Posts from — May 2011

From CNN, Army Corps opts to blow up levee, flood 130,000 acres in Missouri

(CNN) — Starting Monday night, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will blow up a levee at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers due to record-high water levels in both rivers, said Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh.
…

“(The system) continues to be under enormous and unprecedented pressure,” said Walsh, the president of the Mississippi River Commission. “Because of that … I’ve ordered the district commander to operate the project.”

The first phase of the explosive operation at the Birds Point-New Madrid levee should occur between 9 p.m. and midnight Monday. Walsh said that historic and still rising flood waters made it imperative to begin the operation as soon as possible. The multistage process is expected to continue through Tuesday.

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster’s office tried to block the move, challenging the Corps’ authority to breach the levee. But the U.S. Supreme Court, in a ruling from Justice Samuel Alito, denied Missouri’s bid.

The rivers at Cairo, Illinois are already more than 20 feet above flood level and climbing with more rain expected. The levee system is going to fail somewhere, the Corps of Engineers is hoping to minimize damage by picking the spot and reducing the water level.

I’m a bit mystified that the Missouri officials don’t seem to understand that the reason that the farmland that will be flooded is fertile because it was a flood plain before the levee was built, and the top soil is river silt.

As a bit of background on the situation you should read the short Wikipedia version of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. A lot of good information in there about the major political changes that occurred because of this event, beyond the passage of the Flood Control Act of 1928 that allows the Corps to breach the levees.

The musical versions are When the Levee Breaks based on an old Blues song, and Louisiana 1927.

The actual quote, as Ellroon of Rants from the Rookery notes, is:

“I have never killed any one, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction.”

and it is from Clarence Darrow’s autobiography, The Story of My Life, in Chapter 10 “Child Training”.

After looking at the maps, and checking some facts to be sure my memory was correct, bin Laden’s hide-out was a superb choice, with or without ISI assistance.

Abbottabad is a resort area where the elites from Islamabad and Rawalpindi go to escape the heat during the summer. Foreign embassies no doubt have compounds in the area for their staff, so the local people would be accustomed to having “tourists” in their midst.

The area is only about 100 miles East of Peshawar, but the local official interest is directed towards Indian border and Kashmir, not what is happening in Afghanistan. The area is patrolled by the Frontier Corps, not the Pakistani Army, which is concentrated on the Indian border.

It has been mentioned that the compound was less than a mile away from the Pakistan Military Academy, but that just improves the camouflage. Who checks the motel next to the police station for wanted criminals?

Abbottabad is just north of the Grand Trunk Road that runs all the way to Kabul, so communications and supplies can flow freely. Couriers were used, and I assume there were blind mail drops involved, so tracing messages would be a major problem for intel. The resort nature of the town would make most of the traffic blend with the churn in the local area as people would be making short trips to look at the scenery.

It has been reported that the compound was targeted because of a lack of telephone or Internet connections, which would be quite unusual in an expensive house in the area, so he may have been turned in by The Phone Company, or The Cable Company for failing to become a customer.

Has anyone checked the font on the death certificate, or are we expected to believe a CIA or White House pronouncement? If the sources are Pakistani, that’s even less reliable.

He has probably been dead for years, given his medical history, but it was too useful to too many people to have him around to scare the Republicants and other children.

He could have died in his sleep, surrounded by his family and you still have to take your shoes off at the airport and carry a ziplock bag for liquids.

CNN notes that Missouri takes levee battle to U.S. Supreme Court

(CNN) — Missouri on Sunday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt a plan to intentionally breach a levee on the rain-swollen Mississippi River, flooding Missouri farmland in an effort to save an Illinois town.

Earlier, Missouri filed a federal suit to block the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from following through on its plan to breach the Birds Point-New Madrid levee. A federal judge on Friday ruled against Missouri, saying a 1928 law permits the breach of the levee to ease pressure on the river.

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster filed an application for an injunction to the high court on Sunday. It was assigned to Justice Samuel Alito, according to the U.S. Supreme Court’s website.

The Corps of Engineers says the action is necessary to save the town of Cairo, Illinois, although it will flood rural Missouri farm communities. “I know that the price being paid is high,” said Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh on Saturday.
…

As of 3 p.m. (4 p.m. ET), the gauge at Cairo — where the Ohio River meets the Mississippi River — stood at 59.97 feet, a record level. Flood stage is 40 feet, according to the National Weather Service.

The Corps believes that if they don’t relieve the pressure on the system and pull off some of the water, the rest of the system is subject to collapse. They are going to be sued by someone, regardless of what they do. The system is 20 feet above flood stage, and experiencing a 100-year event. It is highly unlikely, given that level, that nothing will fail and the water will simply pour into the Gulf of Mexico.

There are no good choices in this scenario, only some that hopefully impact fewer people.

The BBC reports that a Air France flight data recorder recovered

One of two flight recorders from an Air France plane that crashed in 2009 off the coast of Brazil has been recovered, officials say.

France’s Bureau of Investigation said in a statement that the device was “in good physical condition”.

French search teams last week found the outer casing of the so-called black box recorder, but not its memory.

The Air France Airbus plane went down in the Atlantic on 1 June 2009, killing all 228 people on board.

If it can be read, it will go a long way towards explaining what happened. The picture indicates that it is still in good shape, but they won’t know for sure until it is inserted into a “reader”.

There are two recorders. One records the cockpit conversations for 30 minutes before it loses power, and the other records the data stream for the instrument panel.

The CBC is carrying a story about will probably increase the friction between the US and Canada: U.S. cables dissect Canada’s leaders: WikiLeaks

The whistleblower website WikiLeaks has released sensitive U.S. diplomatic cables that reveal their behind-the-scenes take on Canada’s party leaders — on the eve of the federal election.

The cables released to several media outlets cover a six-year period that ended in early 2010. They not only provide a distillation of media accounts on key Canadian political events by U.S. officials, but include accounts from Canadian party insiders.

Among the revelations included in the diplomatic documents are accounts of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s “vindictive pettiness,” Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff’s “lack of energy and hands-on leadership,” and New Democrat Leader Jack Layton’s “mouse of a party.”

There is nothing new in the cables, and most people have come to the same conclusion except for Jack Layton and the NDP. As one of the commenters on this article pointed out, the NDP might be “the mouse that roared” in tomorrow’s election. More people are coming to the conclusion that many of the strategic voters who have backed the Liberals or Bloc in previous elections, may go with the NDP this time. If that actually happens, Jack Layton could end up forming the next government of Canada.

If you are Canadian, please vote, so we will know where you want to go and how you want to get there.

The May Day association with labor is all American, and just as controversial as everything of any consequence in history. The day is tied to a strike for the eight-hour day and the so-called “Haymarket Riot” of 1886. When it comes to “riots” and the Chicago police are involved, you are not going to find a single truth.

The dynamic duo that mucked up the Pledge of Allegiance, Dwight Eisenhower and his Republican Congress, made May 1^st both Law Day and Loyalty Day so those Commie working people wouldn’t get any ideas about having rights.