Position: 33.1 N 75.7 W. [10PM CDT]
Movement: Northwest near 12 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 40 mph.
Wind Radius: 105 miles.
Minimum central pressure: 1008 mb.

While the rain bands are coming ashore now, and the center will reach the Outer Banks tomorrow, it doesn’t look like it will be much of an event, and will affect coastal North Carolina and Southeast Virginia before turning to the Northeast and back out to sea.

You have to admit Osama is the product of his class, i.e. sons of wealthy families who never held a real job and embrace religion after years of hell-raising. He knows how to appeal to the class, as Sharon Weinberger of Danger Room points out in her post Read Osama’s Lips: No Taxes, Ever.

I thought is was satire, but sure enough if you read the SITE Intelligence Group transcript [PDF] on page 7 you find:

There are no taxes in Islam, only a limited Zakaat (alms) totaling 2.5 percent.

Wow, a 2.5% flat tax! Grover Norquist and Steve Forbes must be conflicted.

Fallenmonk provides the facts from a Fortune magazine article:

The Hedgemony is going to report a deficit of $ 158 billion, but that doesn’t include the $ 78 billion Social Security surplus, or the $ 108 billion in interest owed to the Social Security trust fund, or the $ 97 billion in IOUs for principle and interest on Federal pensions.

The real deficit is $ 441 billion, and all of their other stated deficits were off by a similar amount, around $ 280 billion, in unreported deficit every year.

BTW, I complained when Clinton reported a surplus, noting that it was really just the build-up of the Social Security trust fund, and not a surplus in tax revenue. I wanted the Social Security monies separated from the other Federal monies, so that there was no confusion, but the Repubs were planning on looting the treasury by claiming that too much tax was being withheld.

Position: 30.5 N 72.5 W.
Movement: West-Northwest near 10 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 45 mph.
Minimum central pressure: 1011 mb.

I’m not sure why they call this a Subtropical Storm, rather than Tropical Storm, but it looks like it’s headed for the Carolinas.