Posts from — September 2007

NPR’s All Things Considered yesterday had a couple of pieces looking back at the Cold War.

In Americans Give Ahmadinejad Cold-War Treatment, Daniel Schorr compares the way Ahmadinejad was received to the way Khrushchev was treated when he came to the US.  We haven’t learned much in the last 50 years.

In Ex-Diplomats Gauge Russia-U.S. Relations , Robert Siegel talked with two former diplomats involved in the Cold War: Jack Matlock was a U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union during the Gorbachev era; Yuly Vorontsev was Russia’s ambassador to the United States in the 1990s.

The really interesting part is at the end when they pretty much agree that no one won or lost the Cold War, the Russian people just decided they wanted a change. They wanted to be Russians, not Soviets, and didn’t see that “empire” had been much of a help to their lives. Not so much passive resistance as terminal apathy was the end of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union.

Position: 20.4 N 95.9 W. [4PM CDT][Update TD 13 becomes Tropical Storm Lorenzo]
Movement: West [270°] near 5 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 70 mph.
Wind Gusts: 85 mph.
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 70 miles.
Minimum central pressure: 999 mb.

Currently 105 miles East-Southeast of Tuxpan in the Gulf of Mexico, Lorenzo has had a burst of intensification in the last few hours.

TS Karen may have made it up to hurricane status for a few hours last night, but is currently being mugged by wind shear, so no real threat.

Invest 97L quit trying.

Invest 98L crossed Florida last night, but still hasn’t gotten its act together.

Wind shear is the savior of the US this season, so far.

The Associate Press found more taxpayer funded propaganda: Government video shows mock hacker attack

WASHINGTON – A government video shows the potential destruction caused by hackers seizing control of a crucial part of the U.S. electrical grid: an industrial turbine spinning wildly out of control until it becomes a smoking hulk and power shuts down.

The video, produced for the Homeland Security Department and obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday, was marked “Official Use Only.” It shows commands quietly triggered by simulated hackers having such a violent reaction that the enormous turbine shudders as pieces fly apart and it belches black-and-white smoke.

[Read more →]

The Associated Press reports that a Judge Strikes Down Parts Of Patriot Act

(AP) Two provisions of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional because they allow search warrants to be issued without a showing of probable cause, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as amended by the Patriot Act, “now permits the executive branch of government to conduct surveillance and searches of American citizens without satisfying the probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment.”
…

[Read more →]

The Senate has authorized the use of military force against the nation of Iran by approving the Kyl-Lieberman sense of the Senate resolution [text] by a vote of 76-22.

The list of sane Senators is below the fold: [Read more →]

Position: 13.0 N 45.1 W. [10PM CDT][Updated]
Movement: West-Northwest [300°] near 13 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 70 mph.
Wind Gusts: 80 mph.
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 205 miles.
Minimum central pressure: 996 mb.

Currently 1070 miles East of the Windward Islands [the lower islands of the Lesser Antilles]

Tropical Depression Thirteen
Position: 21.2 N 94.8 W. [10PM CDT]
Movement: West [260°] near 2 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 35 mph.
Wind Gusts: 45 mph.
Minimum central pressure: 1007 mb.

Currently 210 miles East-Southest of Tampico and 170 miles East of Tuxpan in the Gulf of Mexico.

Invest 97L just North of Puerto Rico but conditions are not good much development.

Invest 98L is on the west coast of South Florida

If you have cable and can get CNN, tomorrow night at 10PM EDT on Anderson Cooper 360 that man about New York, President Ahmadinejad of Iran, will be interviewed by Christiane Amanpour, CBE, CNN’s chief international correspondent.

To understand why I recommend this program read Ms. Amanpour’s CNN bio and Wikipedia entry. She knows more foreign leaders that the US State Department, has more time in combat zones than General Petraeus, spent more time on the Gulf Coast after Katrina than Michael Brown, and scared Yasser Arafat more than Ariel Sharon.

She speaks fluent Farsi [as well as English and French] and had the first interview with Ahmadinejad after he was elected.

It’s too bad she’s a citizen of the UK, because she would be a major improvement as Secretary of State.

