Posts from — May 2009

When you visit one of our beautiful beaches if you anticipate entering the warm turquoise to emerald green waters you should scan for a colored flag that will tell you what the conditions are like.

This is not the flag of Libya, it is the flag that tells you that you probably aren’t going to drown if you are a reasonably competent swimmer. It is a great day to be on the beach.

This flag tells you that the surf is a bit choppy and you will probably want to stay out of the water unless you made it to the regionals in swimming at school.

If Michael Phelps doesn’t consider you a threat, and you haven’t won at least three Iron Man competitions, stay on the beach. This is associated with rip currents which will pull you away from shore. You can see the currents if you are paying attention as they are found in that really placid looking spot on the water away from all of the violent looking surf.

This is the “No Swimming” flag that is flown below the red flag. It tells you that you will probably drown if you enter the water, and the life guards don’t like their chances if they try to rescue you. Should you decide to enter the water, please swab your mouth with a Q-tip, and put the swab, your insurance card, next-of-kin contact information, and suicide note in a plastic bag on the beach. A recent, flattering photo for the newspaper to use would be nice, but don’t bother with finger prints, because DNA will be needed, depending on how long it takes to recover your body and how much of it is recovered.

This flag warns of the probability that there is dangerous marine life in the water. Normally it means one or more types of stinging jellyfish, but they would probably fly it for a Great White.

So far this weekend we have had red flag conditions across the northern Gulf Coast, with Walton also flying purple for jellyfish. What a great start to the summer season – gas up 25%, thunderstorms, rip currents, and jellyfish.

The ABC report on another British MP who stepped into the expenses mess: ‘Ashamed’ MP says ducks rejected island

A British Conservative politician says he feels “ashamed and humiliated” over claiming expenses for a ‘duck island’ to put in his garden pond – and he admitted the ducks did not like it anyway.

Sir Peter Viggers was forced to announce his resignation on Thursday (local time) over the 1,600 pound ($3,300) aquatic home, the latest embarrassing revelation in an expenses row which has shaken Britain’s House of Commons.

He issued a statement pointing out that the claim had been refused by the Fees Office – which has come under fire over claims ranging from swimming pool and tennis court repairs to cleaning a moat.

But he admitted that he should never have claimed for it in the first place.

Getting dissed by your own ducks has to be nearly as bad as it gets.  Before we make fun of the attempt to claim money for moat cleaning, we need to check on the activities of the GOP.  I can imagine a couple of them having a moat.  I can certainly imagine Dick “Dick” Cheney having a moat.  The guy had a dungeon built under Blair House.

Two male and a female mallard dropped in for a dip in what we laughingly refer to as a storm water drain in the property across the street. Instead of draining anything, there was a two-foot-deep pond.

After an inch yesterday and two more today, the frogs decided it was a time for courting, so when the thunder stopped the froggy arias took over.

If Invest 90 had had about 6 more hours over the Gulf it would have probably become the first tropical storm of the preseason, and the season doesn’t start until a week from Monday.

In the last couple of months Central Florida has had drought, fire, and now flooding. It is not a good thing for the Mouse, and Florida tourism on the Memorial Day weekend. People won’t visit when they can get rained on at home.

It certainly is strange how, every year, the “supply and demand” forces cause the price of gas to shoot up just before this weekend. It has risen a quarter a gallon in the last week. It will drop on Tuesday, but the forces will cause another amazing rise before the Fourth of July, and then before Labor Day. It’s a mystery how the “free market” works. You would almost begin to believe that something other than supply and demand were at work. 😈

McClatchy, who, when they were called Knight-Ridder, were the only news organization who refused to drink the Kool-Aid, and published the truth about the Hedgemony’s push for war with Iraq, deliver a one-two on Dick “Dick” Cheney’s propaganda tour.

The shorter snarky version is found at the blog, Nukes & Spooks, in a post by Warren P. Strobel: Cheney vs The Past.

The formal long form is at the McClatchy DC site in an article by Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel: Cheney’s speech ignored some inconvenient truths.

The National Weather Service has started running the models on Invest 90, the low that dumped all of the rain on Central Florida and has cause 11 deaths from flooding in Haiti.

The consensus is that it will come ashore around the Mississippi-Louisiana border before it achieves tropical depression characteristics.

New South Wales has joined Queensland in the segment of Australian under flood waters:

Flood waters on the New South Wales north coast are rising and thousands of residents are continuing to evacuate.
…

A torrential 240 millimetres [9.45 inches] of rain in 50 hours forced the State Emergency Service to issue the order to leave.

In contrast, we have only had an inch of rain so far today as the system that dumped all the water on Central Florida passes to the South of us. This system caused the shuttle to abort a landing attempt, and may require a California landing.

The BBC has a short interview with an MP caught up in the expenses problem

Conservative MP Anthony Steen, who has announced he will not be standing at the next election, has said that his critics are “jealous” because he has a “very, very large house”.

In the interview he asks “What right does the public have to interfere with my private life?”

Apparently, spending £87,000 [$ 138,108] to support that life for the last four years isn’t sufficient cause for Mr. Steen.

