Posts from — October 2012

Position: 18.4N 63.6W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: North [355°] near 14 mph [22 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 50 mph [ 85 kph].
Wind Gusts: 65 mph [105 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 175 miles [280 km].
Minimum central pressure: 1004 mb.

Currently about 95 miles [ 150 km] East-Northeast of St Croix.

A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for US Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands, Anguilla, Barbuda, St Kitts, Nevis, Antigua, Montserrat, Saba, St Eustatius, St Maartin, St Martin, Guadeloupe, Desirade, Les Saintes, Marie Galante, Culebra, and Vieques.

A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for Puerto Rico.

Patty devolved into a remnant low, so Rafael has the stage to itself.

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’m supposed to believe that charter and other ‘private’ schools get better results, despite all of the studies that say that isn’t true. I supposed to believe that the teachers in those schools are better than public school teachers because they can be fired at will, are paid lower salaries, receive no benefits, and are working for schools with extremely limited histories.

Look, school teachers, like everyone else in any field is looking for the best job package available. Going to college is expensive and you need the most money you can get to pay off your student loans. Why on earth would the most qualified new teachers cast aside the better pay and benefits of a public school system to work for what amounts to a start-up?

Almost all of the problems of the public schools are related to poor management, not the teachers. In most school systems the top management are elected officials, not professionals. Most of the critical decisions are based on politics, not on the needs of the school system.

The conventional wisdom is that ‘you can’t solve these problems by throwing money at them’, which might be true, but you damn sure can’t solve them when you keep taking money away, year after year, which is what is occurring in Florida and throughout the US.

Position: 15.4N 63.4W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: Northwest [325°] near 10 mph [17 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 40 mph [ 65 kph].
Wind Gusts: 55 mph [ 90 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 175 miles [280 km].
Minimum central pressure: 1007 mb ↑.

Currently about 185 miles [ 295 km] South-Southeast of St Croix.

A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for US Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands, Anguilla, Barbuda, St Kitts, Nevis, Antigua, Montserrat, Saba, St Eustatius, St Maartin, St Martin, Guadeloupe, Desirade, Les Saintes, Marie Galante, Martinique, and St Lucia.

A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for Puerto Rico, Culebra, and Vieques.

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: 25.4N 72.1W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: Stationary.
Maximum sustained winds: 35 mph [ 55 kph].
Wind Gusts: 50 mph [ 80 kph].
Minimum central pressure: 1008 mb ↑.

Currently about 265 miles [ 425 km] East-Northeast of the Central Bahamas.

Patty is fading as fast as it sprang up.

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.]

Lutu At Leisure

I beg your pardon!

[Editor: Lutu doing what cats do best and most often – nothing.]

Friday Ark

The Army has a couple of thousand Abram tanks parked in the desert that have various problems and they aren’t fixing them because they have all of the operational tanks they need. This hasn’t stopped Congresscritters from demanding that the Army buy more tanks, because there are companies in their district involved to the manufacture of the tanks.

The Army says it can save $3 billion by not fixing those tanks and not buying new ones that they don’t need, but Congress would rather take out Big Bird [$445 million]. This has nothing to do with security or defense, this is about protecting the profits of a defense contractor. They want to cut Social Security, but have General Dynamics continue to build tanks the Army doesn’t need or want.

The same Congresscritters who claim the government doesn’t create jobs are saying that if the government doesn’t buy military hardware it doesn’t need, it will cost jobs. These are the same people who say we can’t fix the roads and bridges that everyone uses because that would bust the budget, but it’s imperative that we spend $3 billion dollars on something no one wants, needs, or will use.

Position: 25.9N 72.5W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: Stationary.
Maximum sustained winds: 45 mph [ 75 kph].
Wind Gusts: 60 mph [ 95 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 70 miles [110 km].
Minimum central pressure: 1005 mb ↓.

Currently about 260 miles [ 420 km] Northeast of the Central Bahamas.

This storm has been on verge of possibly doing something for a week, and it is expected to merge with a cold front shortly, so it apparently decided to grab a name from the list.

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.]

If you are a voter in Okaloosa County, or any county that uses ‘mark-sense’ ballots [the one’s that look like the school tests where you have to fill in the oval], the number of amendments that are on the ballot means you will have two sheets to fill out. If you are an absentee voter and intend to mail your completed ballot back to the Supervisor of Elections, you need at least 65¢ worth of postage. Most people will need to put two First Class stamps on the envelop unless they take it to the post office.

The only place I found this fact was on the web site of the Supervisor of Elections. There is nothing on the return envelop other than the fact that you have to put a stamp on it. It would be nice if the County covered the return mailing cost, but that isn’t going to happen.

If you only put one stamp on it, the Post Office will return it to you with that stamp canceled and an insufficient postage message, so it will cost you a total of three stamps to reach the election office.

If this annoys you, blame the people responsible, the Republicans in the legislature who want to change the state constitution – constantly.