You can’t have a war any more without Christiane. An Australian reporter covering the aftermath of Katrina said he knew it was a major disaster when he saw she was there.

Matt Stearns of McClatchy Newspapers asks: Can broken primary system be fixed?

WASHINGTON – Florida’s defiant decision to hold its presidential primary weeks earlier than both national parties dictate highlights one inescapable fact: There’s no easy fix for this mess of a presidential nominating system.

Parties set rules and dates, but self-interested states ignore them with little fear of meaningful consequence or much concern for the national interest. Would-be reformers tout a variety of fixes – which the states find lacking. Congress suggests that it might step in, but the Constitution may not allow it.

[Read more →]

Lurch at Main and Central provides a Cholera Update on Iraq – it’s spreading south.

While most people don’t use Clorox any more, do you remember your mother putting on a respirator and hazmat suit when she added it to the wash? My Mother is still a fan of chlorine bleach and it is the easiest way of killing mildew on houses and in bathrooms. It is a powerful chemical and deserves respect and caution, but it is extremely useful, especially when the normal water system is down and you need to purify drinking water.

[Read more →]

Lower Manhattanite at Group News Blog did a follow-up post on the Jena 6 and at the end mentioned that the White tree had been cut down.

Sure enough The News Star [Monroe, LA] reported Jena High’s infamous ‘noose’ tree cut down

“A clean slate,” LaSalle Parish School Board member Billy Fowler said of why the tree was cut down in the past few weeks. “There’s nothing positive about that old tree. It’s all negative. And I’m serving on the new School Board, and we’re wanting to start fresh on some things.”

Schools Superintendent Roy Breithaupt authorized the tree to be cut down, Fowler said. Breithaupt on Monday refused to comment about the tree while discussing plans for rebuilding the school after an arson fire destroyed one the school’s buildings.

[Read more →]

Position: 11.1 N 41.0 W. [10PM CDT] [UPDATED}
Movement: West-Northwest [285°] near 14 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 40 mph.
Wind Gusts: 50 mph.
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 70 miles.
Minimum central pressure: 1005 mb.

Currently 1355 miles East of the southern Windward Islands [the lower islands of the Lesser Antilles] and still looking like a fish botherer.

Tropical Depression Thirteen [the former Invest 94L]
Position: 21.7 N 95.4 W. [10PM CDT]
Movement: West [260°] near 5 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 30 mph.
Wind Gusts: 40 mph.
Minimum central pressure: 1008 mb.

Currently 165 miles East-Southeast of Tampico in the Gulf of Mexico.

Invest 97 is West of the Lesser Antilles but conditions are not good for much development. It looks like it will pass over Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, eastern Cuba, and then turn North into South Florida on the weekend. No guarantees with tropical weather.

Invest 96L has become Tropical Depression 12
Position: 10.1 N 36.2 W. [10PM CDT]
Movement: West-Northwest [285°] near 16 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 35 mph.
Wind Gusts: 45 mph.
Minimum central pressure: 1006 mb.

Currently 1700 miles East of the southern Windward Islands [the lower islands of the Lesser Antilles]. While it might become a hurricane, it currently looks like a fish bothering central Atlantic storm.

Neither Invest 94L in the southern Gulf of Mexico, nor Invest 97, just East of the Lesser Antilles, have shown much development.

Laura Rozen has located a PDF version of the Kyl-Lieberman amendment that barely stops short of a declaration of war on Iran. It will show up in the Senate in the next few days, and will be another nail in the coffin of reasoned debate.

I have little confidence in the ability of the Democrats to find a spine and do the right thing by rejecting this load of jingoistic bovine excrement, so I suggest they purchase one of these for the housekeeping crew at the Capitol. At least we’ll get a green lawn out of it.

Oliver Willis notes that:

Microsoft is apparently offering a tool to downgrade PCs to XP from Vista. From my quick experience with Vista, that seems like a feature, not a bug.

That has to hurt. OW includes a link to the software. I try not to go to the Microsoft because they keep trying to download their malicious software program that I keep rejecting. This is not good news for the system software group. I think they are encountering resistance to hardware upgrades that are really necessary for Vista to be usable. Vista doesn’t have support for a lot of peripherals that people already use and like even though they are a few years old.