Posts from — February 2009

CNN announces: Canada geese brought Flight 1549 down, NTSB says

Adult Canada geese weigh between 5.8 and 10.7 pounds, although birds from resident populations rather than migratory populations can be heavier.

The plane’s CFM56-5B/P turbofan engines were certified in 1996 as being able to withstand bird ingestion of 4 pounds.

The NTSB said last week that both engines contained the remains of birds, confirming the pilots’ report that the engines shut down after colliding with birds less than two minutes after taking off from from New York’s LaGuardia Airport.

It’s time for a Northern Anti-Goose System. It will create jobs and stimulate the economy, I know NAGS always keep me away.

According to the BBC: Another Obama cabinet pick quits

Republican US Senator Judd Gregg is withdrawing as President Barack Obama’s nominee for commerce secretary.

Mr Gregg made the decision because of policy differences with the Obama administration, he said in a statement.

Obama just doesn’t get it – bipartisanship means doing it the GOP’s way. They bent over backward to accommodate Gregg, including guaranteeing that a Repub would replace him in the Senate, and then he sticks in the shiv. If Gregg didn’t want the job, or didn’t like the policies, he could have turned it down immediately. This was about screwing up the process and embarrassing Obama. What, did it take until today for Gregg to figure out that Obama was elected as a Democrat?

CNN writes that Louisiana governor to give high-profile GOP response to Obama.

This will be the response to the State of the Union address, and has nothing to do with the campaign that Bobby Jindal is not running.

Fortunately this takes place on a state holiday, so Bobby won’t miss work to deal with it. What state holiday? Mardi Gras! Personally I think Ash Wednesday would be more representative of the State of the Union than Fat Tuesday. I doubt many people will be thinking: Laissez les bon temps rouler!

The CBC is reporting that U.S.-based Sirius XM said close to bankruptcy filing. They are trying for a Chapter 11 to restructure their debt load which is absurd.

Maybe giving Howard Stern $ 100 mill wasn’t such a great idea.

This is too bad if they go down the tubes, because they were the only way to escape from Clear Channel in many areas.

The latest from ABC.

The short version: There are still about 30 fires burning, but all but a dozen are contained, and all will hopefully be completely under control before next week which is forecast to have a couple of days of dry lightning before the next heat wave on Wednesday.

The two people who were picked up yesterday were probably “disaster tourists” as they have been released. [I would chain them to a tree if they were so interested in disasters. I really hate sightseers at disasters.]

Not very far off the record officials believe that the death toll, which is still at 181, will be 300+ in the end.

An informational note for all of the anxious people who want to return to their property in the devastated areas: They won’t admit it, but it is a lot easier to shoot looters when the only people allowed to be in the area are military, police, and firemen. The unspoken rules of engagement are – no uniform = looter. This is a lot easier than explaining the laws of arrest to the military. We do this in the US, and it doesn’t take long for looters and “disaster tourists” to understand they are in a very high risk profession. Keep in mind that many of these destroyed areas are murder scenes if the fires were arson. Looters aren’t just stealing stuff, they are removing evidence.

Two hundred years ago on this date two men were born in very different circumstances but managed to significantly affect their worlds.

One was born into a well-to-family in Shropshire, England and was afforded all of the advantages of education and leisure, but he chose to wander the world in search of knowledge and managed to formulate a theory that is basic to understanding life on earth. That was Charles Darwin.

On the same day as son was born into a less than prosperous farm family in Kentucky who was able to receive barely any formal education, and had to work hard to put food on the table. He educated himself, and became a lawyer and politician. That was Abraham Lincoln.

Both have suffered for being both praised and cursed for thoughts they did not have, and for having the thoughts and ideas they did have distorted by both friends and enemies.

They have achieved the only immortally anyone can really expect, people still remember their names, even if many are a bit fuzzy about what they actually did.

The Westminster Dog Show just ended and Stump the Sussex spaniel named best in show

At 10, a Sussex spaniel called Stump became the oldest best in show winner at America’s top canine competition, coming out of retirement last week and taking the big prize Tuesday night.

Sussex spaniels look like sawed-off Irish setters, but let’s hear it for the old guy!

