Posts from — August 2010

Who knew? The Local Puppy Trainer covers the latest change from “We will make it right”: BP: No claims to be paid in Florida for losses in May

BP officials have decided not to fully honor claims made by Florida businesses for losses prior to oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill reaching the state.
…

BP officials say the company hasn’t changed its stance on which claims it will honor.

Mary Shafer-Malicki, the deputy incident commander for Florida, sent state Sen. Don Gaetz what she termed “a clarification” of company policy when he asked for it last week.

“BP will make claim payments based on the time an area has been impacted due to oiled beaches. This is consistent with the Oil Pollution Act (OPA), which is guiding BP’s claims process,” the statement said.

“In general, Louisiana had oiled beaches or marshes in May, while Alabama, Mississippi and Florida did not have beaches oiled until June,” it said.

“Looks like some backtracking to me,” said [state senator Don] Gaetz, R-Niceville.
…
[Read more →]

The Pensacola News Journal notes that Oil spill debris washes onshore in Escambia County

Barbara Dougan, Gulf Islands National Seashore spokeswoman, said four hard hats were found last week on the beach in the Fort Pickens area. One was marked with the word “Transocean,” which is an offshore drilling contractor associated with the Deepwater Horizon, Dougan said.

The full article talks about other debris that has come ashore in the area recently that is logically linked to the Deepwater Horizon. The winds and waves are changeable. Debris has shown up as far East as Panama City. These are things that have been floating on top of the Gulf, not suspended below.

I posted this to remind people that if this type of thing is still showing up after more than three months, this process is going to be measured in years, not days or weeks. It will be next year before we have hard data on the effect of the oil on the species that breed annually. Some species of sea turtle don’t breed until their thirties.

The Pensacola News Journal notes something that the national media missed: Feds’ report spins facts about oil in Gulf

“The way it was presented was more of a public relations campaign than trying to estimate the real impact,” said University of South Florida oceanography professor Frank Muller-Karger, who has been involved in spill research.

Chief among scientists’ complaints: The report’s wording leads readers to believe most of the oil is gone.

“If one reads carefully, it doesn’t really say that,” Muller-Karger said. “But it’s presented in a way that you can interpret it in a very positive way.”

Early news stories about the NOAA report were accompanied by headlines like, “Vast majority of oil gone from Gulf” and “75 percent of spilled oil gone.”

In reality, the report makes no estimate of how much oil remains in the Gulf — saying only that 25 percent was collected or burned, and the rest is being broken down naturally.

“That’s the big mystery in the report. That’s 75 percent of the oil that is still unaccounted for,” Muller-Karger said.
…

“This is a shaky report. The more I read it, the less satisfied I am with the thoroughness of the presentation,” Florida State University oceanography professor Ian MacDonald told The Associated Press. “There are sweeping assumptions here.”

There is no magic involved – only 25% of the oil has been accounted for, and they don’t actually know what happened to the other 190 million gallons that poured into the Gulf.

They should have included my favorite Sidney Harris New Yorker cartoon on the front cover of this report.

Digby has a post that includes this Dick Morris “wisdom”:

…Republicans will ask the central question: Why should taxpayers from states that have cut their budgets and observed spending restraint, pay for the extravagances of the other states? Why should forty-seven states have to pay for California, New York, and Michigan?

I have a better question Dick, ” Why should 17 states, including California, New York, and Michigan, be paying for the 32 states that get more Federal tax money than they provide?”

Only Rhode Island gets as much as it gives. My post on Welfare States covers those that get at least 20% more than they give.

For years Michigan has donated 8¢ to the “poor box”, New York 21¢, and California 22¢. Maybe it’s time for them to look after their own and stop supporting Alaska, Louisiana, Mississippi, et al. with their tax payments?

Position: 32.9N 65.6W [ 4 PM CDT 2100 UTC].
Movement: North [360°] near 12 mph [19 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 30 mph [45 kph].
Wind Gusts: 40 mph [ 60 kph].
Minimum central pressure: 1015 mb ↑.

It is about 60 miles [100 km] Northwest of Bermuda.

The Tropical Storm Watch has been discontinued as Colin has dissipated.

This is the final advisory.

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.]

CNN reported that Romer resigns as chief of Obama’s economic council

(CNN) — Christina Romer, head of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, will step down and return to her teaching post at the University of California, White House officials said on Thursday.

The resignation will take effect on September 3.

By all accounts Ms Romer was an intelligent and competent economist, so it was clear that she needed to resign from her position to retain her credibility.

As a Neo-Keynesian and an MIT graduate it should have been obvious that the Neo-Classical Harvard crowd that Obama listened to wouldn’t accept her, any more than Harvard would accept her to teach. Being right is not as important as being from the “in crowd” in the Obama White House or the Ivy League.

The Florida primary election is August 24^th, but the early voting starts on Monday, August 9^th, and continues through the 21^st.

This link provides the locations and hours for Okaloosa County.

Remember, Florida has closed primaries, so you must be a registered member of that particular party to vote in the party’s primary.

With luck, both Scott and Greene will lose and the volume of political ads will go from a torrent to a trickle until October.

In another display of Republican concern for education the legislature has authorized a three-day tax holiday on back-to-school supplies and clothes.

Public school started on Thursday, August 5^th, and the “holiday” will be August 13 through 15^th.

