Posts from — August 2008

[Map from the BBC]

It would appear that Russia wants more than a “Kosovo solution” according to BBC reporting: Russian troops in Georgia advance

Russian troops have entered Georgia from the breakaway region of Abkhazia, as the conflict between the two neighbours appears to be broadening.

Moscow said it had launched a raid on the town of Senaki to stop Georgia from attacking Russian forces in South Ossetia, another breakaway region.

And Georgia says Russian troops have captured the town of Gori in central Georgia – a claim denied by Moscow.
…

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Let’s say you are a black family from Chicago and you really need a vacation.  Your choices are Hawaii and South Carolina – which would you choose?

Now we’ll add that you have family in Hawaii and the father spent a major portion of his childhood, and graduated from high school there and that his grandmother, who raised him, is 85 and in failing health.

Of course, if they choose South Carolina, Gramma wouldn’t mind.  She would tell everyone she knew several times a day how she didn’t mind that they chose not to visit her.

I guess if you are a clueless Washington pundit who has no concept about how families actually work, you might believe that the Obamas had a choice.

The BBC reports that the Invisibility cloak ‘step closer’

Scientists in the US say they are a step closer to developing materials that could render people invisible.

Researchers at the University of California in Berkeley have developed a material that can bend light around 3D objects making them “disappear”.

The materials do not occur naturally but have been created on a nano scale, measured in billionths of a metre.

If you can make the objects disappear, then you could say you built them and covered them with an invisibility cloak, while you don’t actually bother to build them.

They’ll have to install horns inside military vehicles that are triggered by a remote or no one will be able to find their tank.

Hipparchia discovered that Jeff Miller (R-FL01) is running a poll on the left sidebar of his official website on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.  Please go over and say NO!  The sea turtles, dolphins, greedy real estate speculators, and US Military will thank you.

Despite being the Congresscritter for the Florida Panhandle he doesn’t mention that leasing the area off the Panhandle will

• Produce no results at all for at least a decade;
• Oil companies are under no obligation to sell anything found to the US;
• The sight of oil platforms reduces the value of coastal property, and endangers the area’s tourism attractiveness;
• The presence of oil platforms will bar the military from using the area for training and testing missions, endangering the status of Eglin Air Force Base;
• Another visit by an Opal or Ivan will guarantee an oil spill, as happened after Katrina.

Drilling in the Gulf, if the most optimistic of estimates is true and the oil is sold in the US, will not affect the price of gas by more than a few cents a gallon. Properly inflating your tires and performing routine maintenance on your vehicle is more that twice as effective as the drilling at reducing your cost of gas, and you can start saving money immediately, ask any mechanic.

So now they think they might want to study the concept of barn doors: Army reviews security at anthrax lab

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Army has created a team of medical and other military experts to review security measures at the research laboratory where the scientist linked to the anthrax mailings worked.

Army Secretary Pete Geren has asked at least a dozen military and civilian officials to scrutinize safety procedures, quality controls and other policies and practices at the biodefense lab at Fort Detrick, Maryland, Army spokesman Paul Boyce said Friday.

To date, the Army has offered no explanation for how its biosecurity system, which is set up to catch mentally troubled workers, failed to flag scientist Bruce Ivins for years. Ivins, the microbiologist accused of sending anthrax-laced letters in 2001 that killed five people, committed suicide last week as the FBI began closing in on him.

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Apparently the latest installment of Olympics, Inc. has begun.  I can’t get excited as I never got into professional sports with the uniforms covered in logos.

Any resemblance to the 1936 Nazi extravaganza is purely genetic, the Chinese hired Albert Speer Jr. to oversee their production.  Monumental architecture and nationalism never seemed to me to be a convincing stage for “friendly competition”.

John Edwards is in trouble because he had an affair a couple of years ago and the only person he admitted it to was his wife.  I fail to see why this is any of my business.  He isn’t a government licensed marriage counselor the last time I looked, and a private partnership agreement, like marriage, isn’t any of my concern.

The media say he lied about it.  I wonder, if after 7½ years of the lies of the Hedgemony, the media would believe that anyone bothers to tell them the truth. They lied about Edwards in 2004 and when he was running for the Democratic nomination, so why should they expect he owed them the truth.

