Posts from — October 2009

If you are using a Windows box and wonder why things seem to be much slower than normal the last few days, the BBC has the probable answer: Microsoft readies bumper update

Microsoft will issue its biggest ever security update on 13 October.

The update will include 13 bulletins that between them tackle 34 vulnerabilities.

Microsoft said that eight of the bulletins were rated as critical – the most serious sort of vulnerability.

The security patches will close loopholes in many different programs including different editions of Windows, Internet Explorer and some elements of Office.

This stuff is automatically downloaded in the background [if your machine is on auto-update], so it is eating up your bandwidth. You may notice disk activity when you aren’t doing anything, or a lot of stalling while downloading graphics.

It’s the second Monday in October, so it is Thanksgiving Day in Canada. Have a happy one.

By coincidence this is Columbus Day and it is falling on the 12^th of October which was the second Wednesday in 1492 when Europeans discovered something that a lot of people didn’t know was lost. But it’s okay, because Christopher Columbus [AKA: Cristoforo Colombo, Cristóbal Colón] didn’t find what he was looking for and identified what he did find incorrectly. The important thing is that a large area of the map got changed from “here be dragons and sea serpents,” to “here be gold and cannibals” and no mention was made of the oppressive heat, mosquitoes, or hurricanes.

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I know full well and good that almost no one who stops by actually cares about this, because they think that football is a game in which the pointy-ended “ball” gets picked up and carried, but the New York Times reports that the US national team has qualified for the 2010 World Cup being held in South Africa.

Hopefully they won’t get dismissed in the first round, as happened in 2006 in Germany.

Mustang Bobby at Bark Bark Woof Woof included a link to a Washington Post article, ‘Die quickly’ congressman new hero for Fla. Dems

While Grayson’s criticisms may play well with a room filled with Democratic activists, University of South Florida political science professor Susan MacManus said most people want civility in politics.

“To these people he obviously reflects reality, to others he reflects incivility,” said MacManus, who was at the convention.

Professor MacManus is Florida’s version of David Broder, i.e. widely quoted and normally totally out of sync with the world around her.

Politics is, and always was, a blood sport in the United States, and calls for civility are usually an attempt by the last party to commit some obvious political hit job to kill the backlash.

It hasn’t been a month since I posted on FDR’s response to an attack that referenced his dog, Fala, in 1944.

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Dr. Jeff Masters issues a request to readers: QuikSCAT satellite nearing failure; Congress poised to slash NOAA funding

I urge all of you who value the services provided by the National Weather Service and their parent organization, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), to contact your two Senators and ask them to vote against the Senator Hutchison (R-TX) Amendment #2666 to the Commerce State Justice Appropriations Act for 2010 H.R. 2847. This amendment will be voted on this Tuesday, October 13, by the Senate, and would cut the NOAA budget by $172 million. The funds would be diverted to the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, to increase its budget by 75%. While I’m sure the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program is a worthy program to support, Congress should find a different way to fund this program. NOAA’s total budget is about $4 billion, and the National Weather Service Budget is a little less than $1 billion. The only place where NOAA has the flexibility to absorb the proposed cuts would be in the satellite program. With the QuickSCAT satellite likely to fail in the next few months, and the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) satellite also nearing its demise, the last thing we should be doing is cutting NOAA’s budget in time when our capability to observe the weather from space is suffering from serious degradation.

Kay Bailey Hutchison is running for governor of Texas. The program she wants to fund is used to reimburse state and local lock-ups for holding undocumented immigrants. A large portion will go to Texas.

This action ignores the fact, reported by All Things Considered, Immigration Official: Detention System Must Change . They didn’t ask for more money, because they are redesigning the entire system. The current system is too expensive and ineffective.

When one of the primary tools for forecasting and tracking tropical storms drops out of the sky because the replacement wasn’t funded, Hutchison will blame the Federal government, and never acknowledge her part in preventing a replacement being launched. Like most politicians, she is incapable of thinking beyond the next election.

Bill Moyers Journal has a the transcript of a discussion of the current state of crisis featuring Simon Johnson and Marcy Kaptur.

Simon Johnson is a British economist, a former official of the International Monetary Fund, the Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship at MIT Sloan School of Management, and one of the founders of the blog, The Baseline Scenario.

Marcy Kaptur is the long-time Congresscritter for northern Ohio, who sits on all the right committees [Appropriations, Budget, etc.] in the House. Her district is one of the most foreclosed areas of the country.

Lambert at Corrente has two Elizabeth Warren videos, in which she explains in her clear professorial style how the economy has been eviscerating the middle-class.

Elizabeth Warren is the chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel that is monitoring the bank bailout, as well as the Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.

