Posts from — February 2009

I’m sorry, but the guy from Frankfurt who is attempting to phish for Amazon account information really needs to do more research. All real Amazon mail starts with a recommendation that you buy something. If Amazon was in charge of the tsunami alert system they would recommend that you download a copy of Treading Water for Dummies to your Kindle, before they mentioned that a 30-foot wall of water would arrive in the next 15 minutes. More and better research is required.

For the group in Kansas that sent me a piece of literature suggesting that the Earth doesn’t actually move in an orbit around the Sun, and that this is just a “scientific theory” that ignores ancient writings and witnesses, I would suggest a couple of high school geometry classes as a starting point, because you aren’t nearly ready for a physics course. Putting them in print with color and graphics doesn’t make your concepts any less wrong. Really, go have a lie down and take your medication on a regular schedule.

The latest figures are 166 confirmed dead, and 740 homes destroyed with a more than a dozen fires still raging.

The wind is expected to increase which will spread the fires by sending embers airborne over fire lines. The fires are fueled by pines and eucalyptus which are both resinous and often “explode” in fires. Experienced campers often carry pine heartwood to start campfires because it lights readily and burns hot enough to dry out damp wood.

If you look at the pictures you will see brick structures with metal roofs gutted, as the fire was hot enough to ignite the roof trusses under the corrugated panels. Structures built that way would have been highly resistant to a fire threat in normal conditions, but the continuing drought and extremely high temperatures in the South, which is not normally the hottest area of the continent, dried out the timbers and made them vulnerable.

Authorities expect the death toll will be over 200, with hundreds of seriously injured people filling area hospitals.

Links:
ABC Main Bushfire Page with an updated map at the bottom
Wikipedia’s 2009 Victorian bushfires page that is constantly updated.

If you are cleaning up ash as a result of the bushfires, you should read this post from a while ago: Cleaning Up.

Wood ash is some nasty stuff and should be respected. I didn’t specifically say it, but I hope people realize that the last thing you want to do is to use a leaf blower on it. It can do serious damage to your lungs.

I came across this on CNet: Congressman Twitters secret trip to Iraq

For security reasons, the congressional delegation led by House Minority Leader John Boehner to Iraq today was supposed to be secret. Everything had been going fine in that regard. Even media outlets that knew of the trip, like the Congressional Quarterly, kept a lid on the news.

That was, until Representative Peter Hoekstra Twittered his arrival into Baghdad. “Just landed in Baghdad. I believe it may be first time I’ve had bb service in Iraq. 11 th trip here,” he sent from his Blackberry.

This is the guy, the Ranking Member [senior Republican] on the House committee on Intelligence, and he doesn’t know anyone can read a Twitter feed.

And people wonder why we can’t catch bin Laden […heads off mumbling and shaking his head.]

It’s the Times Picayune with the continuing saga of Bobby Jindal not running for President, this time in Arkansas

On Saturday morning, Jindal will attend the “Wal-Mart Morning Meeting” at the Walton Life Fitness Center in Bentonville, Ark., and he will thank Wal-Mart leaders for their assistance to Louisiana during the hurricanes that have struck the state in the last four years.
…

Jindal held two fundraising events in North Carolina on Wednesday. In recent months Jindal has held fundraisers in Florida, Texas, Connecticut and Mississippi.

He just visited Iowa, and hasn’t stopped by New Hampshire yet, so he can’t be running for President, and he doesn’t seem to be spending a whole lot of time running the government of Louisiana.

This is Australian Broadcasting’s Main Bushfire Page.

Update: Australia’s worst bushfire disaster

The death toll from horrific bushfires across Victoria this weekend has reached 96, surpassing the number of people who perished in the 1983 Ash Wednesday blazes.

More than 700 homes have been lost in what is being described as ‘Hell on Earth’, and it is feared the death toll will pass 100.
…

Twenty-six fires continue to burn across Victoria; 12 of those are out of control. Authorities suspect arsonists are responsible for some fires.

The Kinglake Complex blaze continues to burn out of control and so far has burnt through more than 220,000 hectares [850 miles²].

Wikipedia has a current event page up: 2009 Victorian bushfires.

Maps: Busy, but good idea of how many fires there are, also useful links in the left sidebar.

Here’s a cleaner view based on official reporting that is updated. The green tags for “safe” areas are usually due to the lack of anything else to burn.
[Read more →]

When first we practice to deceive!¹

Who conceived of this affront to governance and logic. We are faced with the GOPression, which is on track to be worst then the Depression unless reasoned and competent action is taken, and taken quickly, and the choice of the powers that be to lead the rescue is the gang of four mediocrities.

Three lawyers and a Senate staffer, that is the employment history of this group prior to public office. None of them is on either the Senate committees on Banking or Finance, although three of the four are on Appropriations. Two Republicans, a Democrat, and an Independent, when the Democrats are in the majority? Maine, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Nebraska – are there no members from the South, Midwest, or West available? The single Democrat is 60^th in Senate seniority, was no one else available?

