Posts from — May 2009

Wikipedia usually has to “lock” its Cinco de Mayo page. I suspect it may be related to the sudden appearance of sites opposing the celebration of this semi-holiday and others who have a hissy fit about any Mexican holiday being celebrated in the US.

In Mexico Cinco de Mayo or Batalla de Puebla, is only a really big celebration in the state of Puebla, where the battle took place.

The Mexican army won the Batalla de Puebla on May the 5^th, 1862, but the French went on to Mexico City in 1863 after receiving reinforcements and installed Emperor Maximilian.

It has the status of St. Patrick’s Day in the US, an excuse to eat different food, and drink different booze, and be obnoxious show an interest in other cultures.

Margaritas, tacos, and the destruction of piñatas, that’s what it is really about, although some people have other interpretations.

Since Louisiana law makes it illegal for Piyush to do any funding raising for his not running for President campaign, the Times-Picayune reports that he has been seen in the state where he is supposedly the governor: Jindal’s top priorities: saving chicken plant and defeating unemployment expansion

BATON ROUGE – Gov. Bobby Jindal said this morning that his top legislative priorities for the coming week are passing a bill that lets money from an economic-development fund be used to support a North Louisiana chicken plant, and defeating legislation that would clear the way for Louisiana to accept $98 million in new federal financing for unemployment benefits.

He is following the mantra of the Southern GOP that giving state tax dollars to corporations is good and necessary, but even Federal money given to individuals is bad and wasteful.

As Jack at The Grumpy Forester noted, Piyush is one of the GOP leaders chosen to “rebuild the Party”. I’m not sure how his stated legislative priorities are going to help, unless there is some untapped vein of poultry processing plant owners that are voting Democratic. I feel reasonably certain that undocumented workers are not allowed to vote.

The NWFDN reports County officials ‘disappointed’ in Odom’s change of plans.

Jay Odom was part of the deal that got the Speaker of the Florida House and the president of a local college indicted for his scheme to have the state build him a hanger for his aircraft by calling it an educational facility.

Jay Odom is a real estate developer, which means he the lacks the moral fiber to sell used cars.

Jay Odom has his hand out for every government program that he might possibly qualify for, and is ready to create new ones if he thinks it will make him some money.

The County Commission should have known better than to deal with him in the first place, and they have to be the most naïve people in the area if they expected that he would willingly reveal the “truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”, if it suited his profit margin to be other than candid. They can have their attorney look at the deal, but Odom has a long history of not exactly violating the law, so I wish them luck.

The Miami Herald reports that Jury deliberations in terror-conspiracy retrial delayed again.

Last week it was a sick juror, this week it is a juror who doesn’t play well with others.

Just declare a mistrial, and see if the Feds want to try this again. If the juror is replaced and the MHNT are convicted, they have a solid appeal. There’s no law that says that a juror needs to review the entire trial. The deliberation phase is for jurors who have questions. If there are no questions after sitting through the presentation of evidence, there is no need to do anything other than a vote. If one juror decides for conviction, and the the others are against it, the jury is deadlocked.

From her note, the dissenting juror sounds like she feels she is being coerced, and that isn’t going to favor the government if there is a conviction.

One of the things I miss about not working in office is the absence of the office pools. There were the standard sports-related pools, that I generally ignored, because I never had an interest in American sports.

The pools I liked were like the big pool in Alaska on the thaw of the Tanana River [just occurred on Friday with a quarter million dollar pay out], or when something we expected would happen.

If we worked in an office, instead of being individuals, by now someone would have started a pool on when Arlen Specter will vote with the Democrats in the Senate for the first time. There obviously wasn’t a performance clause in his contract when he supposedly switched teams.

CNN: Hysteria over swine flu is the real danger, some say

By Sunday, 787 cases of the virus, known as influenza A (H1N1), had been confirmed in 17 countries, the World Health Organization said. The number of fatalities grew to 20.

“There is too much hysteria in the country and so far, there hasn’t been that great a danger,” said Congressman Ron Paul, a Republican from Texas. “It’s overblown, grossly so.”

Paul, who was a freshman senator during a swine flu outbreak in 1976, said Congress voted to inoculate the whole country at the time.

Twenty-five people died from the inoculation while one person was killed by the flu, Paul said, adding that he voted against inoculation.

Those must be the Texas numbers, because over 500 people died in reaction to the vaccine, and there was more than one death caused by the flu, but many times more people were affected by the inoculation than the flu.

[Read more →]

As I mentioned in my Diversity post, the US Supreme Court is very homogeneous.

Consider that of the 9 Justices:

• 8 are men
• 8 are white
• 8 are graduates of Ivy League law schools
• 8 have no trial court experience

While Justice Souter is a white, male, from an Ivy League law school, he is also the only Justice who had trial and appellate court experience before being appointed the the US Court of Appeals, and then the Supreme Court. None of the remaining Justices has ever been the judge at a trial, having been appointed to the US Court of Appeals, and then the Supreme Court.

