Posts from — May 2009

Local TV station, KEYT, is updating this link continuously. The latest update is from 7:30PM PDT:

•8,700 acres burned
•40% contained
•Damage assessment in progress – initial estimate of 33 homes destroyed and 47 homes damaged.
•Approximately 12,204 properties evacuated (mandatory evacuation orders); affects approx. 30,500 people
•More than 11,524 properties under evacuation warning; approx. 29,000 people affected
•Residences threatened – 3,500; commercial properties threatened – 100
•4,300 personnel on scene: 499 engines, 101 crews
•11 air tankers and 13 helicopters
•13 firefighter injuries to date
•Cause under investigation: Tip line – 805-686-5074
•Air quality warning downgraded to Air quality watch
•Estimated costs to date $4.2 million

The LA Times is changing their story link every day, but the map link is updated constantly.

Via Jill, the Enplan Wildfire Viewer. Just click on the Jesusita link on the sidebar to see the locations of the fire’s hotspots.

The good guys made a lot of progress today as cold upwelling off the coast generated cool, humid weather with light winds. So much progress was made that some people have been allowed to return to their homes.

Yesterday started off with a call from my Mother to evict kittens from her car. The situation escalated beyond the spray bottle to the Supersoaker, but stopped just short of the hose. The “Pump House Gang” was ready to make a stand, but they really didn’t like getting wet.

I have been working on a data base for a client. It is something I do every year, and it gets worst every year, because the people who own the data base are outsourcing the data input and obviously are spending no money on quality control.

In the middle of doing several extended searches to find the correct answer for what was obviously a corrupted entry, I got a phone call, and, I admit, I got rude with the caller.

The caller was from the NRA, and started by saying that the current Congress is the most anti-gun government we have ever had. I interrupted her and unloaded. I essentially told her that in my opinion the NRA propaganda was responsible for the deaths of several police officers recently as it feeds into the paranoia of unbalanced people in this country, and that everyone associated with the organization should look to the welfare of their souls for their guilt in the deaths. I stopped just short of quoting Scripture and hung up.

I’m sick of the propaganda, the spite, and the hate. They didn’t say a thing when Bush’s DHS decided they had the right to disarm the residents any time they felt like it, but, based on nothing more than having a Democrat in the White House, not a single bill in Congress that even talks about guns, these people start a fear campaign. The NRA is starting to look a lot like a terrorist organization, in the original sense of the word.

The Pensacola News Journal reports Judge: Prayer ban OK

A federal judge on Friday approved a consent decree that calls for Santa Rosa County School District officials to stop promoting their religious beliefs in schools.

School officials now are prohibited from promoting or endorsing prayers during school functions and from organizing school functions at religious venues. The consent decree must be distributed to all employees.
…

District officials admitted the allegations. Board members signed a consent decree in March that listed steps the district will take to end the violations.

School Board Chairman Ed Gray said they intend to abide by the judge’s order.
…

[Read more →]

Local TV station, KEYT, is updating this link continuously. The latest update is from 9PM PDT:

•8,600 acres burned
•10% contained
•Damage assessment in progress – initial estimate of 80 homes have been damaged or destroyed
•Approximately 12,204 properties evacuated (mandatory evacuation orders); affects approx. 30,500 people
•More than 11,524 properties under evacuation warning; approx. 29,000 people affected
•Residences threatened – 3,500; commercial properties threatened – 100
•3,455 personnel on scene: 428 engines, 78 crews
•14 air tankers and 15 helicopters
•11 firefighter injuries to date
•Cause under investigation: Tip line – 805-686-5074
•Air quality warning remains in effect
•Estimated costs to date $3.2 million

The LA Times is changing their story link every day, but the map link is updated constantly.

Update: via Jill, the Enplan Wildfire Viewer. Just click on the Jesusita link on the sidebar to see the locations of the fire’s hotspots.

Delta Force?

Don’t be annoying, Jack.

[Editor: This is a family triangle. In the back is the local alpha female, The Lone Ranger, the blue and white is her sister, Tonto, and on the right is Tonto’s son, Young Jack, who can be very annoying at meal time.]

Friday Ark

… let’s try it again.

CNN reports that News Corp is going for an epic FAIL: Murdoch: Web sites to charge for content

(CNN) — Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch expects News Corporation-owned newspaper Web sites to start charging users for access within a year in a move which analysts say could radically shake-up the culture of freely available content.

Speaking on a conference call as News Corporation announced a 47 percent slide in quarterly profits to $755 million, Murdoch said the current free access business model favored by most content providers was flawed.

“We are now in the midst of an epochal debate over the value of content and it is clear to many newspapers that the current model is malfunctioning,” the News Corp. Chairman and CEO said.

“We have been at the forefront of that debate and you can confidently presume that we are leading the way in finding a model that maximizes revenues in return for our shareholders… The current days of the Internet will soon be over.”

