Posts from — November 2007

Go to Elayne’s place and check out Harry Shearer’s music video, Waterboarding USA.

Harry is probably the best known unknown person you don’t know you know and wouldn’t recognize on the street. If you click on his name and look at his Wikipedia entry, you will understand what I mean.

Remember, at 2AM the clocks reset to 1AM, so you get an extra hour of sleep, or an extra hour of work if you’re on the graveyard shift.

Half of my clocks have already shifted, so the world around here has been dual time-zoned for the last week.

The Associated Press reports: Million pounds of beef recalled

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (AP) — The giant agribusiness company Cargill Inc. said Saturday it is recalling more than 1 million pounds of ground beef that may be contaminated with E. coli bacteria.

The ground beef was produced October 8-11 at Cargill Meat Solutions’ plant in Wyalusing, Pennsylvania and distributed to retailers.

Affected retailers include Giant, Shop Rite, Stop & Shop, Wegmans and Weis in Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Cargill learned the meat may be contaminated after the Agriculture Department found a problem with a sample of the beef produced on October 8, the company said. The bacterium is E. coli O157:H7.

Recalling tainted hamburger is becoming a once a month drill at Cargill. Too bad the laws that have been in place for the last century don’t seem to get enforced anymore.

Post-Tropical Storm Noel [Canadian Hurricane Centre]

Position: 42.0 N 67.6 W. [10PM CDT]
Movement: North-Northeast near 38 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 86 mph.
Wind Gusts: 95 mph.
Minimum central pressure: 967 mb.

PTS Noel is about 159 miles South-Southwest of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.

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Since Noel transitioned to an extratropical storm, the National Hurricane Center stopped issuing advisories on it and refers people to their local weather stations.

Fortunately the Canadian Hurricane Centre is picking up the slack and issuing reports on not-hurricane Noel:

AT 9.00 PM ADT [7PM CDT]… POST-TROPICAL STORM NOEL WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 32.6 N AND LONGITUDE 72.0 W… ABOUT 235 NAUTICAL MILES [270 miles] OR 440 KM SOUTHEAST OF CAPE HATTERAS. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE ESTIMATED AT 75 KNOTS [86 mph]… 139 KM/H… AND CENTRAL PRESSURE AT 978 MB. NOEL IS MOVING NORTH NORTHEAST AT 24 KNOTS [28 mph]… 44 KM/H.

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My Mother has always used Pioneer Baking Mix for biscuits and pancakes. I don’t argue with her choices, and for years it meant going to Winn-Dixie to get a box for her, as that wasn’t where she normally shopped.

Then, for whatever reason, it stopped being sold at Winn-Dixie and was only available at Wal-Mart.

So, yesterday, November 1^st, the day after Halloween, I made a trip to get her a box and was assaulted by the bloody damn Christmas decorations as I entered the store. I was expecting an after Halloween “let’s get rid of the orange and black stuff” sale, and nearly ran into a ten-foot faux-fir tree blocking the entrance.

This is what the War on Christmas™ really looks like, and where it is waged.

The GOP doesn’t create droughts. I know that every time we have a major disaster in the economy and widespread drought the GOP seems to be in charge, but it’s just a coincidence. They could have helped by doing something constructive about greenhouse gases a long time ago, but they don’t believe in science or facts, so you can’t really blame them because mental incompetence is a valid defense.

Remember, the last time it was a “dust bowl”, out on the plains, and this time it’s the hills in the South. It’s different.

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CBS is noticing the effects: Fuel Fraud Latest In Army Contracting Woes

(CBS/AP) The delivery of aviation gas to the giant U.S. air base at Bagram in Afghanistan is the latest case of fraud to hit a contracting system overwhelmed by war and practically begging to be ripped off, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports exclusively.

So far two former employees of Kellogg, Brown and Root have been arrested for their part in a scheme worthy of Tony Soprano.

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Position: 29.2 N 73.8 W. [10AM CDT]
Movement: North-Northeast [040°] near 17 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 80 mph.
Wind Gusts: 95 mph.
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 345 miles.
Hurricane Wind Radius: 75 Miles
Minimum central pressure: 981 mb.

TS Noel is about 425 miles South-Southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

The storm’s wind field has more than doubled overnight as it transitions into a Nor’easter, an extratropical storm named for the strong winds that flow toward it out of the Northeast. It is currently forecast to hit around the Maine-Canada border late Saturday after grinding away at the US coast all the way north with wind and waves.

…Some of the Cats…

He’s making it up, right?

[Editor: Ringo, Income, Property, and Sox at the door, but Sox’s stories aren’t succeeding when Ringo is laughing and Property keeps asking her mom if that’s true. Property may be smaller than her brothers but she has enough tail for three cats.]

Friday Ark

The Associated Press reports: E. coli fears prompt recall of millions of frozen pizzas

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (AP) — General Mills on Thursday recalled about 5 million frozen pizzas sold nationwide under the Totino’s and Jeno’s labels because of possible E. coli contamination.

The problem may have come from pepperoni on pizzas produced at a General Mills plant in Ohio, the suburban Minneapolis-based company said.
…

The company asks consumers to throw away recalled pizzas. They can get replacements by clipping the bar code from the box and mailing it with their name and address to Totino’s/Jeno’s, P.O. Box 200 — Pizza, Minneapolis, MN 55440-0200.

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That is the collar insignia of the of the US Army’s Civil Affairs branch. Their motto is “Securing the victory” which is what their purpose is – rebuilding the civil society after a war. Unfortunately the decision was made to move about 83% of this branch to the Reserves from the regular Army.

These are the people who should have taken over the mission in Iraq hard on the heels of the combat forces, but they weren’t ready in large numbers and they weren’t included in the plan. The Hedgemony was depending on the “democracy gnome” to take over after Saddam was removed, but you just can’t depend on gnomes anymore.

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Position: 27.3 N 76.1 W. [10PM CDT]
Movement: North-Northeast [030°] near 20 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 80 mph.
Wind Gusts: 90 mph.
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 145 miles.
Hurricane Wind Radius: 45 Miles
Minimum central pressure: 981 mb.

TS Noel is about 180 miles North-Northeast of Nassau in the Bahamas.

Noel is already going to be retired as a name because of the effects of the nearly two feet of rain it dumped on the island of Hispaniola which have caused over 100 deaths in the Dominican Republic and Haiti making it almost as deadly as the category 5 hurricane Felix.

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So the Dow soared on the news of the Fed interest rate cut, but then they realized what the cut really meant and: Dow tumbles over 280 points

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Stocks suffered further losses Thursday afternoon on a Citigroup downgrade and disappointing results from oil giant Exxon Mobil.

The Dow Jones industrial average was trading 281 points, or 2.0 percent lower, with 2 hours remaining in the session.

The broader S&P 500 index lost 1.9 percent, while the tech-fueled Nasdaq slipped 1.6 percent.

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