To understand some of the references it helps if you have watched the original Star Wars multiple times: Crumbs! Large Hadron Collider suffers snack-related bird mishap and Breaking: Large Hadron Collider shut down by precision bird strike.

I would note that there is no direct evidence of bird involvement. It could have been ninja squirrels.

Position: 19.5 N 84.4 W [ 6 PM CST 0000 UTC].
Movement: North-Northwest [345°] near 10 mph [17 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 70 mph [110 kph].
Wind Gusts: 85 mph [135 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 140 miles [220 km].
Minimum central pressure: 990 mb.

It is 180 miles [290 km] East-Southeast of Cozumel, Mexico.

Tropical Storm Warnings are now in effect for Grand Cayman Island, the Pinar del Rio province of Cuba, and the Yucatan Peninsula from Punta Allen northward to San Felipe.

A Hurricane Watch is in effect for the Yucatan Peninsula from Tulum to Cabo Catoche.

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.]

Gold is at record high prices. Five more banks failed. Unemployment is at an official 10.2%, with the real rates probably twice that. Jobs are still being shed in all sectors. The dollar is weak, but the US doesn’t make anything, so there’s not much to export.

Obviously the stock market had to go back up above 10K.

Reducing the rate at which jobs are lost is not good enough – jobs needs to be added so people can start buying, or the economy will never improve. We need a real stimulus package that is actually designed to get people back to work. We need real regulation of the financial industry, so they can’t do this to us again.