Posts from — August 2009

The whole “60 votes to invoke cloture” is a Senate rule.

It only requires 51 votes to change the rules in the Senate. That was what Frist was going to do; that’s what the “nuclear option” means – change the Senate rules.

I don’t want to hear the excuses about what it takes to get something through the Senate.

The top picture is the entrance to the headquarters of UBS, which once stood for the Union Bank of Switzerland. Above the door is a bust of Hermes flanked by two carvings of his herald’s staff, the Caduceus. All very logical, as Hermes was the Greek god of commerce, as well as the messenger/herald of the gods of Olympus to men.

The group of symbols below that, from left to right, are the branch insignia of the Army Medical Corps, the “Star of Life” used by EMTs, and the Air Force Medical Technicians badge. You will note that the Army uses the Caduceus as a symbol, while the EMTs and Air Force use the similar Rod of Asclepius, which is the symbol of the Greek founder of medicine.

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Position: 47.1 N 55.5 W [10 PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: East-Northeast [060°] near 40 mph [65 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 75 mph [120 kph].
Wind Gusts: 90 mph [145 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 275 miles [445 km].
Hurricane Wind Radius: 60 miles [95 km].
Minimum central pressure: 975 mb ↑.

It is 115 miles [190 km] West-Southwest of Cape Race Newfoundland. Bill is a Category 1 storm.

Bill has grazed Nova Scotia with near hurricane winds and is on its way to Newfoundland.

The Atlantic Coast from Florida to Newfoundland will be receiving major increases in wave height related to Bill. If you go to the beach expect rip currents.

Here’s the link for NOAA’s latest satellite images.

[For the latest information click on the storm symbol, or go to the CATEGORIES drop-down box below the CALENDAR and select “Hurricanes” for all of the posts related to storms on this site.]

The BBC reports on the latest of a number of wildfires around the Mediterranean Sea: Fires rage unchecked near Athens

Major wildfires north-east of the Greek capital Athens are burning out of control, officials have said.

The government has declared a state of emergency in the area as fire crews, backed up by helicopters and water-bombers, fight to contain the blazes.

Fed by strong winds, fires have reached the towns of Grammatiko and Varnavas, but no casualties have been reported.

The fires are the worst on the Greek mainland since those in 2007, when 70 people were killed.

The fires broke out late Friday and developed overnight, fed by gale-force winds that kept shifting direction, fire officials said.
…

The fires are further contributing to the deforestation of the mountains around Athens. Three of the four mountains surrounding the capital have already been stripped of their trees by fire, says our correspondent.

If the rain comes, there will be nothing to hold the water, and the cycle will continue.

Bill and Hilliary Clinton had to leave Bermuda early because of Hurricane Bill.

I wonder how President Obama feels about heading to Martha’s Vineyard, which just came under a Tropical Storm Warning due to Hurricane Bill.

Maybe if the next one hits Washington DC in September, politicians will figure it out.

Could we start taking Climate Change seriously, and start doing something to reduce the effects? Even if you don’t take Climate Change seriously, the necessary actions to combat it will also save money and reduce our dependence on finite resources, like coal, oil, and gas. We know how to do it.

According to authorities, today is the first day of the ninth month, Ramadan, in the Islamic calendar.

This is a brief description of the month of fasting and the reasons for it, with more details and links at Wikipedia.

Unfortunately, in recent years, Ramadan has signified an increase in violence in the Middle East.

[The site I normally reference for the timing of Ramadan has been hacked to download malware. That is unfortunate as it was a reliable source of the timing which requires a decision on the sighting of the crescent moon, and is not the same world wide.]

Position: 39.1 N 67.8 W [10 PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: North-Northeast [015°] near 25 mph [40 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 85 mph [140 kph].
Wind Gusts: 105 mph [170 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 275 miles [445 km].
Hurricane Wind Radius: 85 miles [140 km].
Minimum central pressure: 961 mb.

It is 195 miles [315 km] Southwest of Nantucket. Bill is a Category 1 storm.

Tropical Storm Warnings and Watches have been issued for the Atlantic from Massachusetts to Newfoundland. Canada has issued a Hurricane Watch
for Southwestern Newfoundland.

The Atlantic Coast from Florida to Nova Scotia will be receiving major increases in wave height related to Bill. If you go to the beach expect rip currents.

Here’s the link for NOAA’s latest satellite images.

[For the latest information click on the storm symbol, or go to the CATEGORIES drop-down box below the CALENDAR and select “Hurricanes” for all of the posts related to storms on this site.]

Digby comments on the DKos weekly tracking poll.

The short form is that Obama and the Dems in Congress are seeing lower favorable numbers this week. The news is that the loss of support is among Democrats.

My Mother had the Bubble-headed bleach blond on tonight, and one of the last segments featured Willie Brown, now former San Francisco mayor, but for years the speaker of the California assembly, and a very canny politician. They call the video clip “Selling health care reform: What went wrong?”, and while they say they have transcripts, it seems to be a matter of when they feel like it.

Mr. Brown says that Obama only really wants to reform the current system, and isn’t really concerned with the uninsured. It came out not as a complaint, but more like, everyone knows that Obama isn’t a liberal.

