Posts from — August 2011

Position: 30.1N 76.0W [10AM CDT 1500 UTC].
Movement: Northeast [035°] near 17 mph [28 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 35 mph [ 55 kph].
Wind Gusts: 45 mph [ 75 kph].
Minimum central pressure: 1011 mb.

Currently about 300 miles [485 km] Southeast of Charleston, South Carolina.

The storm is nowhere near land and its track into the central Atlantic is over ever cooler water which forestalls any strengthening. It will again become a remnant low later today or early tomorrow.

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.]

Position: 27.4N 78.2W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: North [360°] near 8 mph [13 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 35 mph [ 55 kph].
Wind Gusts: 45 mph [ 75 kph].
Minimum central pressure: 1011 mb ↓.

Currently about 70 miles [115 km] North-Northeast of Freeport, Grand Bahama Island.

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.]

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

The Onion had an amusing piece on the DC hostage crisis: Emergency Team Of 8th-Grade Civics Teachers Dispatched To Washington.

It’s a funny concept, but it wouldn’t work as 8th-Grade Civics is too advanced for many members of Congress, like my Congresscritter, or Alabama’s Senators. No, what is needed is 537 copies of the Schoolhouse Rock! DVD collection [they have aides who can deal with the complexities of DVDs]. That’s one for every member of Congress, plus the President and Vice President.

Some might limit the order to the America Rock series on history and government, but, after watching them, it’s apparent that they need math, English, and science help too. We have these people talking about the government budget with no proof that any of them know how to balance a checkbook, or can tell the difference between different car loan options.

CNN says that S&P downgrades U.S. credit rating. They are saying that instead of being AAA, the US debt is now AA+.

[Update: Serious People should just ignore the inconsequential, minor, not-even-worth-mentioning $2 trillion error in the S&P analysis used for the downgrade. Hey, math is hard, OK?]

S&P [Standard and Poors], it should be remembered, popped up in the middle of the debt limit hostage crisis to say that the US had to slash $4 trillion in order to retain its AAA rating.

For those just joining the discussion, here is what Professor William Black thinks: Downgrade S&P! Rating Agencies “Harm The World” and Should Not Exist, Says Prof. Black [There is an auto-run video at the link].

Ratings agencies have failed the public before. Moody’s, S&P and Fitch all labeled many of the sub-prime mortgage-backed securities as AAA, when in reality these MBS were junk. And, who can forget that all three have failed to accurately assess the debt of many European countries until after it was already considered a crisis.

With a less than stellar track record over the last five years, William Black, professor of economics at the University of Missouri has a very strong opinion on whether we should care what the top three rating agencies say.

“[They] are one of the best indicators of the real situation,” he says. “You take the opposite of whatever they say, and then you are very likely to have the truth.”

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Bill Black, his area of expertise is white-collar crime, specifically fraud among financial institutions. His best selling book was The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One: How Corporate Executives and Politicians Looted the S&L Industry.

Given the way the ratings agencies operate, the relevant question is who paid S&P to get involved and downgrade the US? The ratings agencies sold the AAA ratings to the people hawking the MBS junk bonds, so someone paid for this.

We elected these ‘maroons’ who are pushing us over the cliff.

A Gentleman of Leisure

You want something?

[Editor: This is Blaze, the alpha tom, doing what he does best – nothing. Of course, when the heat indexes are running above 120°F [48.9°C], that’s probably a smart move … well, non-move.]

Friday Ark

Since the US Treasury can borrow money at 2.43%, and the Greeks, Italians, and Irish are suffering because of bond rates at about 6%, why doesn’t the Treasury borrow as much as it can at the current rate and buy Euro-bonds at 3.5%. The Euro-economies get a break, and the US scores 1%/year.

Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot that only Wall Street is allowed to make money with other peoples’ assets.

Update: Dow dropped 512 points at the close. You can’t get through to the CNN/Money article because their server is overloaded, but it updates with the latest bad news.

Your friends on Wall Street sent you a message: Dow free falls 400 points

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Poof! There goes any progress stocks made in 2011.

Stocks plunged Thursday, with the Dow tumbling 400 points to hit its lowest level since December, as global economic fears gripped the market.

U.S. markets were already sharply lower on widespread worries, including the weak job market. But the selling gained momentum as Japanese and European policymakers stepped in with dramatic measures to shore up their financial markets.

There’s “total fear” in the market, said Bob Doll, chief equity strategist at the world’s largest money manager, BlackRock.
…

Meanwhile, it should come as no surprise that in the U.S., investors flocked to assets perceived as low-risk, including U.S. Treasuries and gold.

Treasury prices rose, pushing the yield on the 10-year note down to 2.48% from 2.6% late Wednesday, and gold futures for December delivery fell $8.70 to $1,657.70 an ounce. Earlier in the session, gold hit a record high of $1,684.70 an ounce.

In other commodities, oil prices slumped more than 5% to $89.90 a barrel.

[Read more →]

Emily has degenerated into a remnant low having been disrupted by the mountains of Hispaniola. It is still a rain threat, and might regenerate, but this is the final advisory. All Watches and Warnings have been canceled.

Position: 19.0N 75.0W [ 4PM CDT 2100 UTC].
Movement: Northwest [315°] near 16 mph [26 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 35 mph [ 55 kph].
Minimum central pressure: 1009 mb ↑.

Currently about 100 miles [160 km] South-Southwest of the eastern tip of Cuba

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.]

This is from an actual, real, ‘I didn’t write this’, e-mail I received today:

Lyndon Larouche has now confirmed an extraordinary warning from Prophet Linda Newkirk. In an interview with Alex Jones on Monday Larouche stated that Obama was receiving orders from England to push the US into an economic collapse. Larouche also stated in the interview, that if the debt limit deal was passed, according to the provisions contained within that agreement, America would be under a state of Martial Law.
…

Linda has an impressive track record for exposing the plans of the New World Order. On September 11, 2001 Linda received a prophecy identifying the Illuminati as the culprits behind the destruction of the Twin Towers while the world was about to be fed the Bin Laden fairy tales.

Just days after the 08 election, while the world was ‘head over heels’ in love with Obama, Linda revealed that he was put into power by Illuminati ‘ringleader’ Evelyn David de Rothschild, to put the ‘final nails in the coffin’ of the USA.

I think that Ms Newkirk’s prophetic abilities would carry a bit more weight if she actually knew Sir Evelyn de Rothschild’s real middle name. Hint: it isn’t David.

As Sir Evelyn is an acquaintance of Bill Clinton, I think it highly unlikely that he would be an Obama supporter. He has been Queen Elizabeth’s financial advisor forever, and that is the primary reason for his knighthood. The most objectionable thing he seems to have done, other than being born a Rothschild, was serving on the board for the development of Milton Keynes [you need to read Good Omens if you aren’t British to get the joke].

While Mad Kane wrote a Limerick Ode To A Failed Presidency, and Paul Krugman says that his “reservoir of trust is now completely drained”, The Onion reports the unvarnished truth: Obama: Debt Ceiling Deal Required Tough Concessions By Both Democrats And Democrats Alike.

The area weather map is covered in pink indicating an Excessive Heat Warning.

Currently: 92.8°F [33.8°C] + 76% humidity = 120°F [48.9°C] heat index

I probably won’t mow the front yard, and won’t see any cats until after sundown. There is absolutely nothing that even suggests a breeze.

PZ Myers is moving, and his new place is active at: http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/

The owners of the old place were bought out, and the new owners are apparently hinting that PZ should tone it down, which wasn’t going to happen.