Obviously, people think I’m kidding or out of touch.

Fine, read Joe Trippi: Don’t LOL. Palin Pick Is About Taking On Washington — Not About Gender.

How about Digby’s piece on the Maverick Mom.

At Corrente, Chicago Dyke thinks Palin: A Dangerous and Intelligent Choice.

At Shakeville, Zuzu writes about Doing Karl Rove’s work for him.

When you frame all politics that involve women as somehow being connected to Hillary Clinton, and the Democratic Party, you are being willingly blind. Here’s a news flash – some women vote Republican and McCain wants all the votes he can get.

This is how bad it has gotten:

“Let me be as clear as possible,” Obama said. “I think people’s families are off-limits, and people’s children are especially off-limits. This shouldn’t be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin’s performance as governor or her potential performance as a vice president.”

Obama said reporters should “back off these kinds of stories” and noted that he was born to an 18-year-old mother.

“How a family deals with issues and teenage children, that shouldn’t be the topic of our politics, and I hope that anybody who is supporting me understands that’s off-limits.”

This is why he wants to control the message, because the “progressive” bloggers are really hurting his chances of being elected. Keep up the misogyny and see how you like President McCain. Hillary supporters were never going to vote for McCain in any significant numbers, but keep this up and they may not vote at all.

Come on, of course US 98 on Okaloosa Island is under water and sand again. It always happens when there’s a hurricane within 200 miles of us. After the water goes down and they scrap off the sand, they can see if it’s been washed out…again.

You didn’t want to go to Destin anyway.

Position: 18.0 N 41.6 W. [10 PM CDT]
Movement: West [275°] near 14 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 50 mph.
Wind Gusts: 65 mph.
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 115 miles.
Minimum central pressure: 1000 mb.

It is about 1330 miles East of the Leeward Islands.

Have I mentioned that this is the busy part of the Hurricane Season?

The former Invest 97L that became Tropical Depression Nine has become a tropical storm.

People forget that New Orleans “dodged the bullet” with Katrina, the levees didn’t start failing until after the storm had passed to the East. It will be this afternoon before anything definitive is known about the surge, because the water is moving at a different rate.

It’s 9:25AM CDT and I’m about 200 miles to the East of New Orleans. The edge of the storm just moved to the West, and an odd phenomenon that I believe is called “the sun” has appeared. The winds are gusty, but the clouds are moving to the West.

Update: I spoke too soon. Just after Noon local a tornado was reported just East of me on Eglin Air Force Base. The Tornado Watch is scheduled to continue until 4PM local [CDT].

Position: 21.8 N 72.5 W. [10 PM CDT]
Movement: Nearly Stationary
Maximum sustained winds: 80 mph.
Wind Gusts: 95 mph.
Hurricane Wind Radius: 70 miles.
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 175 miles.
Minimum central pressure: 978 mb.

It is near the Caicos Islands waiting for a steering current.

[10 AM] Hanna is getting its act together and strengthening. It may actually be stronger than shown, but the forecasters are awaiting the arrival of a Hurricane Hunter aircraft shortly before making a major changes.

[12:30 AM] The pressure dropped like a rock and it spun up. A very nasty surprise for the Bahamas.

Position: 31.1 N 92.7 W. [10 PM CDT]
Movement: Northwest [315°] near 13 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 60 mph.
Wind Gusts: 70 mph.
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 115 miles.
Minimum central pressure: 978 mb.

It is 20 miles Southwest of Alexandria, Louisiana.

Landfall was near Cocodrie, Louisiana at about 9:30 AM CDT. It was about 70 miles Southwest of New Orleans.

It is coming ashore as a strong Category 2, having never been able to overcome the weakening of the passage over Cuba. It still a large storm affecting over 450 miles of the coast as it enters the Louisiana Coast, the the integrity of the NOLA levees is still to be determined.

It’s Labor Day in the US, even though the reason the rest of the world celebrates it on May Day was an American event.

It was the last day before the start of school when I was a child, but school starts in early August around here.

Gustav has put a big damper on what few activities that did take place most years on Labor Day, which had nothing to do with labor because everyone seems to accept that “labor” is a bunch of anarchist pinkos down here.

If you actually have activities, enjoy.