Posts from — October 2010

Position: 16.3N 84.6W [10 PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: West-Northwest [285°] near 7 mph [11 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 70 mph [110 kph].
Wind Gusts: 85 mph [135 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 105 miles [165 km].
Minimum central pressure: 995 mb ↓.

Currently about 85 miles [135 km] East of Isla Guanaja, Honduras.

A Hurricane Warning is in effect for Honduras from Limon westward to Puerto Cortes; the Bay Islands including Roatan, Utila, and Guanaja; and Belize

A Hurricane Watch is in effect for the coast of Honduras from the Nicaragua-Honduras border westward to Limon and the coast of Mexico from Punta Gruesa to Chetumal.

A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for the coast of Honduras from Puerto Cortes to the Nicaragua-Honduras border and Limon to the Honduras-Guatemala border; the coast of Mexico from Punta Gruesa to Chetumal.

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 thought it might be easier for my Mother if she went to the early voting, rather then waiting until election day. She isn’t a fan of the ramp to the entry of the town hall, but can’t really complain about it because she was on the town council that built it, and she voted for it.

I decided to do a reconnaissance on the early voting location and set up to see how “user friendly” it would be for people using walkers or wheelchairs and … well, there are always absentee ballots.

The location is in full compliance with the ADA and there are no ramps, beyond a standard curb cutout. It is a major walk from the parking lot to the building, and then a medium length walk inside. There are two sets of doors to get through, and they aren’t automatic or easy.

Once you get to the room where the voting is taking place it is obvious that no one had walkers or wheelchairs in mind when they arranged the furniture.

I voted, but my Mother will wait until election day, because it is a lot easier for her to navigate the town hall, and they provide a person to open the doors.

When you add in a 20 mile round-trip, it isn’t very convenient, or cheap.

Note: this applies to the early voting location in South Okaloosa county, which is off Lewis Turner Boulevard.

Wouldn’t someone without a specific title be just as convincing?

MSNBC carries the AP story with the standard “conservative’ appeal for victimhood – Williams: NPR ‘looking for a reason to get rid of me’.

Unfortunately for Mr. Williams claim, NPR didn’t need to look because he provided it:

… Opinions Williams expressed on Fox News over the years had strained his relationship with NPR to the point that the public radio network asked him to stop using its name when he appeared on Bill O’Reilly’s show.

The bottom-line, NPR told him to stop identifying himself as ‘NPR news analyst Juan Williams’ when he appeared on Fox News, but he continued to do it. By doing it, he was associating his personal views with NPR.

This isn’t about free speech, nor was it a “first offense”. Juan Williams was told by an employer to stop doing something that was affecting that employer, and he continued the behavior. When you work in the media, it is not conducive to your career when you annoy the people who pay the bills.

I don’t remember all of the defenders of Mr. Williams rushing to defend school teachers who work in bars or strip clubs to make ends meet when they get fired.

A note to Senator DeMint – the government doesn’t fund NPR, you dillweed.

Position: 15.8N 82.4W [10 PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: West [270°] near 7 mph [11 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 45 mph [ 70 kph].
Wind Gusts: 55 mph [ 90 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 105 miles [165 km].
Minimum central pressure: 1007 mb.

Currently about 75 miles [125 km] Northeast of Cabo Gracias a Dios on the Nicaragua-Honduras Border.

A Hurricane Watch is in effect for the coast of Honduras from the Nicaragua-Honduras border westward to Limon; the Bay Islands; and the coast of Mexico from Punta Gruesa to Chetumal.

A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for the coast of Honduras from the Nicaragua-Honduras border westward to the Honduras-Guatemala border and the Bay Islands.

A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for Belize.

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.]

Kitten Sitting

Who’s that, Mom?

[Editor: The two gray and white kittens belong to this momma cat, but the kitten still sleeping is Wild Blue, last seen sleeping on the edge of door. Wild Blue’s mom is out and about.

Friday Ark

CNN reports on the latest failure: Report sharply critical of delays, costs of FBI case management system

Washington (CNN) — The FBI’s troubled new system designed to help agents and analysts electronically handle evidence, reports and documents is now about $100 million over budget and two years behind schedule, according to a report by the Justice Department’s internal watchdog.

