A Homemade Article of Impeachment

 Having retired from a career in IT, like many curmugeons, I have been following politics in the US. I was genuinely surprised when no Democratic US Reps objected to certifying Donald Trump's electoral votes, since he is clearly disqualified for any office of trust or honor in the United States under the Fourteenth Amendment. In the first week in office, Trump committed numerous illegal and unconstitutional acts and nobody in the House of Representatives fulfilled their constitutional duty to file articles of impeachment, the only mechanism left to remove him. So after bitching to my own Rep, I have decided to write my own articles and post them here. How hard can it be ?😋 I took one of the actual articles from the last Trump presidency as a pattern, so even though this is not a legal document, impeachment is not a legal action, it is a political one, I have tried to at least be specific and formal. So here goes:

Articles of Impeachment Against

Donald John Trump

{House Resolution [Nbr], One Hundred nineteenth Congress, First Session}

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

30 January 2025.

RESOLUTION

Resolved, That Donald John Trump, President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:

Articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in the name of itself and of the people of the United States of America, against Donald John Trump, President of the United States of America, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against him for high crimes and misdemeanors.

ARTICLE I: ABUSE OF POWER

The Constitution provides that the House of Representatives “shall have the sole Power of Impeachment” and that the President “shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”.

In his conduct of the office of President of the United States—and in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed—Donald J. Trump has abused the powers of the Presidency, in that:

1) Executive Order 14169 states that “It is the policy of United States that no further United States foreign assistance shall be disbursed in a manner that is not fully aligned with the foreign policy of the President of the United States. “

In making such a statement, the President willfully violates the “Take Care clause” of Section III of the US Constitution, directing foreign assistance to be disbursed, not in compliance with federal law, but in compliance with his policy.

2) Executive Order 14155 once again attempts to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization. The United States relationship with the World Health Organization is determined by an international treaty, which cannot be changed by the President without the Advice and Consent of the Senate. The President willfully disregards this Constitutional separation of powers.

3) Executive Order 14160 falsely and incorrectly reinterprets the Fourteenth Amendment to deny birthright citizenship, willfully ignoring the plain language of the Amendment. In so doing, the President takes upon himself the Judiciary powers of the United States and betrays his oath to uphold the Constitution.

The President’s conduct in these and other instances demonstrates a pattern of high crime and misdemeanor worthy of impeachment and removal from office.

What's My UV Exposure?

Your Home Latitude (please use decimal degrees, no minutes or seconds):

North or South:N S
Choose your nearest Home Elevation:Sea-level300 ft or 91 meters600 ft or 182 meters900 ft or 275 meters1200 ft or 366 meters1500 ft or 457 meters1800 ft or 549 meters2100 ft or 640 meters2400 ft or 732 meters2700 ft or 823 meters3000 ft or 915 meters3300 ft or 1006 meters3600 ft or 1097 meters3900 ft or 1189 meters4200 ft or 1280 meters4500 ft or 1372 meters4800 ft or 1463 meters5100 ft or 1555 meters5400 ft or 1646 meters5700 ft or 1738 meters6000 ft or 1829 meters6300 ft or 1920 meters6600 ft or 2012 meters6900 ft or 2103 meters7200 ft or 2195 meters7500 ft or 2286 meters7800 ft or 2378 meters8000 ft or 2439 meters9000 ft or 2743 meters10000 ft or 3048 meters12000 ft or 3658 meters14000 ft or 4267 meters16000 ft or 4877 meters

Your home latitude and elevation provide you today with 0.4% more protection than you would have at the Equator at sea-level on the day of Equinox.

