Posts from — July 2008

The BBC reports they have finally got him: Serbia captures fugitive Karadzic

“Radovan Karadzic was located and arrested tonight” by Serbian security officers, a statement by the office of President Boris Tadic said, without giving details.

“Karadzic was brought to the investigative judge of the War Crimes Court in Belgrade, in accordance with the law on cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia [ICTY].”

Unfortunately:

But Mr Karadzic’s wartime military leader, Ratko Mladic, remains at large.

Mladic may be at large, but he isn’t breathing freely any more, now that it is obvious that Serbian officials will really be looking for him.  They aren’t the only guilty parties by any stretch of the imagination, but they were among the worst.

From CNNMoney: Oil jumps $2 on Iran, storm

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Oil prices rebounded strongly Monday, following the largest four-day slide in trading history, as investors focused on a break down of negotiations with Iran, as well as Tropical Storm Dolly, which is making its way into the Gulf of Mexico.

Light, sweet crude oil for August delivery settled up $2.16 to $131.04 a barrel.

There was no break down in the talks, Iranian representatives have to talk to the Supreme Leader to see where he wants to go. Rice is running around screaming that the Iranians weren’t negotiating because they refused to cave in to US demands. Things don’t happen overnight in the real world unless the real leaders are talking face to face. If Ms Rice organizes a meeting between the Shrubbery and the Ayatollah, then decisions could be immediate.

The tropical storm just illustrates the problem of off shore drilling in hurricane areas. Mexico’s most productive field is shut down again, and some US rigs will probably follow suit.

Position: 23.1 N 92.8 W. [10 PM CDT] Updated
Movement: West [280°] near 17 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 50 mph.
Wind Gusts: 65 mph.
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 200 miles.
Minimum central pressure: 999 mb.

The storm is in the Gulf of Mexico,320 miles East of La Pesca, Mexico.

There is a Hurricane Warning from Rio San Fernando, Mexico north to Port O’Connor, Texas centered on the US-Mexican border.

Dr. Masters sees Dolly as a significant threat.

Dolly’s pressure has been dropping and it’s wind is expanding.  A 400 mile section of the coast is subject to tropical storm force winds.

Over at CBS I saw this article, Brazil Official’s Nazi Jab Makes Waves, with a sub-head “Brazil Foreign Minister Compares Rich Nations To Nazi Propaganda Chief” and I wondered what was going on.

It turns out, not a whole lot more that the US trying to avoid responsibility.

…Brazil’s foreign minister said rich countries’ deception in trade talks reminded him of tactics used by Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels… “Goebbels used to say if you repeat a lie several times it becomes a truth.”

I had to piece that together because it is spread out all over the article, apparently to prevent people from figuring out the context and meaning.

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I already mentioned that Steve Bates was called for jury duty, then I read that Jim Yeager and both Thers & Molly were called for the past week.

I live in a small town, in a sparsely populated county and I’ve never been called with anyone I knew even vaguely, so having three people I sort of know get called for courts all over the country was a little weird.

None of them served, but then what lawyer wants a DFH on a jury?

Position: 19.6 N 85.8 W. [10 PM CDT] Updated
Movement: Northwest [305°] near 14 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 50 mph.
Wind Gusts: 65 mph.
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 175 miles.
Minimum central pressure: 1007 mb.

The storm is 95 miles Southeast of Cozumel, Mexico on the Yucatan Peninsula. The current consensus is that after passing over the Yucatan on Monday Dolly will re-strengthen in the Bay of Campeche and become a cat 1 hurricane before it smacks the Gulf Coast around the Texas-Mexico border.

Bertha has been reclassified as extra-tropical after winning all of the longevity awards for hurricanes and tropical storms in July.

Cristobal continues on the same course which has taken the storm away from the coast on its way North.

Thank you Global War On Terror™‽

Position: 34.5 N 76.4 W. [10 AM CDT]
Movement: Northeast [040°] near 7 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 50 mph.
Wind Gusts: 65 mph.
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 115 miles.
Minimum central pressure: 1007 mb.

The storm is 15 miles East-Southeast of Cape Lookout, North Carolina and 70 miles Southwest of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina moving parallel to the coast.

The Eagle landing module of Apollo 11 landed in Mare Tranquillitatis (Sea of Tranquility – 0.67 N, 23.47 E) on the Moon, 20 July 1969 at 20:17:40 UTC (15:17:40 CDT).

Día de la Independencia
República de Colombia

¡Viva Colombia!

The suspense is over for absurdly-priced caffeine freaks: Starbucks names all 600 stores to be closed

… California will now lose 88 stores with two each in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and 10 in San Diego.

If you had lived in San Diego you would understand.

Actually they are closing half the stores in my county, and I don’t know why they didn’t close the other one. It’s only a block from a Whataburger, and there aren’t enough people in the county willing to spend an hour’s wages on a cup of coffee to justify it.  The old money drinks sweet tea and the working class goes to Tom Thumb.

CBSNews.com producer David Morgan actually does some fact checking: “Not One Drop Of Oil Spilled”? Not Quite

… As former Sen. Trent Lott told MSNBC on Tuesday, “We didn’t have one drop of oil spilt when we had the biggest hurricane in, you know, recent history, Hurricane Katrina.”

Former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark., also told Fox News on June 27, “When Katrina, a Cat-5 hurricane, hit the Gulf Coast, not one drop of oil was spilled off of those rigs out in the Gulf of Mexico. So we know that the technology to drill offshore is extraordinarily safe and environmentally friendly. And it’s not something that we have to be as worried about as we do a refinery on shore or some other type of issue.”

Newspaper columnists and editorial boards also jumped on the “not one drop” bandwagon. The Wall Street Journal published an editorial on June 12 saying, “Hurricanes Katrina and Rita flattened terminals across the Gulf of Mexico but didn’t cause a single oil spill.”

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Oil is still dropping according to an article on CBS: Analysts Ponder If Oil Bubble’s Burst

Light, sweet crude for August delivery fell 41 cents Friday to settle at $128.88 on the New York Mercantile Exchange – well below its trading record of more than $147 a week earlier.

The average price of a gallon of regular gas fell about a penny for the day, to $4.105 according to auto club AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express. Diesel prices dipped three-tenths of a cent to $4.842 a gallon.

So, oil comes down over $18/barrel while gas drops a penny. Not only that but:

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Position: 33.7 N 77.4 W. [1 AM CDT] Updated
Movement: Northeast [030°] near 6 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 45 mph.
Wind Gusts: 55 mph.
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 85 miles.
Minimum central pressure: 1007 mb.

Currently 35 miles East-Southeast of Cape Fear, North Carolina moving parallel with the coast.