Bruce, a man who doesn’t need it but wants to say he flew with some fighter jets, takes them up on their offer and takes the old girl up for them. Now, if you’re unfamiliar with a J3, this thing is slow as shit. Like, horrendously slow. And there was a decent headwind that day blowing in off the coast and Bruce gets the brilliant idea that he’s going to do something they can’t. So Bruce turns that old cub into the wind and just flies slow enough that he’s genuinely flying BACKWARDS and the next thing he knows are these three jets screaming past him, wings wobbling something fierce as they’re all about to stall, and the pilots yelling over the radio like “How are you DOING THAT” 

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(source)

Unsplash -  photography, illustration, and art

Pixabay - same as unsplash

Pexels - stock photos and videos

Stockvault.net - stock photos

freepngimg - icons, pictures and clipart

Veceezy - vectors and clipart

Kissclipart and kissPNG - more vectors and clipart (often transparent!)

Getdrawings - simplistic images and drawing tutorials

Gumroad - photoshop brushes (and more)

Canva - needs login but has lots of templates

Library of Congress - historical posters and photos

NASA - you guessed it

Creative Commons - all kinds of stuff, homie

Even Adobe has some free images

There are so many ways to make moodboards, bookcovers, and icons without infringing copyright! As artists, authors, and other creatives, we need to be especially careful not to use someone else’s work and pass it off as our own. 

58, 209 Americans died in the Vietnam War (1961-1975)

54, 246  Americans died in the Korean War (1950-1953)

25, 000 Americans died in the American Revolution (1775-1783)

15, 000 Americans died in the War of 1812 (1812-1815)

13, 283 Americans died in the Mexican-American War  (1846-1848)

4,576 Americans died in the Iraq War (2003-2011)

Also:   The annual number of deaths in the USA from infectious disease is about 75,000. That’s twelve months’ worth of deaths.  We are slightly over the annual death count for infectious disease after only four months and seven days.