Your Current Latitude (please use decimal degrees, no minutes or seconds):
North or South: N S
Choose your nearest Home Elevation: Sea-level 300 ft or 91 meters 600 ft or 182 meters 900 ft or 275 meters 1200 ft or 366 meters 1500 ft or 457 meters 1800 ft or 549 meters 2100 ft or 640 meters 2400 ft or 732 meters 2700 ft or 823 meters 3000 ft or 915 meters 3300 ft or 1006 meters 3600 ft or 1097 meters 3900 ft or 1189 meters 4200 ft or 1280 meters 4500 ft or 1372 meters 4800 ft or 1463 meters 5100 ft or 1555 meters 5400 ft or 1646 meters 5700 ft or 1738 meters 6000 ft or 1829 meters 6300 ft or 1920 meters 6600 ft or 2012 meters 6900 ft or 2103 meters 7200 ft or 2195 meters 7500 ft or 2286 meters 7800 ft or 2378 meters 8000 ft or 2439 meters 9000 ft or 2743 meters 10000 ft or 3048 meters 12000 ft or 3658 meters 14000 ft or 4267 meters 16000 ft or 4877 meters

Please enter your current position data above.

Many places talk about the UV index as a way to indicate your exposure day to day, for example as part of the local weather report; however, it is difficult for most people to use this information effectively. That is why earth42 has developed an exposure calculator here, one that will compare your current location to that of your home, ie, the place you are accustomed to, as well as to a reference location on the Earth's equator at sea-level.
Here are a couple of assumptions:

1. the earth's atmosphere is our major protection from harmful radiation, and this protection is essentially uniform throughout the planet. I know there are local variations in the temperature, ozone content, etc., but for our purposes we can idealize a bit and use a "rule of thumb", the Standard Atmosphere Model.
2. The major difference from one place to another in the level of protection comes from its latitude. The farther from the equator, the greater the angle of sunlight, and thus the greater amount of atmosphere it passes through. This is what gives rise to the differences in climate as one travels from equator to pole. Additionally, as the Earth orbits the Sun, its tilted axis of rotation modifies the effective latitude of a given location. This is what gives rise to seasonal changes.
3. Elevation above sea-level also affects ones exposure. The higher you are in the atmosphere, the less there is of it to protect you. This can undo much of the protection from higher latitudes, and measurements of air density by altitude have been made that we can use here.

 Combining these factors, we can calculate your exposure in a way that will give you a more intuitive sense of what to do about it.

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Is There Any Way to Really Fight Spam?

Hold a Sit-In!

Spam wastes an incredible amount of resources, and nobody likes it, except the spammers themselves. After all, they're making money. The endless cycle of putting up filters and such is the wrong approach; they just keep finding ways of getting past them. After all, you want to get your email, right?

What we need to do is attack the demand for spam. We can hold a "sit-in" at the sponsors' web sites! Just as with a traditional sit-in, we choose a place (ie the spam sponsor's web site), set a time when everybody should go there, and then at the appointed time, we all "go", ie repeatedly request the page.

Just as a million interested citizens inadvertently brought down the U.S. Affordable Care Act web site, we can bring a spammer client web site to a standstill, if enough of us want to, without doing the site itself any damage, nor breaking any law. Each participant in the sit-in is doing just what the spammer client wants us to do: go to the site.

The Sit-In app (currently available only at the SlideME android market) from earth42, facilitates each part of this process.

What's my golf handicap?

A golf handicap enables you to gauge the quality of your game and compare it to others, regardless of what course you play. As part of the Rules of Golf, the USGA has created an algorithm for calculating your handicap based on your most recent 20 games.

With the Golf Handicap Calculator (currently available only for android devices) from earth42, you can enter rating and slope parameters of golf courses you play, and then enter your score and course for each game. Once you have at least 5 games stored, it will calculate and graph your "differentials", the normalized scores, and your "handicap index"; and once you have a handicap index, the calculator can also predict your score for a stored course, or from a rating and slope that you enter.

NEWSFLASH: I have recently had a very helpful conversation with theoclitus, a user who plays nine-hole golf courses. These courses have nine-hole ratings, and the newest version, 3.0, deals with both nine-hole and eighteen-hole courses - just register the course in your list with its nine-hole rating and slope, and check the box indicating it's a nine-hole course. If you play nine on an eighteen-hole course, and they don't furnish nine-hole ratings and slopes for the front and back, you can just use the course's given rating and slope, but you must double your score when you enter the game in order to get the correct handicap index, or at least as close as you can get. There is now also a preference in Settings to choose whether to display your handicap index as eighteen-hole or nine-hole, and regardless of that, you can select nine-hole or not when predicting your score.