The result they are discussing is a disaster. People should start looking for sturdy boxes to live in, because these people just don’t understand what is happening.

After the fold I have a couple of graphics that lay out the problem in terms even Senators should be able to understand.

[Read more →]

Update: The Australian fires have claimed lives: More than 40 feared dead, 100 homes lost in Victorian fires. The winds picked up and shifted, flanking the fire lines.

Not so bad here, since the wind shifted and the temperature jumped up to normal.

OTOH, it has been snowing and freezing for five days in the UK, and the South of England and London really are not acclimated to that sort of thing. They are running low on road salt and places to put the snow they plow.

Being British they are discussing The etiquette of snowball fights.

Australia is experiencing a very nasty summer with tropical cyclones and flooding in Queensland, in the North.

In the South, it’s Bush Fires and temperatures in the 40’s C [40° C = 104° F]. Victoria [Melbourne], South Australia [Adelaide], and New South Wales [Sydney] are all affected by the extremely hot temperatures and the wildfire threats.

As uncomfortable as the cats and I have been for a few days, it is better than those choices.

Obama writes a piece in the Washington Post and the media reaction is dead silence.

Obama talks to Congressional Democrats and every outlet carries it.

Conclusion: the media can’t read. If there is no audio and/or video, the media doesn’t know it happened.

Six Packed

We are not amused.

[Editor: This was noon yesterday. They tend to stay on the olive drab blanket because it is wool, an antique from my Dad’s days in the Army Air Corps, i.e. before 1948.

Friday Ark

I’m a bad blogger because I have a real life and have been tied up with other things, so I’m late with this.

First off, Lab Kat is done with her hiatus and has a new address www.labkatblog.com. You are redirected after a dire warning by Blogger, probably because she has returned to a WordPress blog.

While PSoTD has hung up his keyboard, the URL will be expiring on March 1 if someone wants it and the extra hits that might generate for you. He added a post about it.

While Mary Beth is off to law school, EBW has been posting fairly regularly over at Wampum. Good stuff on the international scene, as well as very technical stuff on the Internet and the political structure behind it.

News Writer is one of the newer additions to my blogroll, at Stop The Press!. She deals with the media as an insider.

Catnapping at Odd Neighbor Illustrations provides graphics, poetry, and personal views, not politics.  She has been posting more often recently, and I really like her graphics style. [Read more →]

The Senate goes into recess having done nothing on stimulus, and the best that Obama can come up with is an op-ed piece in the Washington Post. The only people who have even read the op-ed are Villagers and bloggers, while the “dittoheads” are jamming the Congressional switchboards. This is not going to work, and someone needs to have a serious heart-to-heart with the White House about how to pass a bill.

Support for the stimulus is dropping because no one is involving the supporters of the bill, no one is addressing their concerns. All of the changes have been to accommodate the people who oppose it, and they still oppose it. Catch a damn clue – the GOP is not going to vote for a stimulus package that will actually do some good.

Tax cuts are worthless. In January 626,000 more people are unemployed and no longer paying taxes, so they and the millions like them will derive no benefit from tax cuts. Tax cuts are only effective if they are targeted to the middle and lower classes and they occur before the massive lay offs start. They can work for a down turn not for the depression we are looking at.

The time for playing nice and being polite is over. This is a disaster in the making, and we need a stimulus package now. If we don’t spend the money now, there will be nothing left to spend it on in a year. Obama doesn’t need to waste time talking to the Village, he need to fire up the nation to start hammering on Congress. It is pretty damn pathetic that Republican governors have spent more time and energy supporting the stimulus package than the President of the United States.

From CNN: Post-Soviet nations to form military force

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) — A Russian-led bloc of post-Soviet nations has agreed to establish a rapid-reaction military force to combat terrorists and respond to regional emergencies, Russian media reported Wednesday.

The decision came a day after reports that Kyrgyzstan is planning to close a strategically important U.S. military base that Washington uses to transport troops and supplies into Afghanistan.

On Wednesday, the Collective Security Treaty Organization — made up of Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan — decided on the rapid-reaction force at a Kremlin summit, the Russian news agency RIA-Novosti reported.

And what a lovely group of nations it is, led by former Communist Party bosses and KGB operatives. So much for any liberalization in Central Asia. Just another benefit of the “Global War on Terror”, which is the excuse for this.

Louisiana governor, Bobby Jindal, who is not running for President, has another out of state fundraiser scheduled.  This time the Times Picayune tells us it is in North Carolina

BATON ROUGE — Gov. Bobby Jindal’s out-of-state travels for his re-election campaign continues Wednesday as he embarks on a three-city North Carolina tour for two fundraisers and a keynote address to the John Locke Foundation’s Annual Dinner.

I’m sure that the people in North Carolina are just as interested in “good government” in Louisiana as the people in Iowa, where the “Not Running For President” tour started last November.