The latest updates from the ABC and the BBC. There are still a dozen fires that are out of control, but progress is being made in anticipation of higher wind conditions next week. There has been some rain which will help, and scrub the air a bit.

There are still jerks in this world:

Arsonists struck in north-east Victoria overnight, diverting crews from blazes that have already contributed to the worst bushfire disaster in the state’s history.

Two fires were lit at Stanley near Beechworth, but crews managed to extinguish them before they could cause any major damage or exacerbate the threat to local communities. It is understood police have a description of a car seen in the vicinity of the fires and are searching for two people.

The death toll is expected to raise, easily over 200 as crews are beginning to inspect damaged and destroyed buildings, with at least a hundred people still carried as missing in Marysville alone. To really be over there would need to be a week of soaking rains that would put out the existing fires and reduce the chance of another fire starting as easily.

Having seen puddles from alloy wheels in some of the pictures, I did some research. Aluminum melts at +660° C while iron melts at +1535° C. The temperature of the fire in that area would have been above 1200° F. As anyone who has ever camped out can tell you, you don’t get those kinds of temperatures from a standard campfire. That’s what the wind does in a wildfire, it acts like a bellows in a forge.

losing the war. The results of yesterday’s election in Israel are trickling in and, based on exit polls, it looks like a last minute surge may allow Kadima to claim a victory over Likud. The BBC article, Israeli rivals claim election win, explains the problem: the order of finish would appear to be Kadima, Likud, Yisrael Beitenu, and Labor, and Kadima only won 30 seats, 25% of the 120 member Knesset.

Likud claimed victory based on the combined seats of Likud and Yisrael Beitenu being larger than Kadima and Labor, but it will be a major juggling match for anyone to form a government with the vote this fractured.

I caught myself making a stupid assumption about Australia regarding geography. It is in the Southern Hemisphere and the directional norms for North and South are reversed, i.e. the climate is colder the further South you go, and warmer the further North.

Melbourne on the South coast would be like Richmond, Virginia, while Darwin on the North coast is like Managua, Nicaragua. The Tropic of Capricorn runs through the center of the continent, while it’s northern counterpart, the Tropic of Cancer, runs through the center of Mexico, and divides Cuba from Florida.

To get an appreciation for the recent heat wave, think about 115° in central Virginia.

From Juan Cole, the misinformation of CNN’s NBC’s Chuck Todd.

[Some days the posts write themselves. I thought the picture was funny, and the next click gave me the context to justify the bandwidth.]

The latest for this morning: 181 confirmed dead, 3,000 square kilometers [1200 miles²] and over 900 homes destroyed. No word on the loss of pets, stock, and wildlife.

There are more than 30 fires still burning and the wind from the South is starting to rise. Unfortunately this is far from over.

Jack, Grumpy Forester who has been on the lines fighting wildfires, adds some perspective [which I missed yesterday {stupid caching}].

CNN has a piece on something that has been going on for years: In rural Alaska villages, families struggle to survive

… In many stores, two pounds of cheese costs between $15 and $18, milk costs $10 a gallon, a five-pound bag of apples costs $15, and a dozen eggs costs $22 — more than double the price in the area just two years ago.
…

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, asked the Bureau of Indian Affairs to step in and help the towns most in need.

“I find it ironic, tragically ironic, that it takes an economic downturn in the rest of the country for this Congress to consider an economic stimulus for Indian Country,” she said during a Senate Committee on Indian Affairs economic stimulus hearing.

I find it immensely hypocritical for Lisa Murkowski to complain about a lack of stimulus for “Indian Country” when she voted today not to end the debate on the stimulus package in the Senate, and voted to remove stimulus funds for the states from that bill. Exactly how much help does she think these people will get from tax cuts? She is one of the people in “this Congress” who are blocking assistance to Native Alaskans and the rest of country.

More than I have long expected, based on this rising political star in Israel.

The BBC profiles an ever more powerful whacko: “Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, has emerged as one of Israel’s most controversial politicians.”

This guy, a former Modovan night club bouncer, will probably get a ministerial post in the next Israeli government.

Voting takes place on Tuesday to decide which minority party of right wing crazies gets to block any possibility of peace in the Middle East.