I don’t remember the media making a big deal out of Reagan being the first divorced President, or the escapades of John McCain, so why is this considered news?

Even later on Friday night, the Whole Foods supplier decides to recall: Nebraska Beef recalls 1.2 million pounds of beef

OMAHA, Neb. – Nebraska Beef Ltd. is recalling 1.2 million pounds of beef because the products may be contaminated with E. coli bacteria.

The recall comes a month after the Omaha-based company recalled 5.3 million pounds of meat that has been linked to at least 49 cases of E. coli.

Neither the company’s spokesman nor Department of Agriculture officials immediately responded to calls about the recall after a news release was issued late Friday night.

The second month in a row should indicate that Nebraska Beef has a major problem they are not fixing.

Found on MSNBC with a 5:02 PM time stamp: Whole Foods recalling possibly tainted beef

WASHINGTON – Whole Foods Market is recalling fresh ground beef sold between June 2 through Aug. 6 because the beef might be contaminated with E. coli bacteria.

The company has received reports that seven people in Massachusetts and two people in Pennsylvania who shopped at Whole Foods Market became ill, said spokeswoman Libba Letton.

Letton said the company’s recalled beef was processed at the Nebraska Beef plant linked to the E. coli outbreak this summer. Federal health authorities say there have been 49 confirmed illnesses tied to that outbreak.

Even stores with their own butchers aren’t safe from the contagion. There should be a mandatory pasturing law, at least two weeks before slaughter, before more people end up in hospitals. Food inspections by emergency room doctors is not a very efficient system.

Fallenmonk is in Britain for a wedding.

Keith et al. of Invisible Library are moving to a more permanent location in Oregon.

PZ Myers of Pharyngula is off to the Galapagos.

‘Noz of Rubber Hose is in Israel.

I’m still hanging around the filming location for Jaws 2. [Actually, Choctawhatchee Bay is 2 blocks away to the East, while the Bayou is a block North.]

A Music Break

What Condition My Condition Is In
The Sounds of Silence
Paint It Black
Purple Haze
Nights in White Satin
Whiter Shade of Pale
Eve of Destruction

Steven Eke, BBC News Russian affairs analyst, has a compact background piece, South Ossetia bitterness turns to conflict

Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili has called upon his country to “mobilise” in the face of “a very blunt Russian aggression”.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow had reports of “ethnic cleansing” in villages.

Russian tanks have reportedly moved towards the capital of the region, which has been under heavy bombardment from Georgian forces.

South Ossetia is a territory one-and-a-half times that of Luxembourg, with an estimated population of some 70,000 people.

It is legally part of Georgia, since its self-proclaimed independence has been recognised by no other state, including Russia.

Yet its people and their separatist leaders do not want to be part of the Georgian state, in any shape or form.

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I give you NewsBuiscuit and Four horseman of the Apocalypse split; ‘Pestilence to go solo’.

I was looking for something related that I will explain after I drain off some of the anger.

Summertime

It’s too hot to move.

[Editor: This juvenile tabby feral has found some shaded concrete to wait out sundown by my neighbor’s front door.]

Friday Ark

FYI: I came across a site that puts out FDA food recall notices.

They were the source for the first recall for Massachusetts: Massachusetts Firm Recalls Chicken Due To Listeria

WASHINGTON, Aug. 5, 2008 – DBC, Inc., doing business as World Class Canapes, Inc., a Wilmington, Mass., firm, is recalling approximately 285 pounds of ready-to-eat chicken products that may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service announced today.

The following products are subject to recall: 80-ounce cases of “Progressive Gourmet Buffalo Chicken Roller Sandwich,” Each package bears the establishment number “EST. P-31566” inside the USDA mark of inspection, as well as a “SELL BY” date of “8/2/08” and Case Code of “8500WRAS.” 80-ounce cases of “Progressive Gourmet Chicken Caesar Roller Sandwich.” Each package bears the establishment number “EST. P-31566” inside the USDA mark of inspection, as well as a “SELL BY” date of “8/2/08” and Case Code of “8500WRCA.” 80-ounce cases of “Progressive Gourmet Honey Turkey w/Baby Spinach Roller Sandwich.” Each package bears the establishment number “EST. P-31566” inside the USDA mark of inspection, as well as a “SELL BY” date of “8/2/08” and Case Code of “8500WRTU.”

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