Dr. Masters can be a very depressing read in the morning. In addition to charts, graphs, videos and analysis on the tornado explosion of the past week, he provides a preview of the 100-year flood that will occur on the Mississippi.

Congress had better be ready to spend some money, or to tell their Southern base to accept the “will of G*d” for their sins [voting for Republicants?].

This sort of weather, of course, cannot have anything to do with global climate change, because the “kerning was wrong” on those hacked British e-mails, and Al Gore has a big house.

The State of Columbia, South Carolina tells the tale: Amazon packing after House vote

Amazon all but told South Carolina goodbye Wednesday after the online retailer lost a legislative showdown on a sales tax collection exemption it wants to open a distribution center that would bring 1,249 jobs to the Midlands.

Company officials immediately halted plans to equip and staff the one million-square-foot building under construction at I-77 and 12th Street near Cayce.

“As a result of today’s unfortunate House vote, we’ve canceled $52 million in procurement contracts and removed all South Carolina fulfillment center job postings from our (Web) site,” said Paul Misener, Amazon vice president for global public policy.
…

“This rejection is a slap at everyone in unemployment lines,” said Scott Adams of Lexington, a telecommunication equipment executive who supported the Amazon proposal.

Other critics called the exemption too much on top of a free site, property tax breaks on equipment, state job tax credits and abolition of longtime Sunday morning sales restrictions in Lexington County to facilitate Amazon’s round-the-clock opposition.

[Read more →]

CNN’s latest round-up on the Southern storms:

Tuscaloosa, Alabama (CNN) — Daylight illuminated a scene of utter devastation across many areas of the South Thursday, following storms of near-epic proportions that killed as many as 231 people in six states.

The vast majority of fatalities occurred in Alabama, where as many as 149 people perished, although Gov. Robert Bentley told reporters Thursday there were 131 confirmed deaths.

A breakdown provided by Bentley’s office showed that violent weather claimed lives in 16 Alabama counties. Thirty people perished in DeKalb County in northeastern Alabama; the death toll in the hard-hit city of Tuscaloosa, in west-central Alabama, was at 36 as of Thursday morning, said Mayor Walter Maddox.
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[Read more →]

Barrie Cassidy on the ABC works up a bit of indignation with his opinion piece: Who cares about the important stuff?

It was the ultimate sideshow.

President Barack Obama called a press conference on Wednesday to distribute copies of his birth certificate, trying to put to rest persistent claims that he was really born not in Hawaii but in Kenya. And remarkably, almost all of the major networks took the event live to air.

As the president observed, had he been talking about national security, that would never have happened.

He pointed out that two weeks ago the nation was embroiled in a budget crisis, but the dominant story nevertheless was his birth certificate.

“We’re not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers,” he said.

He makes a point and it filled time until the ABC was able to report: Britain withdraws Syria envoy’s royal wedding invite

Britain has withdrawn the Syrian ambassador’s invitation to the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, saying the regime’s crackdown on protesters made his presence “unacceptable”.

Foreign secretary William Hague made the decision and the royal family agreed that Sami Khiyami should not attend Friday’s ceremony, the Foreign Office said in a statement, following criticism from rights groups.

Which helped to continue the average of 15 minutes between new stories about the event that only effects two families and the manufacturers of tawdry memorabilia.

Sorry, Barrie, but the polls are still open for the “ultimate sideshow”.

Update: CNN’s Jeanne Moos reports that carnival barkers are upset that they were compared to Donald Trump.