Posts from — September 2008

No one wants Ike to hit them, but that means it hits someone else because it still hasn’t started a turn to the North and its headed into the Gulf after smashing through the Turks and Caicos Islands, the lower Bahamas and Cuba.

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Position: 40.5 N 73.4 W. [10 PM CDT]
Movement: Northeast [050°] near 30 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 60 mph.
Wind Gusts: 70 mph.
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 200 miles.
Minimum central pressure: 992 mb.

It is 90 miles West-Southwest of the eastern tip of Long Island.

Hanna came ashore at about 2:20 AM CDT near the South/North Carolina border.

Position: 21.2 N 70.9 W. [10 PM CDT]
Movement: West-Southwest [255°] near 15 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 135 mph.
Wind Gusts: 160 mph.
Hurricane Wind Radius: 45 miles.
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 140 miles.
Minimum central pressure: 947 mb.

It is near the Turks and Caicos Islands.

It is not looking good for Cuba after Ike finishes with the Bahamas.

Ike is back to Category 4 at 4 PM.

Position: 16.8 N 36.9 W. [4 AM CDT]
Movement: West-Northwest [295°] near 7 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 30 mph.
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 105 miles.
Minimum central pressure: 1007 mb.

It is 855 miles West of the Cape Verde Islands.

It has weakened under persistent wind shear to a remnant low.

From the Sun-Sentinel weather blog: Keys orders mandatory evacuation of visitors

As Hurricane Ike maintains a course toward the Florida Keys, officials in the island chain this afternoon ordered a mandatory evacuation of visitors beginning at 9 a.m. Saturday.

A phased evacuation of all residents begins Sunday at 8 a.m.

Times and regions are as follows:

• Lower Keys and Key West: 8 a.m.;
• Middle Keys including Marathon: Noon;
• Upper Keys including Key Largo, Islamorada and mainland Monroe County: 4 p.m.

The recent shift in the track of Hurricane Ike makes this necessary.

From Dr. Jeff Masters we learn: The U.S. is getting pummeled this hurricane season

With hurricane season less than half over, it’s clear that the U.S. is taking an unusually harsh beating this year. Already, we’ve had two Category 2 hurricanes (Dolly and Gustav), two strong tropical storms (Edouard and Fay), and now a third strong tropical storm or Category 1 hurricane (Hanna). Hanna is the fifth consecutive named storm to hit the U.S., tying a record. The other years this happened (kudos to NOAA’s Ryan Sharp for compiling this):

2004 (Frances, Gaston, Hermine, Ivan, and Jeanne)
2002 (Edouard, Fay, Gustav, Hanna, and Isidore)
1985 (Gloria, Henri, Isabel, Juan, and Kate)
1979 (Bob, Claudette, David, Elena, and Frederic)
1971 (Doria, Edith, Fern, Ginger, Heidi)

There’s good chance that Ike will make it six consecutive strikes.

Is this where we start chanting USA! USA!

In the late 1980’s or early 90’s I got conned by a friend into doing some work at an attorney’s office. My contract when working for attorneys affords them fewer rights than the Microsoft End User License Agreement, essentially saying I will show up, they will pay me every time I show up, they have no expectation of anything actually happening as the result of my showing up. I am not interested in having definition arguments or law suits, so I avoid working for attorneys.

One of the partners at the firm was a woman who collected female attorney jokes. She may have been planning a book, or was just weird. In SoCal both are possibilities.

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Position: 33.3 N 78.8 W. [1 AM CDT]
Movement: North-Northeast [015°] near 21 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 70 mph.
Wind Gusts: 85 mph.
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 260 miles.
Minimum central pressure: 983 mb.

It is 30 miles south of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and 60 miles Southwest of Wilmington, North Carolina, just offshore.

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Position: 22.5 N 66.1 W. [1 AM CDT]
Movement: West-Southwest [255°] near 16 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 115 mph.
Wind Gusts: 140 mph.
Hurricane Wind Radius: 45 miles.
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 120 miles.
Minimum central pressure: 962 mb.

It is about 330 miles East-Northeast of Grand Turk island.

Tropical Depression Josephine
Position: 16.3 N 35.8 W. [10 PM CDT]
Movement: West-Northwest [295°] near 7 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 35 mph.
Wind Gusts: 45 mph.
Minimum central pressure: 1006 mb.

It is 785 miles West of the Cape Verde Islands.

It has been downgraded.

Dot-ing Eyes

You have to sleep sometime.

[Editor: I haven’t taken a picture of Dot is some time because she was very slow to recover from an infection and I haven’t wanted to stress her. Well, she has been beating up the other cats for a week and looks much better. Yes, I had to use the flash, because my place is dark. I have excellent night vision, and lighting increases the cost of air conditioning. The camera is the only thing that wants a lot of light.]

Friday Ark

Alaska is and isn’t what you think. It is one of the most confounding places on earth. I know of no other location where libertarian-communist could describe someone, but they can be found in Alaska. It is the most and least sexist state in the Union, the most and least patriotic, the most and least liberal or conservative. Understand that I am not talking about shades of difference, grays, I’m talking about a place where most things is black or white, but at the same time.

Maurice Robert “Mike” Gravel is an excellent example. First off, he’s weird, OK? He is apt to do almost anything, but among the those things are some really good things, like including the Pentagon Papers in the Congressional Record while the Nixon administration was blocking their publication.

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The BBC reports Canada primed for snap election

Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper may be preparing to call an early general election, reports suggest.

Parliament is due to reconvene after its summer break on 15 September, but correspondents believe Mr Harper will call for an election on Sunday.

His Conservative Party was elected in 2006, but does not have an overall majority and has clashed with the opposition on a number of key issues.

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You know that sinister 527 that Governor Palin was a founding member of and shows her links to Alaska’s corrupt Senator?

According to the IRS filing Ted Stevens Excellence in Public Service Inc, question 12. Describe the purpose of the organization:

To increase the number of Republican women in elected offices and in appointed governmental and political positions, including advisory and regulatory commissions through training and education.

How totally underhanded and creepy that a Republican woman politician would be part of a group that trains Republican women to enter politics, just like the Emerge programs for Democratic women in many states as noted by Rutgers in their list of Recruitment and Training Programs for Women Candidates . </sarcasm>

There was a time when liberals did research.

Update: If you think I’m being harsh read Stirling Newberry: The mishandling of Sarah Palin.