The BBC reports that Prime Minister Netanyahu calls early poll.

Bibi can’t get a budget passed because his coalition includes the parties of the whacko fundamentalists who are exempt from military service and live on government welfare. The new budget needed to cut some benefits and the parasites won’t agree to them.

People don’t understand much about the government structure in Israel, so here’s some information.

People don’t get to vote for members of the Knesset, they only get to vote for parties. The parties create their individual lists of people that will fill the seats, but there are no guarantees. The leaders of the parties are selected by party members, so the general public doesn’t get to vote for the Prime Minister.

There are 120 seats in the Knesset, the parliament of Israel. The parties are given the number of seats that is equivalent to the percentage of the total vote they received in the election, i.e. if a party receive 10% of the total vote they received 12 seats in the Knesset, so the top 12 people on their list have a job.

In the last election the Likud Party received about 23% of the vote, so they have 27 seats in the Knesset. Since you need 61 seats to have a viable government, Netanyahu had to form a coalition with 5 other parties.

Netanyahu and his party don’t even represent a quarter of the electorate of Israel. If they can’t convince Israelis to support them, what on earth is the US doing backing every hare-brained scheme they come up with?

I would note, that US Presidential candidates should keep in mind that after the Israeli election in December, Netanyahu may not be the prime minister, so slavishly looking for his approval is not a great idea.

If you are a cat person, you know that from time-to-time a cat with give you a “gift” – something it killed. The best “gift” is a large brown rat, preferably dead, proving the cat’s hunting skills.

Recently the media has presented a number of “gifts” in the form of Republican whackoes:

Echidne noted three of them.

1. Congresscritter Paul Broun [R-GA] a member of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology who doesn’t believe in any of those things.
2. State Representative Jon Hubbard of Arkansas who believes that slavery was a good deal for the slaves.
3. Candidate for the Arkansas House, Charlie Fuqua thinks there is an alliance between liberals and Muslims.

Mustang Bobby notes that Fuqua also thinks that parents should be allowed to execute children who show disrespect.

I believe that having people like this talk publicly and constantly about their beliefs is a major reason that Protestants are no longer the majority in U.S.. These people have defined a Christian theology that contains none of the basic elements of the Sermon on the Mount, which has always been held as the core of Christianity. People are walking away from the cult of fear and hatred that American “Christianity” has become.

John Winston Lennon

1940-1980

From license plates in Florida to stamps in Central Asia, not bad for a working-class guy from Liverpool in only forty years.

It’s the second Monday in October, so it is Thanksgiving Day in Canada. Have a happy one.

The US Federal government has decided to call it Columbus Day, even though it should be the 12^th of October which was the second Wednesday in 1492. But it’s okay that the holiday is on the wrong day, because Christopher Columbus [AKA: Cristoforo Colombo, Cristóbal Colón] didn’t find what he was looking for and identified what he did find incorrectly. The important thing is that a large area of the map got changed from “here be dragons and sea serpents,” to “here be gold and cannibals” and no mention was made of the oppressive heat, mosquitoes, or hurricanes.

[Read more →]

I’ve seen the detention of the producer of Innocence of Muslims being characterized as an attack on free speech, even freedom of religion, rather than the standard probation violation it is.

It turns out that the guy’s name is actually Mark Basseley Youseff and: “Prosecutors say Youseff had eight violations, including lying to his probation officers and using aliases. Youseff also goes by the name of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula.” He is also known as Sam Bacile, which does support the violation that is claimed.

Youseff was convicted of fraud involving the Internet. When he was released on probation, that release was conditioned on Youseff following certain specific rules. He didn’t follow those rules, so his probation officer wants him returned to prison. Understand, there are no new charges, and his sentence won’t be increased, but he will serve it in prison, not outside on probation.

Note: The deaths in Benghazi were almost certainly the action of a terrorist group in Libya, and not associated with the reaction to the film.

So, there’s a lot going on in ‘real life’ which limits my available time to write and the tropics have calmed down with cold fronts mugging both Nadine and Oscar to limit the boiler plate posts.

I liked Dave Johnson’s post, So DO Tax Cuts Create Jobs?, but for my own reason. If someone thinks that there is a causative link between the top marginal tax rate and jobs, they will certainly agree that we simply need to look at the historical data to find the optimal rate.

Actually the best rate not only for job growth, but for the GDP, and the deficit turns out to be between 75% and 80%. Just look at the charts and it is obvious. I get the feeling that the people who decided to promote a linked relationship didn’t do much research.

I wonder if anyone is considering showing up at Rmoney events with a large yellow foam hand that has the appropriate digit extended. Someone really should be following Mitt the Twit around with a big yellow bird…

So, do you think the Congressional Republican witch hunt on the Benghazi consulate attack will include testimony from the Republican House caucus that voted to cut massive amounts of money from the State Department’s budget for security at embassies and consulates?