Posts from — October 2011

The Local Puppy Trainer had this item this morning: Region’s congressmen sign on to RESTORE Act

Northwest Florida’s U.S. representatives were among those who announced Wednesday that they have signed on as sponsors to a House version of the RESTORE the Gulf Coast Act.

The bill, while similar to one moving through the Senate, would allow more freedom to the five Gulf Coast states affected by last year’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill to spend millions of dollars in BP fines headed their way, said Rep. Jeff Miller.

“It would give local governments more say in how and where the money is spent,” said Miller, the Republican from Chumuckla who represents Florida’s 1st congressional district. “We believe that way the money will be spent more efficiently on more appropriate projects.”

Specifically, Miller said the House bill is designed to limit the power of the federal government to dictate how the BP dollars are spent.

“It has provisions that provide more flexibility to spend the money on economic development instead of restricting it to environmental projects,” Miller said. “The biggest objection (to the Senate bill) for the House sponsors is that there’s not enough to be done to help the economy.”

So, the brain trust that represents South Fundistan doesn’t think that fines for screwing up the environment should be used for cleaning up the mess. No, it should be used for ‘economic development’.

We have a tourist economy. If the environment isn’t clean, the tourists won’t come to visit. First, clean up the mess, which will generate economic activity in the form of jobs in the local area, and if there is any left, you can cut taxes or make pay-offs to campaign contributors, or whatever worthless, ineffective plan that those contributors have ‘guaranteed will work this time’, unlike every other moronic plan they have used to siphon off public money.

If you don’t want the restrictions, don’t take the money.

Position: 29.1N 58.1W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: Northeast [050°] near 13 mph [20 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 90 mph [150 kph].
Wind Gusts: 115 mph [185 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 90 Miles [150 km].
Hurricane Wind Radius: 25 miles [ 35 km].
Minimum central pressure: 976 mb ↓.

Currently about 455 miles [ 735 km] East-Southeast of 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.]

Oscar Ameringer didn’t just talk about manure, he also said: “Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich by promising to protect each from the other.”

I think that there is general agreement that ‘the rich’ are being protected while ‘the poor’ are being cheated. That is at the heart of Occupy Wall Street, and they make that quite plain in their Declaration of the Occupation of New York City. It follows the form of the Declaration of Independence, and like that document, it is a list of wrongs, crimes, against the people of the United States.

People, like the corporate media hacks, are ignoring the clear message – OWS wants the rule of law, they want the criminals punished, not bailed out. They are fed up with being punished for the crimes of the ‘1%’. They have waited patiently for almost 3 years for things to get better, and they haven’t. The ‘1%’ have been making money hand over fist, but the ‘99%’ keep slipping backwards.

This is the Washington Post – Bloomberg coverage.

The two Steves [Jobs and Wozniak] were frequent visitors in SoCal when I worked out there, and actually attended user group meetings with new products.

The key to their products wasn’t innovation, they actually didn’t do much, it was in the design of the products and marketing. They made what they built ‘important’ to people, even if it wasn’t really. Jobs understood his customers, and instinctively knew what they would buy.

Position: 26.4N 61.0W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: North [010°] near 7 mph [11 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 65 mph [100 kph].
Wind Gusts: 75 mph [120 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 90 Miles [150 km].
Minimum central pressure: 997 mb.

Currently about 465 miles [ 750 km] South-Southeast of 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.]

I have already expressed my views of the theft of the ‘Tea Party’ label. The ‘Tee Party’ would be more appropriate for the GOP.

Think Progress carries that thought a step further with: Top 5 Reasons Why The Occupy Wall Street Protests Embody Values Of The Real Boston Tea Party

David Weidner of Market Watch notices that:

Actually, they have more in common with the tea-party movement than the hippie dream, with one key difference: They’re smart enough to recognize the nation’s problems aren’t simply about taxes and the deficit.

They want jobs. They want the generation in power to acknowledge them. They want political change. They want responsibility in a culture that abdicates it. They want a decent future of opportunity.

If that isn’t American, then what is?

Alas, he fails to make a clear distinction between the original and the faux ‘Tea Party’ [or is that Fox …]

For anyone wondering why so many young people are getting involved, Robert Reich tells us that:

Since the start of the Great Recession at the end of 2007, America’s potential labor force – that is, working-age people who want jobs – has grown by over 7 million. But since then, the number of Americans who actually have jobs has shrunk by more than 300,000.

Then you have Sean Paul Kelley noting:

. . . on the Market Place Morning Report I heard them repeat and utterly mind-blowing statistic: student loan debt was now higher than credit cards, weighing in at $830 billion. (The story isn’t on the site, but it can be heard towards the end of the eight minute show.)

The young people have accumulated massive debts to go to college, and now they can’t find a job. When the politicians talk about the ‘lack of training for the current job market’, how do you think that is received by an unemployed recent college graduate? Further, what do you think it sounds like to these young people, when the politicians talk about upping the retirement age, which will reduce the number of jobs available for them?