The stinging report by investigators for Inspector General Glenn Fine is sharply critical of the lack of progress on the automated case management system known as Sentinel. The project was intended to move the FBI from an outmoded paper-based system to an electronic system for handling and sharing information about criminal cases.

Sentinel was launched with fanfare in 2006 after a previous effort collapsed, costing taxpayers more than $100 million. Sentinel was supposed to be completed at a cost of $451 million in 2009. Lockheed Martin was hired to develop the system.

Serious problems developed last year during the development of the second phase of the four-phase project. The intended user-friendly system had “serious performance and usability issues and had received overwhelmingly negative user feedback during testing with FBI agents and analysts” the report said.

The FBI has been attempting to move to a computer-assisted system for decades, and the cost has to be approaching a billion dollars. What they want to do is now a standard content management system, like blogging software, although it was relatively rare when they started the project. The underlying problem is that the FBI has never hired its own IT professionals to, at least, design the system and accurately describe the requirements, everything has been handled by contractors who would have no reason to understand exactly what the FBI does, and what the personnel need to do their job.

This is another example of the hidden cost of outsourcing basic functions.

The CBC reports that NPR fires news analyst for comments on Muslims

National Public Radio says it has terminated the contract of longtime news analyst Juan Williams after comments he made about Muslims on the Fox News Channel.

The U.S. radio broadcaster reported its move on its website. It said Williams appeared on The O’Reilly Factor on Monday and told host Bill O’Reilly that he gets worried and nervous when he sees people dressed in Muslim-style clothes on airplanes.

Actually, I would have sent him to report from Phoenix, Arizona for a while to see how he liked the local sheriff.

NPR has a number of on air personalities who would probably be happier working for Rupert Murdoch, and since there will surely be cuts coming after the elections it is time to “prune the deadwood from the orchard”.

Position: 15.9N 80.5W [10 PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: South-Southeast [160°] near 2 mph [ 3 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: 1006 mb.

Currently about 190 miles [305 km] East-Northeast of Cabo Gracias a Dios on the Nicaragua-Honduras Border.

A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for the coast of Honduras from the Nicaragua-Honduras border westward to Limon.

Despite wind shear, dry air, and weak steering, the storm has spun up to tropical storm strength and is expected by the models to become a hurricane.

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.]

As Badtux points out, the real impact for normal people is going to be in the validity of land titles. If you want to buy a house, how do you know for certain there isn’t an existing mortgage on the property?

It isn’t just homeowners who are being screwed over in this mess, bond holders are filing law suits over the mortgage-backed securities that weren’t exactly as advertised by those issuing them.

And Banks are suing over double- and triple-pledging mortgages, i.e. the same mortgage was sold to more than one bank by mortgage companies.

Now, we have been told that we can’t be too hard on the financial sector, because they have been expanding the US economy with “innovative products”. That is pure, unadulterated bovine excrement. Charles Ponzi was operating the scheme named for him in the early 20^th century. Charles Dickens wrote about a similar scheme in Little Dorrit which was serialized beginning in 1855. All of these schemes are “innovations” that magically produce huge profits until the bubble bursts.

As noted in the Wikipedia entry on Ponzi schemes: “Knowingly entering a Ponzi scheme, even at the last round of the scheme, can be rational economically if there is a reasonable expectation that government or other deep pockets will bail out those participating in the Ponzi scheme.” Can you say “TARP”? How about “Too big to fail”?

[Read more →]

Position: 17.5N 81.1W [10 PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: East [100°] near 2 mph [ 4 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 35 mph [ 55 kph].
Wind Gusts: 45 mph [ 70 kph].
Minimum central pressure: 1006 mb.

Currently about 125 miles [200 km] South of Grand Cayman.

This system has been in the Caribbean as a low for a while, but the wind shear finally backed off enough for it to form. It has very weak steering, so it is uncertain where it will go.

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 Canadians elected a Conservative government and what happens?

Campbell of Canada starts selling Islamic food.