[Read more →]

The Pensacola News Journal shrieks: Okaloosa County has case of probable swine flu. Which is terrifying news, because everyone knows there are no other possible causes of death in Okaloosa County … well, except for all of the other diseases on the planet, and with military people who are sent all over the world, we get to see them all. I guess the lethal mix of terrible local drivers and tourists on overcrowded roads, is sort of dangerous. We do test all of the airborne weapons systems that the US has in the county. There is that Explosive Ordinance Disposal school here. We’ll probably have to include all of the crazies with access to guns.

Yeah, but this is THE FLU, you know, not just a cold. You get a fever with this one and there are reports of nausea.

I’m sorry, but I’ve spent a lot of time in areas around the world where living until the age of 40 was a rare thing, and making it to adulthood was a 50-50 bet. We are going to have the same problems with this flu that we have with regular flu, and one of the biggest problems is the lack of a single payer health care system that would have people visiting a doctor’s office, instead of crowding into an emergency room.

Found a local TV station, KEYT with an evening update

6:30 p.m. UPDATE: The Jesusita Fire has over run it’s perimeter and is now burning into the Mission Canyon and San Roque Canyon areas of Santa Barbara. At this time there is no containment, and multiple structures have been lost. KEYT has confirmed reports that structures in the area of Palomino Rd have burned. KEY News will continue to monitor this breaking news situation.

The self-important media doesn’t seem to care enough to report.

The LA Times is providing coverage and has a map.

As anticipated, when the sun went down the winds picked up and the fire sprung to life, jumping the lines and reaching houses. The terrain is rugged with few roads, so trying to contain it will require airpower, and conditions in which the aircraft can fly.

Edit: LA Times links updated at 11AM CDT.

The Houston Chronicle has a report that 1 in 5 U.S. homes now have cell phones only, no landlines: “The 20 percent of homes with only cell phones compared to 17 percent with landlines but no cells.”

Even worse for the landline companies is that the people in the homes without their service are generally much younger, than the people in the homes that only have landlines, so their client base is slowly disappearing.

One of the reasons for this shift locally is the absurd amount of money the phone company wants for a deposit, and the charge for “installation”. The landline companies have been pricing themselves out of the market.

Now you have CNet reporting Prepaid wireless service could spur price war

[Read more →]

Although, of course, everyone says it has nothing to do with his Coleman/Franken comments, CNN reports that the Senate strips Specter of seniority after party switch.

It was widely reported that Harry Reid had promised Arlen Specter [DINO – Arlen Specter] that he would keep his seniority if he switched parties, seniority being a major campaign theme in his re-election bids, the rank-and-file obviously were not on board with that deal.

Specter now says that his comments about the Minnesota Senate race were just a bit of light-hearted humor, but following several votes against Democratic bills, and his stated opposition to bills coming up, the Senate Democrats had had enough.

There is a statement that his seniority will be re-examined in the next Congress, if Specter is re-elected, which is a not so veiled announcement that he is on probation, and had better start acting like a Democrat if he wants his seniority back.

CNN covers the ever earlier start of the Western wildfire season:

(CNN) — A wind-whipped fire expanded to 450 acres early Wednesday in the hills above Santa Barbara, California, causing residents of 1,000 homes to flee and putting 2,000 other houses in peril, emergency officials said

The flames were burning within a mile of several homes, said Pat Wheatley with the Santa Barbara County Emergency Operations Center.

Ten businesses also were under an evacuation advisory.
…

Also Wednesday, firefighters battled a human-caused brush fire in southern Arizona that authorities said had destroyed a handful of homes and injured one person.

The blaze has burned through 1,500 acres and destroyed three houses since it began Tuesday afternoon on private land west of Fort Huachuca, the U.S. Forest Service said in a statement Wednesday.

MSNBC has a more recent story on the fires.

Jill of Cookies in Heaven and skippy the bush kangaroo has had to evacuate – again.

Fort Huachuca was/is the home of the military interrogation school.

Meanwhile, in South Florida they keep having to close Alligator Alley because of smoke from a long burning swamp fire as drought conditions continue while the Panhandle keeps setting new rainfall records.

There are a lot of names floating around about the Supreme Court nominee with Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the US Court of Appeals on most lists. She has too much in common with Alito to make me comfortable – Catholic, Princeton, Yale law.

I would like them to look at some of the talented people on state courts, like Chief Justice Peggy A. Quince of the Florida Supreme Court or Justice Paula A. Nakayama of the Hawaii Supreme Court.

[snark]Since Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (R-Never-Never-Land) managed to finagle his way to the position of ranking member, another name occurred to me: Margaret Cho.

There’s no requirement that a Justice must have a law degree, and the entertainment value of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III contemplating the possible elevation of Ms Cho to the Supreme Court, would be worth the price of admission. I could easily see a movie deal out of those hearings.

If the Shrubbery can nominate Harriet Miers, why not Margaret Cho? [/snark]

No winner for the “Specter backs the Democratic Party” pool today.

MSNBC’s First Read reports that in an interview to be published later, Arlen Specter said: “There’s still time for the Minnesota courts to do justice and declare Norm Coleman the winner.”

There’s an “-ic” on the end on the name of the party, Arlen. You obviously need some practice saying it because you don’t seem to be comfortable with the basic principles, whether the first letter is capitalized or not.