Posts from — September 2008

The whole rest of the world is going to have had elections before the US election comes around. The latest is the election for the leader of the Kadima party in Israel. The BBC reports: Livni claims win in Israeli vote

Tzipi Livni has claimed victory in the contest to lead Israel’s ruling Kadima party with exit polls suggesting she had clear margin.

The foreign minister told supporters in a radio broadcast that “the good guys” had won after the ballot by members of the party.

However, BBC correspondents say the margin could be much narrower than earlier predicted.

[Read more →]

Found at MSNBC filed under “grass is green”: FEMA under fire again after Ike snafus

HOUSTON – Hurricane Katrina made them worthless feds in windbreakers, a four-letter agency for which some couldn’t find enough four-letter words. And in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, FEMA is again the easy target for displaced residents and frustrated local authorities.

“Where’s FEMA?” some evacuees have asked. Houston Mayor Bill White complained FEMA wasn’t bringing ice, water and meals fast enough, while the county administrator personally took over the coordination of efforts to hand out relief supplies.

This is just absurd. Houston area is not still under water. There is ready access to the area. There are communication facilities in place. What in hell is the problem? The problem is expecting people without electricity to go to a few centralized distribution points when gas isn’t readily available and they can’t be contacted by the same old media channels.

[Read more →]

You may not recognize the name, Norman Whitfield, but if you ever listened to Motown, you know his music:

Heard It Through The Grapevine
Too Busy Thinking About My Baby
Papa Was a Rolling Stone
War

He wrote the songs and produced the sounds that defined a segment of music that people who heard it will never forget.

Search engines say that people have been dropping by look for the closest point between Alaska and Russia.

Uelen [Уэлен] on the Chukotka Peninsula [Чукотский полуостров] of Russia [Россия] is the nearest inhabited mainland settlement to Wales on the Seward Peninsula at 61 miles [98 kilometers]. The ends of those peninsulas, Cape Dezhnyov [мыс Дежнёва] and Cape Prince of Wales are 51 miles [82 kilometers] apart.

The border in that area is a North-South line that passes midway between the two Diomede Islands. Big Diomede is Russian and Little Diomede is American. They are separated by 2.5 miles [4 kilometers] of water. The International Date Line follows the same line, so they are also separated by the calendar.

The same ethnic groups and animals live on both sides of this artificial Western construct known as a border. The Chukchis in Russia speak the same language, and use the same tools as the Chukchis in Alaska, only their second language is different.

Dr. Masters has another set of before and after pictures, this time of Gilchrist, Texas, which essentially no longer exists.

This time he is using photos from the Hurricane Ike Images of the National Geodetic Survey for the “after” images.

Steve Bates at Yellow Doggerel Democrat got power back after 4 days at 1:30PM CDT and is in recovery from Internet Withdrawal Syndrome.

I just saw this: Fed in AIG rescue – $85B loan

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — In an unprecedented move, the Federal Reserve Board is lending as much as $85 billion to rescue crumbling insurer American International Group, officials announced Tuesday evening.

The Fed authorized the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to lend AIG the funds. In return, the federal government will receive a 79.9% stake in the company.

Officials decided they had to act lest the nation’s largest insurer file bankruptcy. Such a move would roil world markets since AIG has $1.1 trillion in assets and 74 million clients in 130 countries.

An eventual liquidation of the company is most likely, senior Fed officials said. But with the government loan, the company won’t have to go through a tumultuous fire sale.

[Read more →]

Update: Here’s the vote on HR 6899.

CNN reports that the House OKs bill allowing more offshore oil drilling

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The House of Representatives on Tuesday night passed an energy bill clearing the way for more oil drilling off U.S. coasts, but not nearly as much as Republican leaders wanted.
The bill would expand offshore oil drilling, but not to the extent that many Republicans want.

The bill was passed by a vote of 236-189.

Many Republicans opposed the bill because it would allow new oil drilling only between 50 and 100 miles offshore. Republicans generally want to allow new drilling starting 3 miles from shore.

Republicans also objected to provisions repealing tax cuts for the oil industry and what they said was a lack of incentive for states to allow drilling on their land.

[Read more →]

Dr. Jeff Masters has a couple of photos from the Bolivar Peninsula and a link to the source.

The USGS took coastal pictures on September 9 to be used for a comparison to determine the damage caused by the storm. The arrows on the pictures are used to show that, yes, the pictures really are the same location because the Peninsula has been scrubbed nearly clear by the storm surge.

On the coast it is the surge, not the wind speed, that determines the damage. A full-blown Catergory 5 wind can’t do what a wall of water can do. Consider the difference between a leaf blower and a fire hose – which is going to knock you down?

Dr. Masters also looks at the rest of the season and essentially says we are in a lull, but it isn’t over.

Gulf Coast Music

Margaritaville
Crossroad
Born On The Bayou
Ma ‘Tit Fille
Freebird
La Grange
Texas Flood

Steve’s friend put up an update at 12:29PM and they are still without power, and Steve’s back-up plan to use dial-up on his laptop was also thwarted by the failure of the modem, so the IWS [Internet Withdrawal Syndrome] continues.

Everyone is bored, but at least a cold front moved through dropping the temperature at night down to 60° so they can sleep.

No word on when the power might be back, but power has been restored to a third of the Centerpoint customers, leaving 1.5 million still in the dark.

I’m not reasoned and impartial about this Randian idiot who was a major factor in the mess that is the current US economy.

The Houston Chronicle tells us that Greenspan questions McCain’s tax cut proposal

WASHINGTON — Alan Greenspan says the country can’t afford tax cuts of the magnitude proposed by Republican presidential contender John McCain — at least not without a corresponding reduction in government spending.

“Unless we cut spending, no,” the former Federal Reserve chairman said Friday when asked McCain’s proposed tax cuts, pegged in some estimates at $3.3 trillion.

“I’m not in favor of financing tax cuts with borrowed money,” Greenspan said during an interview with Bloomberg Television. “I always have tied tax cuts to spending.”

[Read more →]

When they said weeks, they weren’t kidding.

Market Watch has an article on Entergy power restoration status

Work continues to repair damage from Hurricane Gustav. As of 4 p.m. Monday, crews had restored power to 99 percent of the affected customers in Louisiana. Remaining damage to the transmission system from Gustav includes 15 lines and seven substations out of service.

That’s in addition to everything that happened during Hurricane Ike.

You can track the status of friends and relatives in the service area at the Entergy Storm Center.

[Read more →]

The Miami Herald reports that Florida pension fund, Citizens hold Lehman securities

The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, a prestigious Wall Street firm, will touch Florida’s pension funds and the state-run insurer because both hold its securities.

The State Board of Administration holds $322 million in Lehman stock and bonds. The SBA manages the state’s employee fund and more than two dozen other funds, including assets for the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund and the Florida Prepaid College Plan.

Dennis MacKee, a spokesman for the SBA, said the agency has an $84 million unrealized loss on its holdings.

Can you say “John Ellis ‘JEB’ Bush”? I thought you could.

[Read more →]