From the Canadian province of Manitoba heading South there are rivers, the primaries being the Red River and the Missouri, overflowing their banks in a situation at least as bad as 1997, according to the CBC report: North Dakota declared disaster zone amid flooding.

There was an early freeze this year that sealed the ground, heavy snowfall, and now Spring rains. Just to make things worse, there’s currently a blizzard in the Northern Plains. In addition to the actual amount of water flowing into the rivers, there are ice dams forming creating ad hoc reservoirs that will dump into the rivers when they melt.

A number of areas have improved their individual flood defenses since 1997, which is bad news for those South of them, as the water that would have exited is now be held in the river, causing higher crests downstream.

Eventually everything will dump into the Gulf of Mexico, but not before it tests the levees all the way down the Missouri-Mississippi system.

CNN is reporting that a F-22A Raptor went down at approximately 10:30AM [no time zone specified] at Edwards AFB in California.

It would probably belong to the 411^th or 412^th Flight Test Squadron. No word on the pilot.

Essentially we know that taxpayers are out $150 million for an aircraft and may have lost one of our best pilots.

Update: As I feared from the delay in reporting the status of the pilot, the CNN report now says the the pilot did not make it: “Lockheed Martin said the test pilot, David Cooley, 49, of Palmdale, California, joined the company in 2003 and was a 21-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force.”

The Pensacola Beach Blogger noted that “Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan is so mad at county administrator Bob Laughlin that he broke a law of grammar.”

Following up on his “success” with the Sheriff, Bob has created a little problem with the County Commission over hiring a new deputy Escambia County administrator:

County Administrator Bob McLaughlin offered [Cindy] Anderson the job. While she has signed a letter accepting the job, the Escambia County Commission has not yet signed off. The position was eliminated last year. The Escambia commission is set consider the job April 2.

McLaughlin has refused to comment on the position, but county spokeswoman Sonya Daniel said McLaughlin has discussed the position with all five commissioners individually.

[Read more →]

The Local Puppy Trainer reports on a victim of Bushenomics: Destin radio station ceases broadcasts.

How bad was it? “… the station’s revenues have dropped by 75 percent due to the economic slump, the release states.”

There is dead air, where before: “The station aired syndicated talk shows from Glen Beck, Laura Ingraham and Alan Colmes.”

Alas, you would think in an area where Karl Rove has a vacation condo there would be more support for this programming. Maybe they should have held a few bake sales. 😈