Posts from — August 2012

The Good News, according to ABC [Australia], is that Bill Gates is finally going to tackle a problem that he knows a lot about: crap.

I have two minor concerns about this: plumbers may have to learn VBA to install a new toilet; and the damn thing might try to be ‘helpful’.

The Bad News, according to Charlie Pierce, is that ‘progressive pundits’ still don’t understand the Republican Party.

Nothing will make the GOP move left, because it is a religion, not a political philosophy. The core concepts can’t fail, only people can fail to properly carry them out. If Mitt Romney doesn’t win, it is because he wasn’t conservative enough. This doesn’t affect Ayn-Rand-Paul-Ryan who will be a leading candidate in 2016, as the GOP moves even further to the right.

Zero’s biggest problem is that he still doesn’t understand that the GOP won’t compromise, because that would be heresy.

Position: 34.6N 50.3W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: East [085°] near 17 mph [28 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 70 mph [110 kph].
Wind Gusts: 85 mph [135 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 60 Miles [ 95 km].
Minimum central pressure: 995 mb ↓.

Currently about 1315 miles [2115 km] West of the Azores.

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 front that passed through and gave us a day and a half of sunshine and moved inland again, so we are back to the daily thunderstorms. I got a fully-dressed shower crossing a parking lot this afternoon. I could have waited, but had no idea how long it would be, and I don’t melt, so I got soaked. If it had looked threatening when I went in, I would have taken the umbrella in the car with me. That wouldn’t have helped because the wind was blowing so hard the rain was almost horizontal.

At least they retired the “Sunshine State” motto on the license plates a few years ago, so we don’t have to listen to the snide comments from the tourists.

Ol’ Sparkie is doing its thing – it is depositing the crispy remains at the bottom for disposal. It won’t be an instantaneous solution, but it appears it will be effective in the medium term.

The broadcast media is actually mentioning the fact that Ryan hasn’t run the numbers, so he claims he doesn’t know the specifics about his ‘budget’.

If you don’t “run the numbers”, you don’t have a budget, you have a collection of guesses. They have run the numbers and know what a piece of offal their proposal represents. If they admit that they have done the math, then they can’t make their wild claims without providing some justification.

This is the same kind of stall as not releasing tax returns – they don’t want facts that can be checked to be put on the record, because they know the facts “have a known liberal bias”.

One of the facts the media should be reporting is that Paul Ryan and the Republican Congress voted for the bills that created this massive deficit that they are having a hissy fit about. Bill Clinton showed everyone how to reduce the deficit, and how to pay off the national debt, but the Republicans, aided and abetted by Greenspan, claimed that paying off the debt was a terrible idea.

“Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.” – Albert Einstein

Republicans, Ryan included, created this mess, so it isn’t logical to assume they know how to fix it.

Position: 31.3N 55.5W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: North-Northwest [345°] near 17 mph [28 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 35 mph [ 55 kph].
Wind Gusts: 45 mph [ 70 kph].
Minimum central pressure: 1012 mb ↓.

Currently about 550 miles [ 885 km] East of Bermuda.

It is expected to become a tropical storm, but will soon be heading to the Northeast, possibly becoming a problem for the Azores next week.

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.]

Definitely the normal mixed bag for local elections.

Reelected were the Sheriff, the Tax Collector, the Judge, and the School Board Member.

We have a new Public Defender, Superintendent of Schools, and two new white guys on the County Comission to replace the two white guys who didn’t seek reelection.

The Sheriff’s contest received the most votes, 34,138, which represents 27.6% of the registered voters.

The County has 123,539 registered voters with about 60% registered as Republican, 20% Democrat, and 20% Other affiliation.

Since most of the County elected positions are filled by these low turn-out ‘primary’ elections, about 20% of the voters get to choose the officials.

The entire state uses Clarity Elections to report the Official Results. This was owned by a Tampa company, SOE Software, but they were bought by a Spanish corporation, SCYTL, at the first of the year.

Screw non-violence, this is all out war. I’ve been putting up with their annoying habits and dealing with them in a ‘kinder, gentler’ way, but that is over.

To this point it has been nothing toxic, and no use of force, but that ended when my coffee had cooled to just the right temperature for my first big gulp of the day, and when I picked up there was a fly floating on top.

It’s no more fly traps with the disgusting mixture for bait. They enter, but can’t leave, so they live out their lives feasting on that muck – it’s like giving a person a heart attack by feeding them chocolate.

