Posts from — July 2008

Young Lions?

Put ’em up! Put ’em up!

[Editor: The two are trying out their stalking and fighting skills prior to dinner. The gray kitten has been stalking the tuxedo kitten and attacking for 10 minutes. They sleep all day, and then go into action as the sun goes down.]

Friday Ark

McClatchy reports that McClatchy Bureau Chief wins Nieman Foundation award

WASHINGTON — John Walcott, the chief of McClatchy’s Washington Bureau, was named on Thursday the first recipient of the I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence, sponsored by Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism.

Walcott was honored for leading a team of reporters whose skeptical coverage of the Bush administration’s claims about Iraq’s weapons programs in the months before the U.S. invasion in March 2003 was largely unmatched by other news outlets — and also largely ignored by policymakers.

“This is belated recognition of the powerful work done by Walcott in directing his colleagues in developing stories that were unappreciated and almost totally unnoticed at the time,” Bob Giles, the Nieman Foundation’s curator, said in announcing the award. “Because so many journalists fell short in their pre-Iraq war coverage, there’s a real need to recognize this dogged editor who went about his business in a resolute way to challenge many of the justifications for the war that proved to be false.”
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Dolly is coming to the end of her life cycle having caused most of the damage she can.  People can now get out and see the mess.

As usual it is the water, not the wind that’s the problem, with flooding likely to continue because of over 20 inches of rain in some areas.  Dolly is a relatively slow moving storm and it is still drawing moisture from the Gulf.

The small towns on the coast received the worse of the wind damage, but roofs were lost inland.

There are no reports of deaths, but it is early yet, and the storm is moving across rural areas.

It’s time for the chainsaws and big piles of debris.

I posted earlier about the problem with Domain Name Servers [DNS] and the need to make some patches.  EBW at Wampum has a post with a link to a site that allows you to check to see if yours was upgraded.

Mine [Embarq] was, his [TimeWarner/Roadrunner] apparently wasn’t.

Since this happened I have noticed that it isn’t as difficult to find this place, as it has been for a couple of months.  Apparently a few people accidentally fixed some other problems and unkinked some “tubes” when they applied their patches.

The Washington Post reports on Moscow rumors: Russian Bombers Could Be Deployed to Cuba

MOSCOW, July 21 — Russian bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons could be deployed to Cuba in response to U.S. plans to install a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, a Russian newspaper reported Monday, citing an unnamed senior Russian air force official.
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I remember when people complained the government didn’t listen to the people.

Now we’re trying to figure out how to make them stop.

Position: 26.5 N 98.1 W. [10 PM CDT] Updated
Movement: West [280°] near 7 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 70 mph.
Wind Gusts: 80 mph.
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 115 miles.
Minimum central pressure: 981 mb.

The storm is 55 miles Northwest of Brownsville, Texas.

Dolly has weakened to a tropical storm. Sunrise tomorrow will show what she hath wrought. Heavy rains are continuing, and flooding is possible in the Rio Grande/Bravo valley.

Reuters is reporting that a 1,600-year-old version of Bible goes online

BERLIN – More than 1,600 years after it was written in Greek, one of the oldest copies of the Bible will become globally accessible online for the first time this week.

From Thursday, sections of the Codex Sinaiticus, which contains the oldest complete New Testament, will be available on the Internet, said the University of Leipzig, one of the four curators of the ancient text worldwide.

High resolution images of the Gospel of Mark, several Old Testament books, and notes on the work made over centuries will appear on www.codex-sinaiticus.net as a first step towards publishing the entire manuscript online by next July.

In a usable form the link is: www.codex-sinaiticus.net.

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Moi at Bloggg and everyone else who knows anything about autism is truly PO’ed with Michael Savage and his blithering blather.

Now, CNN’s two-thirds scale model of Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, has chimed in to prove he can be just as obnoxious and clueless.

The National Institutes of Health has a straight forward Autism Fact Sheet. If you read it, it becomes obvious that Mr. Savage has no idea what he is talking about, as usual. I realize that Savage and the troglodytes he hangs out with believe that the solution to all problems is the use of force, but the fact is, if you can talk to your child in an abusive manner, as Mr. Savage advocates, and the child responds, it isn’t autism, so sue your doctor, it’s the Republican way.

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Things might get a little squirrely around here this evening.  Your comments might not appear, or may disappear, but “Don’t Panic!”, simply have your towel available.

Just some testing, nothing to worry about, but you may want to avoid posting any really profound observations until later tonight.

Position: 25.1 N 96.0 W. [10 PM CDT] Updated
Movement: Northwest [310°] near 9 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 80 mph.
Wind Gusts: 95 mph.
Hurricane Wind Radius: 25 miles.
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 140 miles.
Minimum central pressure: 981 mb.

The storm is 110 miles East-Southeast of Brownsville, Texas.

There is a Hurricane Warning from Rio San Fernado, Mexico north to Corpus Christi, Texas centered on the US-Mexican border. The Tropical Storm Warning extends South to La Pesca, Mexico and North to San Luis Pass, Texas.

Position: 24.3 N 94.9 W. [1 PM CDT] Updated
Movement: Northwest [305°] near 10 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 70 mph.
Wind Gusts: 85 mph.
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 160 miles.
Minimum central pressure: 990 mb.

The storm is 195 miles Southeast of Brownsville, Texas.  The tropical storm winds will be felt on the coast in the next few hours, as the dangerous outer band which often generates tornadoes comes ashore.

There is a Hurricane Watch from Rio San Fernando, Mexico north to Corpus Christi, Texas centered on the US-Mexican border.  The Tropical Storm Watch extends South of that area to La Pesca, Mexico and North to San Luis Pass.

MSNBC reports on the loss:

HONOLULU – An Air Force B-52 bomber crashed off Guam on Monday morning, killing at least three airmen and leading to an intensive ocean search for the remaining three crew members, the military said.

Three vessels including a destroyer, three helicopters, two F-15 fighter jets and a Navy P-3 Orion aircraft based in Japan were involved in the search, which covered roughly 3,000 square miles of the Pacific, said Coast Guard spokesman Lt. John Titchen.
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The B-52 bomber was en route from Guam’s Andersen Air Force Base to conduct a flyover in a parade on another part of the island when it crashed around 9:45 a.m. Monday about 30 miles northwest of Apra Harbor, the Air Force said.
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You know all of the non-existent oil spills after Katrina, via WKW here’s a satellite photo.

The Pensacola Beach Blogger comes to the aid of the Geography Challenged.

If you think you’re tough, try beating this Aussie “teddy bear”.