If their children went to the public schools the Republicans would know that. If they had any concern at all for public schools the Republicans would know that.

The sales tax is 6%. It would have been nice if people could have saved the money in these times.

Position: 29.7N 65.6W [10 PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: North-Northeast [015°] near 3 mph [ 5 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 40 mph [65 kph].
Wind Gusts: 50 mph [ 80 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 105 miles [165 km].
Minimum central pressure: 1012 mb.

It is about 185 miles [ 300 km] South-Southwest of Bermuda.

The storm is barely retaining its status.

Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for Bermuda.

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.]

A lot of people are having a conniption about a supposed deal between Google and Verizon that will start us down the slippery slope of tiered service and end ‘Net neutrality. The reporting on this is in Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, former home of Judith Miller.

OK, now who would benefit from this report?

On the one hand you have Google, which is rolling cash, but is willing to lose money if they get jerked around [Google.cn], and on the other you have a highly leveraged telco looking to maximize profits so it can service its debt and pay its executive obscene amounts of money. Who feels the pressure on the publication of this story? Who would leak it to the WSJ and the NYT?

Why would Google go alone with a tiered system, having put so much time and effort backing neutrality?

Google developed the Android operating system that is used on Motorola cell phones on the Verizon network, so there are existing channels open between the two companies, and they may well discuss ‘Net neutrality, but an agreement on a tiered system only benefits Verizon. Unless Verizon is ready to dump the Android phones, I see no way they can dump Google.

If I were suspicious by nature, I would start looking at Verizon stock prices.

Kimberly Quillen of The Times-Picayune writes that BP working to cure, dry cement it pumped into Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico

National Incident Commander Thad Allen, in a press briefing this morning, said the company put a layer of fluid on top of the cement and then pumped more mud on top to add pressure to help cure the cement. BP is waiting for the cement job to cure before resuming work on the relief well it is drilling nearby.

“We are unequivocally committed to completing the relief wells,” said Allen. “There is no indication at all that we completed this with the static kill from the top.”

The work at the top of the well is inside the casing, and there is no way they can be sure that oil isn’t in the space between the casing and the well bore. One of the main things they are going to do with the relief well is to pour cement into that space to know that it is sealed.

From Weather Underground

Cinco Bayou – Pocahontas Dr., Fort Walton Beach, Florida (PWS)
Updated: 1:33 PM CDT on August 06, 2010
Scattered Clouds
82.6 °F [28.1 °C]
Humidity: 89%
Dew Point: 79 °F
Wind: Calm
Wind Gust: 1.0 mph
Pressure: 29.91 in (Falling)
Heat Index: 93 °F [33.9 °C]
Visibility: 10.0 miles
UV: 10 out of 16
Pollen: 4.30 out of 12
Pollen Forecast new!
Clouds:
Few 2000 ft
Scattered Clouds 19000 ft
Scattered Clouds 21000 ft
(Above Ground Level)
Elevation: 16 ft

Finally, we are nearer to normal!!!

Things Happen:

• 1538 – Bogotá, Colombia, is founded by Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada.
• 1777 – Revolutionary War: Battle of Oriskany.
• 1890 – At Auburn Prison in New York, murderer William Kemmler becomes the first person to be executed by electric chair.
• 1909 – Alice Ramsey and three friends become the first women to complete a transcontinental auto trip.
• 1923 – Henry Sullivan swims the English Channel.
• 1926 – Gertrude Ederle becomes first woman to swim across the English Channel.
• 1945 – World War II: Hiroshima is devastated when an atomic bomb, “Little Boy”, is dropped by the United States B-29 Enola Gay. Around 90,000 people were killed instantly.
• 1960 – Cuban Revolution: In response to a United States embargo, Cuba nationalizes American and foreign-owned property in the nation.
• 1965 – US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into United States law.
• 1991 – Tim Berners-Lee releases files describing his idea for the World Wide Web.
• 2001 – White House briefing entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” delivered to George W. Bush. This document foreshadowed the September 11, 2001 attacks.

People Are Born:

• 1809 – Alfred Lord Tennyson, English poet (d. 1892)
• 1861 – Edith Roosevelt, American First Lady of the United States (d. 1948)
• 1881 – Leo Carrillo, American actor (d. 1961)
• 1881 – Alexander Fleming, Scottish scientist, Nobel laureate (d. 1955)
• 1881 – Louella Parsons, American gossip columnist (d. 1972)
• 1891 – William Slim, British general (d. 1970)
• 1892 – Hoot Gibson, American actor (d. 1962)
• 1902 – Dutch Schultz, American bootlegger (d. 1935)
• 1908 – Will Lee, American actor (d. 1982)
• 1911 – Lucille Ball, American actress (d. 1989)
• 1917 – Robert Mitchum, American actor (d. 1997)
• 1928 – Andy Warhol, American artist (d. 1987)
• 1934 – Piers Anthony, English writer
• 1943 – Jon Postel, American computer scientist (d. 1998)

In Later Years Others Are Born:

• Steve Bates
• NTodd

Position: 29.1N 66.5W [10 PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: North [010°] near 9 mph [15 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 45 mph [75 kph].
Wind Gusts: 55 mph [ 90 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 115 miles [185 km].
Minimum central pressure: 1009 mb.

It is about 245 miles [ 390 km] South-Southwest of Bermuda.

Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for Bermuda.

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.]