It is bug zapper time. I want to hear the sound of those scum being electrocuted. It will become the background music of my life until they are all dead. They should have stayed outside, as they always had until this year, but, no, they got pushy. Well, now they will pay the price.

It is primary election day in Florida. This is the only election you get in this county, because the winner of the Republican nomination is the winner of the election in one-party South Fundistan.

If you don’t vote, you can’t complain.

The polls are open until 7PM CDT [no matter what they think in the state capital], but the state will start releasing results at 6PM CDT because they can’t remember there are two time zones.

We do use paper ballots because this is a Republican election and they know how easy it is to steal elections if you use anything else.

Elayne had to report that Datsa has passed.

Datsa, for those who don’t know, was a venerable tuxedo that has been featured on Elayne’s for as long as there has been cat blogging. Like any cat approaching his second decade, he had medical issues, but they had been stabilized.

It is sad when they have to go, but they know when it’s time, and you have to respect their comfort and dignity.

Charlie Pierce wants everyone to know what a piece of work “the zombie-eyed granny-starver from Wisconsin” is, and today’s topic was his income.

I found the web site of that little ‘mom and pop’ family business, Ryan Incorporated Central. Yep, just little projects, like railroads, Ohare Airport, Interstates, you know, an everyday small family business.

Oh, yes – Paul Ryan has less executive experience than Sarah Palin, class president in high school is as close as he comes.

I see people linking to the Washington Post for the story about a US Navy vessel colliding with an oil tanker in the Persian Gulf, but they don’t understand the situation.

It was time to check with an Old Salt, Rick Spilman, for some facts : “The Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, USS Porter collided with the Japanese owned, Panamanian flag, Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) M/V Otowasan in the the Strait of Hormuz at around 1 am Sunday, local time.”

See, now we know happened. There are a lot sizes when it comes to ‘tankers’, and this vessel was the second largest type. The US destroyer is at fault. There is nothing that the tanker could have done that wouldn’t have been easily avoided by the destroyer. Because of the narrowness of the channel through the Strait, the tankers risk running aground if they don’t stay on the prescribed line.

Fortunately no one was injured, but there will be a huge repair bill, so I assume the Navy will relieve the captain of the destroyer and the bridge crew will probably be looking for new careers. The Strait of Hormuz is no place for amateurs.

So this Spring I decided to provide the ferals with cat beds plant a few flowers to add some interest to the front of the house and get the roses my Mother decided I needed into the ground.

In a long planter I planted Mexican heather [cuphea hyssopifolia] in the center with marigolds in front and behind it. The marigolds died from some sort of fungus and I pulled them up. Then, from the front of the heather I noticed a small reddish vine tipped with a red flower appear.

In the weeks that followed more the vines came out to produce what you see in the picture. They grow along the ground until they are ready to bloom, and then they shoot up. The flowers are about 1¼ inches [3 cm] across with multiple buds on the tips and they close at night, reopening in the day. They look like primroses, but the rest of the plant doesn’t. I assume it was a stray seed from the nursery where the heather was grown, and probably non-native. I don’t plan to do anything with it much, but I’d like to know what it is.

For the first time in the month of August there were no flashes of lightning, no clashes of thunder, no rattle of rain against the windows, and the eaves weren’t dripping.

On the road no one had their headlights on, and windshield wipers were motionless. People had to readjust to sunglasses and leave their umbrellas in the car.

Very strange … probably that climate change that everyone locally talks about not believing in…

I waded through all of the literature and websites of the local candidates and am ready to vote on Tuesday. All of the local candidates, in case you are interested, are white, Christian, conservative Republicans who promise not to raise taxes. Almost all of them are ‘small business owners’ [for a given value of small]. The only major difference is that some of them are incumbents who have had some “minor problems” while in office as they try to ‘make government more efficient and smaller.’

I am only really interested in how many of the incumbents win their elections. If local voters return them to office, they are telling them that those “minor problems” [involving a lot of money and violations of laws] don’t really matter. [IOKIYAR]

In the end my choices were easy as there was usually at least one person running for every office who didn’t have any obvious conflicts of interest. They may actually have conflicts, but they are at least intelligent enough not to highlight them in their campaign literature or on their web site.

You can’t avoid evil, so you may as well opt for some sign of intelligence.

Oh, don’t trust the polling for the Panhandle. I’m one of the few people who still have a landline, so I’m skewing a lot of polls.

What was Advertised

What was Received

HT: Rook and Democratic Underground.