While everyone is talking about many different attributes for a new Justice, I haven’t heard anyone mentioning: they should actually have some real experience, in a real court room.

According to the CBC the circle is complete: Alberta pigs likely infected with flu from worker: CFIA official.

Apparently a farm worker caught the flu during a recent trip to Mexico, and has now infected about 200 pigs on a farm in Alberta, Canada. The pigs are quarantined.

The Beeb tells us of the Mystery surrounds a feline felon. It would appear that the gnome is masquerading as a tuxedo cat, at least in Britain. Of course, everyone knows that some British tuxedo cats are evil.

The CBC reports that researchers in Canada have good evidence that Swine flu roots traced to Spanish flu.

The 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic was the big worry for everyone when the Influenza A H1N1 [swine flu] appeared in Mexico, and Canadian researchers have evidence that the two are linked, but this is the Spanish flu that pigs caught from people in 1918, so they are returning the “favor”. The porcine version is a mild respiratory disease for them, and it would appear that it has mutated into the same thing for humans on the return path.

CNN reports that the panic that the media has helped to spread is having its effect: ‘Walking well’ flood hospitals with — or without — flu symptoms.

I noticed that there are approximately 400 schools closed in the US, and around 160 confirmed cases.

The climate of terror created by the Hedgemony is having an effect, and it isn’t good. Americans need to learn to wash their hands with soap and water, just like you were taught as a child when I was growing up. Passing around a bottle of hand sanitizer is not a good idea, as the exterior of the bottle is as contaminated as everything else, but it’s better than nothing.

If you have never read Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, pick up a copy, or get one from the library.

Technically it is a science book, but it tells a version of the history of man on the planet. I read it years ago, but something about the bird/swine flu problems caused me to remember his treatment of the “Germs” in his title. He has a rather convincing explanation for why we are seeing these things, and why our relatively rapid world-wide travel system makes them so dangerous.

Something to think about.

The CBC’s latest story on the Influenza A H1N1 [OK, swine flu] outbreak, Scientists starting to believe swine flu outbreak won’t be so bad, is in line with what I’ve been thinking, but I really want some hard numbers on transmission and mortality rates, before I dismiss any possibility.

What got to me was the end of the article:

Work also continues on developing a vaccine.

Once that happens, likely in late fall or early winter, Canada will be in better shape than many other countries since there is a vaccine manufacturing facility in Quebec and a deal with its owner, GlaxoSmithKline, that guarantees supply for Canadians.

The US gets the marketing department, and the supposedly “free market”, which runs out of vaccine frequently, even though we pay more than anyone else.  The “terrible” Canadian system, not only pays a lot less, they have guaranteed supplies.

Things are tough all over, even in Russia, with the drop in the price of oil.

The BBC reports: Russian army scraps new uniforms

A plan to replace Soviet-era Russian military uniforms with ones by a leading fashion designer has been abandoned because of a lack of money.

The plan to bring in the new uniforms, designed by Valentin Yudashkin, was supported by Russian PM Vladimir Putin.

There is now only enough money to pay for uniforms for soldiers taking part in the forthcoming Victory Day parade.

And that isn’t all they are cutting.

[Read more →]

McClatchy writes that Louisiana senator blocks nominee to lead FEMA

WASHINGTON — A Louisiana senator is stalling Florida emergency management director Craig Fugate’s nomination as head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Fugate had sailed through his nomination hearing and Monday cleared the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee by a unanimous voice vote. Republican Sen. David Vitter said, however, that he’d blocked Fugate because of concerns he has with FEMA.

This is totally bogus. Craig Fugate is an experienced professional who has been through some of the worst hurricane seasons Florida has ever seen, and done a good job, both before and after storms. He oversaw a smooth running system, that was able to respond quickly and effectively to threats.

Vitter wouldn’t sponsor or vote for attempts to improve the recovery situation in Louisiana, and now he has concerns about decisions that FEMA has made?! Those decisions were made under the Bush Administration, and Fugate can’t explain them, because they didn’t make any sense to him. FEMA is definitely going to be different, but expecting a nominee to respond to every hypothetical a Senator can imagine, before he has access to the records, is just stupid. [Please note that Fugate served in Republican administrations, the only kind Florida has had this century.]

Vitter’s only purpose is to be annoying and stall an Obama appointment. The hurricane season starts in a month, and it would be nice if someone was at the head of FEMA. The Republicans already look like jerks for stalling the appointment of the Secretary of Health and Human Services who went through with a two-thirds vote when it was finally taken, and now this.

It is past time to make them filibuster.