Posts from — August 2009

Position: 14.2 N 38.3 W [ 4 PM CDT 2100 UTC].
Movement: West [275°] near 8 mph [13 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 30 mph [50 kph].
Wind Gusts: 40 mph [65 kph].
Minimum central pressure: 1008 mb ↑.

It is 930 miles [1500 km] West of the Cape Verde Islands. Dry air and wind shear are weakening the system.

This is the last advisory as the system has decayed into a remnant low pressure area.

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 comments on American Bloggers debate British healthcare.

Basically it’s about the ignorance on display in the Investors Business Daily editorial that mentions Professor Hawkings. The writer doesn’t actually take sides in the battle, but it isn’t really necessary when the issue is whether it’s a lie or an incredible display of ignorance.

I come down on the side of a lie based on ignorance and sloth. It’s so tough typing Stephen Hawking into the search box [well, you don’t have to type the whole thing of course, because Firefox figures it out quickly and corrects your spelling].

Why is anyone surprised about what happened to the economy when this is the level of research skill present in a publication for investors?

The CBC reports that the Plague outbreak in China traced to marmot

A wild marmot was the likely source of an outbreak of pneumonic plague in China that killed three people, according to the World Health Organization.

“According to the epidemiological investigation, the source of this outbreak was a wild marmot, which had contact with the dog of the index case,” the United Nations agency said in a statement Tuesday.
…

Pneumonic plague occurs when the lungs become infected by the bacterium Yersinia pestis — the same microbe that causes bubonic plague, an infection of the lymphatic system. Pneumonic plague can spread from person to person through the air, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It is curable if treated early with antibiotics. The three deaths have been attributed largely to delayed treatment, WHO said.

“Marmots are members of the genus Marmota, in the rodent family Sciuridae (squirrels).”

They are called ground squirrels in many places and groundhogs in the US. Prairie dogs are a different genus, Cynomys, in the same family. The dog was the first to die, before the people.

The BBC reports on what could be a nasty bit of business for M$: Judge bans Microsoft Word sales

A US federal court has ordered Microsoft to pay over $290m (£175m) for wilfully infringing on a patent by Canadian firm i4i.

The patent relates to the use of XML, a programming language that allows formatting of text and makes files readable across different programs.

XML is integral to Microsoft’s flagship word processing software Word.

Texas district court judge Leonard Davis also filed an injunction preventing Microsoft from selling Word.

The row specifically relates to the use of Extensible Mark-up Language, or XML, documents.

I4i filed a patent in 1998 that outlined a means for “manipulating the architecture and the content of a document separately from each other” invoking XML as a means allowing users to format text documents.

The write up is a bit confusing about what is involved. I4i developed algorithms for converting text formatted in different formats. It looks like they separate the actual text from the formatting and store the two parts in different tables. This enables the text to be formatted the same way, regardless of the source of the formatting directives table used. The concept is simple to understand, but not always simple to implement, especially if you want to do it for a large number of formats.

The fire in the San Rafael Wilderness area has now burned over 21,150 acres and is 10% contained. Structures to the North of the fire in Cottonwood Canyon are now under threat and evacuations have been ordered.

There have been 2 minor injuries fighting the fire which has already cost almost $2.7 million.

Currently there are 23 engines, 34 crews, 12 dozers, 5 tankers, 10 helicopters, and 1,277 total personnel assigned to the fire.

Links: The KEYT La Brea Fire article, the Santa Barbara Independent La Brea Fire page, InciWeb La Brea page with a map, and KSBY has videos.

These are semi-permanent links to pages that are updated constantly, or provide specific links to all of the related stories.

Position: 14.0 N 36.3 W [10 PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: West [260°] near 14 mph [22 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 35 mph [55 kph].
Wind Gusts: 45 mph [70 kph].
Minimum central pressure: 1006 mb.

It is 800 miles [1285 km] West of the Cape Verde Islands.

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 fire has now burned over 20,500 acres and the isolated ranches in the area have been alerted to the possibility of evacuations, and to give them time to move stock.

Currently there are 23 Engines, 34 Crews, 12 Dozers, 9 Helicopters, and 1,062 Total personnel assigned to the fire, and Tanker 223, a Martin Mars Waterscooping aircraft, will be flying the fire today.

Links: The KEYT La Brea Fire article, the Santa Barbara Independent La Brea Fire page, InciWeb La Brea page with a map, and KSBY has videos.

These are semi-permanent links to pages that are updated constantly, or provide specific links to all of the related stories.

The CBC has some good news for a change of the wildfire story: Hundreds return home as B.C. wildfires cool

Hundreds of people across B.C. forced from their communities because of wildfires will be headed home on Tuesday as rain and cooler temperatures help firefighters reduce the wildfire threat.

But with hundreds of fires still burning across the province, more than 1,800 people remain under evacuation orders, and thousands more remain under evacuation alerts, ready to leave their homes at a moment’s notice.

If you have been checking the fire map you can see more fire symbols going from red [uncontained] to orange [under control] and from orange to blue [out]. There are still a lot of red symbols in the southern third of the province, but there is noticeable change for the better.