If I were on Wall Street, I would be on the lookout for the sudden appearance of knitters, because if something isn’t done, that is where we are headed. They need to remember what happened when the lesson of the original Boston Tea Party wasn’t learned.

You have to be careful about references to or about cats, because people take such things very seriously.

The BBC reports that Theresa May ‘wrong’ over migrant cat tale

A claim by the Home Secretary that an illegal immigrant could not be deported because of his pet cat is wrong, according to England’s top judges.

Theresa May told the Conservative Party Conference that the ruling illustrated the problem with human rights laws.

A spokesman for the Judicial Office said the man’s pet had had nothing to do with the judgement allowing him to stay.

Mrs May has since told the BBC that her speech had been checked for accuracy.

The ‘Home Secretary’ [Secretary of State for the Home Department] doesn’t have an exact equivalent in the US government, as the job includes all of our Department of Homeland Security functions, plus some functions from the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior.

The opposition smell ‘blood in the water’, so Theresa May under fire over deportation cat claim.

The quick version of what actually happened is that the cat was mentioned as part of the evidence that the defendant had a long-term relationship with a British citizen. This is similar to the US exemption for the spouse of a US citizen. The Home Office didn’t follow its own regulations in the deportation, so their decision was overruled on appeal. Neither the cat, nor human rights law was involved in the judicial decision, only the Home Office regulations.

Ms May has stepped in the litter box.

In the post on the Ig Nobel’s, Steve Bates wondered about a another publication that he had encountered, Journal of Irreproducible Results.

The editor of the Journal, Mr. Norman Sperling apparently noticed the reference, and dropped by to say it is still going strong.

Position: 24.6N 60.4W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: West-Northwest [300°] near 7 mph [11 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 65 mph [100 kph].
Wind Gusts: 75 mph [120 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 90 Miles [150 km].
Minimum central pressure: 997 mb.

Currently about 595 miles [ 960 km] South-Southeast of 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.]

Position: 23.7N 57.1W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: West-Southwest [240°] near 12 mph [19 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 65 mph [100 kph].
Wind Gusts: 75 mph [120 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 105 Miles [165 km].
Minimum central pressure: 997 mb ↓.

Currently about 755 miles [1220 km] Southeast of 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.]

Position: 48.1N 52.0W [10AM CDT 1500 UTC].
Movement: East-Northeast [060°] near 37 mph [59 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 60 mph [ 95 kph].
Wind Gusts: 70 mph [110 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 290 miles [465 km].
Minimum central pressure: 998 mb ↑.

Currently about 110 miles [ 175 km] North-Northeast of Cape Race, Newfoundland.

All Watches and Warnings have been discontinued, and this is the final advisory from the NHC.

There are reports of flash floods with some road and bridge wash-outs in Newfoundland due to the rains from Ophelia.

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.]

It’s cool as the result of a front passing through, so the cats are being a pain, as they feel invigorated.

Yves at Naked Capitalism noticed that not only did the Goddess of Objectivism, Ayn Rand, use Social Security and Medicare, but the Demi-God of the Austrians, Friedrich Hayek, was lured back to the US by being enrolled in the system. They only object to the ‘little people’ having access to these programs.

Steve Bates covers the discovery by Krugman that the Austerians want people to suffer, well ‘the little people’, not the MOTU, of course.

Avedon loves this quote: “”Money is like manure: Spread around, it helps things grow. Piled up in one place, it just stinks.”

It is by Oscar Ameringer, a very interesting guy – a real American Marxist, among other things.

Corrente has a new template. YMMV may vary, but I find the text unreadable. The font isn’t being rendered properly, with some letters, like “a” and “n” actually larger than the other letters. I thought that it might have something to do with the recent upgrade to Firefox 7.01, so I tried Chrome and IE. Both of them refused to render the style sheet at all, and IE gave a Java warning.

It’s a shame because they have had some of the best coverage of the OWS, but the text is just too hard to read. The difference in letter size and the unusual alignment of other letters, has me looking at letters, rather than reading words. Doing it for an extended period gives me a headache, so I won’t spend a lot of time over there until something changes.

Position: 26.3N 52.9W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: West [270°] near 12 mph [19 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 50 mph [ 85 kph].
Wind Gusts: 65 mph [100 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 105 Miles [165 km].
Minimum central pressure: 1004 mb ↑.

Currently about 785 miles [1260 km] East-Southeast of 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.]

Position: 43.9N 58.6W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: North-Northeast [025°] near 33 mph [54 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 85 mph [140 kph].
Wind Gusts: 100 mph [160 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 230 miles [370 km].
Hurricane Wind Radius: 45 miles [ 75 km].
Minimum central pressure: 974 mb ↑.

Currently about 330 miles [ 530 km] Southwest of Cape Race, Newfoundland.

A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland.

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.]