Susie Madrak has a collection of one-liners that answer the question: How bad is it?

I really liked: “The economy is so bad that if the bank returns your check marked ‘Insufficient Funds,’ you call them and ask if they meant you or them.”

The Norwegians told a joke today that no one seems to understand, including me, and I understand German jokes about Friesians [the people, not the horses]. I don’t approve of Friesian jokes, but I understand them.

Update: I may not understand the Norwegians, but I do understand John McKay at archy.

New Kit On The Block

What was that?

[Editor: This is KT-2’s addition to the group, a little brown mackerel tabbie with white paws. Doesn’t seem as jumpy as most new kittens.]

Friday Ark

In Memoriam

Tabitha

This is more of an ancient tax-free shop, than a country. It sits on storied trade routes, and provides a place for “entrepreneurs” to rest up for their next venture. The wars in the area rarely end in anything more than a truce, because as soon as the foreigners give up and leave, the locals go back to their private feuds.

In Creative Cartography II I discussed the Soviet solution for some of the problems in the area of Central Asia the Russian Empire thought they owned, but the real hard cases tended to end up in Afghanistan.

The various groups generally use Dari, a form of Persian, as the lingua franca, and most speak Persian based languages, but they have no problem misunderstanding each other when it suits their purpose.

Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Turkmen, Nuristani, and Baloch are the major ethnic groups in generally agreed order of size, but there are several others. No group can claim a majority, and the largest group, the Pashtun, are more concerned with tribal affiliation, than being Pashtun.

After the major fighting was over and the rebuilding was just getting started, there were a number of attacks on “insurgents” that turned out to be wedding parties, or tribal leaders going to gatherings. That was the result of tribal feuds being continued, as the intelligence was designed to harm rival tribes.

The concepts of a national army, or police force are alien to Afghanis. They are not going to act against members of their own tribe. The whole concept of the nation state is not exactly part of the psyche of people in the area. I have no idea how you would judge winning, but getting out alive would be a good place to start.

Remember: foreign troops are the only thing that unites the tribes, and that’s what the Taliban are counting on.

Under Stuff:

Henri est mort. Just couldn’t survive the wind shear, and has become a remnant low.

Vanuatu and the Santa Cruz Islands are still shaking with three more >6 tremors today, and a half-dozen smaller shocks. This is not good for the people getting jarred, as they aren’t going to be comfortable going back to their homes.

Nonsense:

For the FTC – I run no advertising, and have received no freebies or compensation for discussing anything on this On-line Opinion Magazine blog. That is probably due the fact that when I discuss devices or programs, it is generally to complain.

The graphics in the right left side bar reflect things I use to produce this blog, which means they are generally “good enough”, as Jerry Pournelle was known to remark. I’m paying to use some, but most are free and open source, so there is a net loss on the ledger.

USGS list shows that in the area of Vanuatu and the Santa Cruz Islands the following earthquakes: 10/07 22:03 UTC 7.8, 22:18 UTC 7.7, 23:48 UTC 7.3. These were followed by five 5+ aftershocks, and then a 6.9 at 10/08 02:12 UTC. [Subtract 5 hours for CDT]

These are probably continuing adjustments caused by the Samoan earthquake, which then resulted in the disastrous Sumatran quake.

Every earthquake tends to add to the pressure at other points, which may snap.

The three in a row may have actually prevented a tsunami from forming by dampening any building wave from the initial shock. I would personally avoid the beach for a while.

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Position: 19.5 N 59.7 W [10 PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: West-Northwest [285°] near 15 mph [24 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 35 mph [55 kph].
Wind Gusts: 45 mph [70 kph].
Minimum central pressure: 1009 mb ↑.

It is 240 miles [385 km] East-Northeast of the Leeward Islands.

The wind shear is not favorable for Henri. The storm continues to weaken.

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.]

There has been a lot of ink spilled over how Congresscritter Alan Grayson [D FL08] is going to be targeted by the GOP when he runs for re-election.

The Orlando Sentinel reports on the effort in a short article, Crotty’s out — but other Republicans may want to take on Grayson.

Crotty was the only Republican with any actual experience in government who was thought to be considering a run against Grayson. The guys who are left are all neophytes to politics. The best funded, i.e. wealthiest, thinks he’s going to gain votes by attacking Grayson for bringing Federal dollars to Mouseland, because everyone knows how much voters hate to have Federal dollars spent in their district. [/snark]

Grayson may actually end up with a real opponent in 2010, but it has to be someone who is going to show a lot of hidden talents for politics. Grayson won running as what he has proven to be, a progressive, against an incumbent Republican conservative. The voters decided that he was what they wanted. Unless the UF or FSU football coach decides to run against him, he’s probably in a good position for re-election.