Position: 14.8 N 31.5 W [10 PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: West [275°] near 13 mph [20 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 35 mph [55 kph].
Wind Gusts: 40 mph [65 kph].
Minimum central pressure: 1006 mb.

It is 475 miles [765 km] West of the Cape Verde Islands.

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.]

I just received a robo-call from some group that wanted me to call my Congresscritter to stop the dismantling of Medicare Advantage.

Part C, Medicare Advantage, is the publicly financed, privately run HMO system that was set up by the same defective thinking that encouraged the original push for HMOs. No matter how often you point out that HMOs don’t actually do a better job of providing health care, are in fact a PITA to belong to, and end up being more expensive that the traditional system, they keep being supported by Congresscritters.

One of the areas I do want to see changed about Medicare is the elimination of Part C, Medicare Advantage plans. They cost a lot more money than traditional Medicare, and have much higher administrative costs with no proven advantage to patients. They are another way of funneling tax dollars to private corporations.

I would also like to see Part D, the drug benefit, folded into Tricare, with Tricare pricing, i.e. $3 for a generic prescription, and $9 for a name brand.

The phone call gives me hope that someone is actually looking at the numbers and intends to do something about them.

Rook has an unbelievable find in Blinded By The Right.

I backtracked to find the original Investor’s Business Daily editorial which says:

People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.

That would be Professor Stephen Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA, the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and the distinguished research chair at Waterloo’s Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.

He was born in Oxford, England and went to university at Oxford and Cambridge. The treatment for his ALS is through the National Health Service of the United Kingdom. His DECTalk voice synthesizer [a museum piece, BTW] may have an American accent, but his natural voice was Oxbridge.

CBS points to a new report on the American health care system: Hearst National Investigation

New York, August 9, 2009 – An estimated 200,000 Americans will die needlessly from preventable medical mistakes and hospital infections this year, according to “Dead By Mistake,” a wide-ranging Hearst national investigation, which began reporting the findings today [www.deadbymistake.com/]. Despite an authoritative federal report 10 years ago that laid out the scope of the problem and urged the federal and state governments and the medical community to take clear and tangible steps to reduce the number of fatal medical errors,a staggering 98,000 Americans die from preventable medical errors each year and just as many from hospital-acquired infections.

And we pay twice as much per person as any other country for this mess. Understand these are people who had access to the system, and does not include the approximately 20,000 people who die because they don’t have access. Despite these numbers people still think that malpractice law suits should be suppressed. It’s rather obvious that there aren’t enough law suits to convince the system to clean up its act.

On a personal note, Excise, my “coffee and cream” tom tabby, was going to be adopted by the uncle of a neighbor. The uncle died of an infection he got in the hospital during a routine biopsy. The biopsy was benign, but the staph infection wasn’t. The uncle had health insurance overkill with Medicare, Tricare, the VA, and a local AF hospital available to him as retired military. He should have used the military or the VA.

From KEYT La Brea Fire Still Burning in Los Padres National Forest

The La Brea Fire has now burned approximately 10,500 acres. The fire broke out Saturday around 2:50 in the afternoon. It is quickly spreading in the back country of the Los Padres National Forest, about 16 miles west of New Cuyama, and 26 miles east of Santa Maria.

Santa Barbara Independent La Brea Fire page, InciWeb La Brea page with a map, and KSBY has videos.

These are semi-permanent links to pages that are updated constantly, or provide specific links to all of the related stories.

Over at the Tampa Bay Buzz they are asking: Why is Charlie Crist bragging about Cover Florida?

“Cover Florida” is the Potemkin health care reform for the state of Florida. Charlie “strong-armed” health insurance companies into offering “less expensive” alternatives so all Floridians could afford to buy “health insurance”. You get a card and everything for next to nothing. Well, the card is worth next to nothing, but the “insurance” is worth even less. To say these policies have high deductibles, doesn’t begin to express the reality. Charlie wants to become a Senator so he can do this to for all Americans. Hey, everyone will get a card to carry in their wallet.

McClatchy says that Republicans bet on attacking Democrats. For almost everyone outside of the Oval Office, this is the equivalent of saying the sky is blue. Of course they are going to attack. Given the Dem numbers in Congress, the Republicans can’t be blamed for anything. They can honestly say that they didn’t have the numbers to block anything, and they are right [astounding, isn’t it]. The Republicans can’t stop a single bill because there are 60 members of the Dem caucus in the Senate, and the House has a firm majority. There is no negative for anything the Republicans do, because any failure is a Democratic failure. They can vote for Mom, apple pie, and the flag, and then oppose every other measure including health care.

Melissa was making a different point in this post, but shows that Hillary Clinton gets it: “… if President Obama, you know, walked on water, [John Bolton] would say he couldn’t swim.”

It isn’t just John Bolton, it is every Republican. They have absolutely no reason to help the President or the Congress accomplish anything. There is no benefit to them, and cooperation of any kind will be punished by the whackos who control their party.