Today the CBC reports that Calgary chooses Nenshi as new mayor

Civic activist and business professor Naheed Nenshi became Calgary’s next mayor in a thrilling come-from-behind victory that kept voters in suspense late into Monday night.

Nenshi, 38, defeated longtime news anchor Barb Higgins and longtime alderman Ric McIver, who earned the nickname “Dr. No” from his critics for opposing many initiatives.

Nenshi is the first Muslim elected to lead a major Canadian city, an attribute he said was not a major issue in the campaign.

“I haven’t shied away from anything in this campaign,” Nenshi said Tuesday. “And issues of race and religion have not come up very much — except, frankly, by the media.

Of course the beachhead was established when the CBC started airing Little Mosque on the Prairie [BTW, Fox is talking about producing a version of the show for the US market].

Sure, they say they are conservatives, but they don’t actually tell you what kind of conservatives, do they? You are aware that the second largest shareholder in News Corp, the Fox parent company, is a Saudi Prince?

[If anyone is in doubt – no, I’m not being serious, but everything in it is true. The wingnuts OTOH will take this seriously. As the mayor-elect says, the media are the only people who really care.]

The St. Petersburg Times says that Of all Democrats, U.S. Rep. Allen Boyd should be safe, but he’s not

Each morning as he heads out on the campaign trail, an increasingly bleak and hostile landscape, U.S. Rep. Allen Boyd must ask himself, “Why me?”

Democrats are under siege everywhere, but during 14 years in office, Boyd has carved a profile as a conservative “Blue Dog,” comfortable in an increasingly Republican North Florida. He has never faced a close election.

Last week, he got the endorsement of the NRA and before that, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. If anyone should feel at ease in this turbulent midterm election cycle, it is Boyd.

There is one group that doesn’t think highly of him – Democrats. That is his problem, his negatives with Democratic voters. He barely squeaked out a win in the first primary challenge he has faced in years, and the people who voted against him in the primary won’t vote for him in the general.

Boyd voted for drilling on the coast. Does he think people don’t remember that? There is a good reason the US Chamber of Multinational Corporations Commerce endorsed him, and the real Democrats don’t like it.

I hope the funeral director from Panama City kicks Boyd’s butt thoroughly, and not just by a squeaker. I hope all of the Blue Dogs get their butts kicked. If the Dems won’t clean house, the voters will. It’s still true – given the choice between a Republican running as a Republican and a Republican running as a Democrat, they’ll pick the Republican every time.

You can not claim to be a conservative if you are totally, abysmally ignorant of history. You are being a radical when you attempt to alter the world to fit your personal view, you are not conserving anything.

CBS reported [with a link to the original story by an Alaskan blogger, Steve Aufrecht] Joe Miller: Communist East Germany a Model for Border Security.

Mustang Bobby made the point that for East Germany the border was more about keeping people in, not keeping them out.

The real reason the border was “effective” was the existence of the Warsaw Pact forces led by the Soviet Third Shock Army in the East, and NATO forces in blocking position in the West to prevent a break-out over the North German Plain and/or the Fulda Gap.

Now if Mexico would put two mechanized armies on their side of the border and the US put the same number in the North, and the parallel fences with associated mine fields were in place, you would get the border control of East Germany. As I don’t think either Mexico or the US is ready to put 200,000 combat troops with supporting tanks, guns, and aircraft in static positions along the border, much less both, Joe Miller puts his ignorance of history on display.

It was called the Cold War, and the border was called the Iron Curtain. It was in all the papers and on TV, Mr. Miller, even in Alaska. I know, because I was in Alaska and in Germany during that time.

You may have seen reports that Campbell is going to sell Halal certified products.

Well, that is sort of true, but you probably won’t be able to buy them because it is the Canadian division that is making and marketing Campbell Halal-certified Products.

For those who don’t know, Halal is the Islamic version of Kosher, and they generally follow the same rules about cleanliness and no artificial ingredients. Trust me, if you want hot dogs, Kosher is the only way to go, because most hot dogs qualify to be sold by CMOT Dibbler.

See, the thing is, most religious groups are a lot harder to bribe than government inspectors, and they are a lot pickier about the rules. If you are new to an area, Kosher and Halal are your friends until you develop immunity to the local cuisine.