So, they aren’t “reaching for the stars” [single payer], they aren’t even interested in the “low hanging fruit” [public option], they are only interested in tweaking the existing system for the “middle class”, and probably mucking about with Medicare and Medicaid.

If Willie Brown in right, the Democrats can expect to join the GOP on the sidelines as a minority party. Harry Reid faces election in 2010. Just a thought.

Position: 31.0 N 67.5 W [10 PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: North-Northwest [345°] near 20 mph [32 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 105 mph [165 kph].
Wind Gusts: 125 mph [200 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 275 miles [445 km].
Hurricane Wind Radius: 85 miles [140 km].
Minimum central pressure: 957 mb ↑.

It is 180 miles [295 km] West-Southwest of Bermuda which has issued a Hurricane Watch and Tropical Storm Warning. Bill is a Category 2 storm. Tropical Storm force winds are impacting Bermuda.

The Atlantic Coast from Florida to Nova Scotia will be receiving major increases in wave height related to Bill. If you go to the beach expect rip currents.

Here’s the link for NOAA’s latest satellite images.

[For the latest information click on the storm symbol, or go to the CATEGORIES drop-down box below the CALENDAR and select “Hurricanes” for all of the posts related to storms on this site.]

More Feral Kittens

Leave some for me!

[Editor: The litter mates of last week’s kitten have discovered the joys of wet cat food.]

Friday Ark

Fallenmonk notes that Jon Kyl has returned to the roots of the American Republican Party, invoking the Dobbslins to defeat the evil Democrats. Barney Frank has been required to battle LaRouchskis. The Nine-Twelvers are everywhere, as long as it doesn’t interfere with watching their Dear Leader on Faux. The Limbaughians are ready to fill in the gap, and the militia weirdos are showing up where permitted by state laws, and pretending they are “bad and tough and ready for everything”.

[A personal note for the fool with the AR-15 slung on his shoulder in Arizona: if you don’t control the safety and the trigger, you stand a good chance of getting shot in the butt with your own gun. Real “bad” people are laughing at you. (see picture)]

So, what is the leader of the party doing to advance his agenda: calling religious leaders, to ask them to combat lies about his program.

Excuse me, that might be a logical move for a community organizer in Chicago, but it doesn’t cut it, when you are the President of the United States. You don’t get your message out by using “informed White House sources”, you either speak yourself or you appoint someone to speak for you on this issue, and you back what they are saying. Of course, it is hard to stay on message if you don’t have one, so why don’t you work on that and get back to us.

Update: News flash from Badtux 54% of Americans don’t know that Medicare is a government program!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tom Cohen writes that False rumors influencing health care debate [Gee, ya think?]

WASHINGTON (CNN) — A woman asked Rep. Allen Boyd at a town hall meeting the other day if health care reform proposals would force people to let the government access their bank accounts.

“That’s not true,” the Florida Democrat responded. “When someone sends you something on the Internet that sounds crazy, how about just checking it a little bit?”

The CNN Truth Squad, which fact-checks political claims, has debunked the bank-access rumor as false. Yet that claim, and others that have been disproved, keep coming up in the national debate on health care reform, inflaming an already emotional issue.
…

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John W. Schoen writes at MSNBC: Frustration rises over mortgage relief program

Nearly two years after the federal government’s first program to slow the relentless rise in the pace of home foreclosures, the latest attempt, known as Making Home Affordable, is turning out to be another painful disappointment for millions of Americans at risk of losing their homes.
…

More than 13 percent of homeowners with a mortgage are either behind on their payments or in foreclosure, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Thursday. As of June, more than 4 percent of all borrowers were in foreclosure and about 9 percent had missed at least one payment. A separate report found that more than 272,000 borrowers were at some stage of foreclosure in July, up 8 percent from June and 55 percent from July 2007, according to RealtyTrac, which maintains a national database of foreclosure filings.

Under FDR the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation was created that not only dealt with this problem, but when it finally closed its books, it had made a profit for taxpayers. We know what works, so why aren’t we doing it instead of screwing around with all of the banks that haven’t been able to do anything in two years? As Albert Einstein pointed out: “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

In it’s obituary of a retired police officer, the Miami Herald lets it slip out: Tom Brodie, Bomb expert kept Miami safe

Brodie worked many of the high-profile cases that by 1974 had made Miami what he called “one of the terrorist capitals of the world.”

During the 1960s and ’70s, political passions frequently boiled over into violence — a subject about which Brodie testified before Congress. In 1968 alone, 44 bombs went off in Miami, including one aboard the ship Caribbean Venture docked in Miami during the Republican convention.

During that era, Cuban-American radio host Emilio Milián lost his legs in a car bombing. Explosives detonated at four federal buildings, at the homes of the British consul and a magazine editor who advocated dialogue with Fidel Castro and in a Metro Justice Building restroom.

Yes, there were a lot of terrorist attacks before September 11, 2001, and we managed to deal with them. We didn’t have to give up our civil liberties, and Mr. Brodie didn’t have to torture anyone to defuse bombs.

Mr. Brodie was good at his job, and not because he was awarded an MBE by the Queen for working on cases involving Britain, but because he died at 78 as a result of Parkinson’s, not the result of a bomb.