Even though Mr. Steen later apologized for what he said, the leader of his party has threatened dire consequences if Mr. Steen isn’t more judicious in his comments.

Jams O’Donnell was also annoyed with Mr. Steen.

MPs from all of the parties were involved in rather questionable expenses, but Mr. Steen is something of a lightning rod because of his serious case of “attitude” and entitlement. He apparently couldn’t honestly understand why people were upset about being told their tax dollars were being spent to protect his shrubbery from rabbits.

These are the sort of “entitlements” that I think we can all agree need to be eliminated.

The CBC reports that a Quebec court convicts Munyaneza of war crimes in Rwanda

Munyaneza was charged with seven counts related to genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, under Canada’s Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act.

Yet another country the members of the Hedgemony need to avoid.

Topic Two:

A question for English majors – how does one relitigate something that was never litigated? I keep hearing this usage from the President regarding things done by the Hedgemony, i.e. he doesn’t want to “relitigate” these issues.

In the same vein, how can you create a recidivism rate for people held in Guantanamo when they were released because there was no proof they had done anything wrong. Wouldn’t it be a more accurate reflection of the number of people who became terrorists because of their treatment by the US?

Point of View

Shoot!

[Editor: Out of six attempts, I finally achieved a sliver of Property’s eye. She left immediately following this shot, fed up with all the flashing.]

Friday Ark

“All these conspiracy theories have the two basic problems: one, they believe the government is competent. And two, they believe the government can keep a secret.” – Richard Clarke

Laura Rozen has another article with a new example of the CIA torture briefing timeline being garbage.

If you remove a classified document from a file, you have to log it. The Congressional briefing materials were classified, so there should be a log showing when they were removed, who removed them, and when they were returned. If you are giving a classified briefing, everyone in the briefing area has to be identified and logged to ensure they possess the proper clearance to hear the briefing. This is the normal, standard process, and those logs should exist. If they don’t exist, as seems to be case, then the CIA has major classified control issues in addition to its other problems. These are standard government office procedures, not special intelligence requirements.

The CIA can’t even create a frame-up that will stand up to minimal scrutiny, so why should anyone accept that they are competent enough to make the country safe. Nothing that was under the control of the Hedgemony for eight years can be assumed to be functional. The widespread practice of replacing professionals with political appointees has led to the general loss of effective government functions.

It looks like Bibi didn’t get the reception in Washington he was looking for: Israeli Official: 2-State Focus “Stupid”.

Immediately after saying that the official started backpedaling and spinning, realized he had screwed up, major league. It was amended to mean that the idea is great, swell, wonderful, but there’s no need to concentrate on it when there are other paths to peace, [editor: that include a lot of dead bodies, which is a requirement for Israeli politicians these days.]

The Iranians are inching their way to more sophisticated weapons: Iran tests new surface-to-surface missile.

The big advance is that this is a solid fuel rocket. Their current missile with the same range [approximately 1200 miles] is liquid fuel which forces it to have static launch sites, and makes it very dangerous to transport if fueled.

If certain governments stopped talking constantly about attacking them, the Iranians might not see the need to spend the money on new weapons.

The headline is: San Angelo mayor quits over immigrant boyfriend

This is a story about the town outside the gate of Goodfellow AFB in West Texas, one of the places I was stationed in the Air Force.

The job only pays $600/year but this guy won re-election for a fourth term with 89% of the vote.

The only reason I bring it up is the reading skills of the people at the Houston Chronicle commenting.

One of them actually said: “well thats one way to get that visa, marry an American and have an anchor baby”, having apparently missed the part about HIS honor having an immigrant BOYFRIEND.

Actually, having a “close, personal friend” that is human is rather upscale in West Texas. [/snark]

[OK, so the Florida legislature still hasn’t made bestiality a crime. Come on, the Republicans can’t attack their base.]

Realizing that they don’t have to build Fantasyland, Disney plans new resort near Washington, D.C..

I wonder how having the real Mickey Mouse outfit in town will affect all of the pretenders in Congress?

In Central Florida: Relentless rains bring flooding; winds damage homes in Port Orange

The National Weather Service said this morning more than 11 inches of rain were recorded at Daytona Beach International Airport between 8 a.m. Monday morning and 8 a.m. today. And another 2.74 inches had fallen by 2 p.m., bringing the three-day total to almost 14 inches.

Even larger rainfall totals were reported in some parts of Flagler County. Emergency Management technician Bob Pickering said downtown Bunnell has received 19 inches since Sunday and Haw Creek, in extreme western Flagler, got 16.5 inches. Other notable totals: 16 inches in Port Orange, 10.6 inches in DeLand and 7.05 in Ponce Inlet.

In Northern Australia: Disaster zone: SE Qld under water

Yesterday was one of the wettest days in south-east Queensland’s history.

More than 300 millimetres [11.8 inches] of rain fell across the region, with some spots soaked by falls of up to 428 mm [16.9 inches].

The Florida rains are the result of a not quite tropical depression off the Atlantic coast in the Gulf [damn inconsiderate of these things to move when I’m not paying attention].

Queensland has been having nasty weather like this for a few years. It’s not the way things were.