Posts from — November 2012

Elayne Riggs reports that her power is finally back on but she is putting off trying to get any gas until things calm down a bit.

Riverdaughter at The Confluence is still without power in New Jersey. There are large trees that have to be removed from major supply lines before there is any hope of restoration. The downed trees are also blocking roads. She has a generator, but getting gas for it is not easy. The local stations are not being resupplied yet, and those that have power are running out of fuel.

Decades of ignoring the infrastructure that started in earnest under Reagan are seeing the predicted results. Things are much worse than they need to be because the infrastructure hasn’t been maintained, much less modernized, to withstand a storm like Sandy.

The Republican Party of Florida has used everything they can think of to keep people away from the polls. They have passed laws to restrict early voting, loaded the ballot with amendments to slow down the process, changed the rules for registering to discourage it, created bogus lists to remove eligible voters from the lists, required people to get photo ID cards, etc. ad nauseam. They don’t want you to vote. They don’t believe in elections or the government.

From reading the news I now know that it takes longer to vote in many precincts in Florida that it takes Ayn Rand Paul Ryan to complete a marathon. War and Piece may not be long enough to last the wait in line. You can get gas in NYC in less time than it takes to vote in Miami. This isn’t an attack on the Democrats, this is an attack on democracy.

Voting is not a privilege, it is a RIGHT!

Remember, remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot.

The British are celebrating the anniversary of the thwarting of the Gunpowder Plot.

A group of English Catholic conspirators including an explosives expert, Guy Fawkes, stashed 36 barrels of gunpowder in the basement of the Parliament building with the intent of blowing up the members of Parliament and King James I during the official opening of Parliament on November 5^th, 1605.

Bonfire Night is celebrated with bonfires and fireworks. Effigies of Guy Fawkes, and occasionally the Pope, are traditionally thrown on the fires. Effigies of modern politicians have made their appearances at the celebration.

As Robert Cecil was involved, I doubt anyone will ever know the truth about the plot.

[Editor’s Note: at this point in the US I doubt you could put together a jury that would convict anyone for wanting to blow-up Congress. IMHO, if ‘None of the above’ was added to US ballots, more people would vote.]

If you are familiar with French New Wave cinema, don’t miss the latest from Henri, the existentialist tuxedo cat, discussing Halloween. [If you don’t speak French, close the ads immediately or you can’t see the subtitles.]

Senate Democrats have a PDF of the Congressional Research Service report on Taxes and the Economy. The Senate Republicans demanded it be pulled down because it shows that tax cuts for the wealthy don’t create jobs or help the economy, they just make the rich richer. Yes, Virginia, Reaganomics/supply-side is ‘Voodoo economics’.

After looking around at what various organizations are doing, I made a donation to Occupy Sandy Relief, community-based efforts organized by Occupy Wall Street activists.

They hit the streets in the affected communities and are getting people to jump-start their own recovery by working together and sharing what they have.

Meanwhile you have the ‘official effort’ that my Local Puppy Trainer notes that: Power returning after Sandy but gas problems rise.

The same brain trust that wanted to hold the New York Marathon, decided to give people 10 gallons gas. Great, a $50 value for free at only a few limited locations that are also expected to provide fuel to emergency vehicles in a city that is already in grid lock – what could possibly go wrong?

The problem with fuel is primarily a lack of power to operate service stations. There is fuel in the tanks, but no way of getting it out of the ground. We initially solved that problem locally by using the same manual fuel pumps that are common at marinas. You stick the intake into the tank and turn the crank to fill the ‘official 5-gallon can’. It was sold for cash 5-gallons at a time. My local station actually went totally retro and used a score stick to track the amount sold for accounting purposes. These days most gas stations either have a generator to power the pumps, or the connection to bring in a generator and just plug it in.

The Local Puppy Trainer also noted that Local emergency personnel head to disaster area. We have a lot of seasoned people who have had too much real world experience with disasters, and they go when they are called.

Having been in to major hurricane relief efforts [Opal in 1995, Ivan in 2004] I have to say that there is a problem in New York City. The effort has to be from the bottom-up to be effective. The Feds have all kinds of resources, but they need to know what is needed. Only the people at the bottom know what is destroyed, and what the needs are. The normal structure is city or town to county to state to the Feds. New York City doesn’t seem to be passing on what is obvious at the local level.

The Feds, FEMA, don’t take over, they provide resources, but they have to be asked because of the separation between the Federal government and the states. Hurricane Andrew was a prime example of this – the governor of Florida forgot that he had to ask for Federal assistance, and people were parked in trucks waiting to go while the victims suffered. As soon as the request was made, the trucks rolled.

Power companies have their own, separate, mutual assistance agreements, which is why they can get to work faster. The crews already know what they are going to need to do – repair overhead lines. A crew from New Jersey reconnected my house after Ivan.

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has become a Republican PAC, and they are ignoring the law when they do it.

A sample from McClatchy:

Joining the chorus of Roman Catholic clergy in Illinois criticizing President Barack Obama before next week’s election, Peoria Bishop Daniel Jenky ordered priests to read a letter to parishioners on Sunday before the presidential election, explaining that politicians who support abortion rights also reject Jesus.

And from the CBC you have: Ottawa school trip cancelled over anti-abortion article. That’s right, because these students were going to observe the US political system by participating in a GOTV drive that was sponsored by the Obama campaign, they were promoting abortion.

Of course I’m prejudiced because I refuse to accept moral judgments or guidance from a group of people who shielded child molesters for decades to “protect the image of the Church”, as if image was more important than the life of a child.

Daylight Savings Time ends in the US Sunday morning, November 4^th at 2AM. It becomes 1AM and you get an extra hour of sleep, unless you work the “graveyard shift”.

Most devices make the change automatically, although many, like my clock radio, change under the old system and have to be ignored for a couple of weeks.

“Fall back – Spring ahead”

How about a moderate-sized Nor’easter off the coast of New York and New Jersey next Wednesday?

Dr Masters has the forecast.

So, do we get to talk about Climate Change yet, or must we pretend it doesn’t exist to protect the energy industry and the science deniers? When does the media start dealing with the people who refuse to accept reality as the liars and/or delusional people they really are?

She’s Free

What do you mean “wait”?

[Editor: Ringo isn’t thrilled that I left the house without having cat food to distribute.]

Friday Ark

These are some of my choices for the election:

I’m not voting for the candidates for either major party for President or Senator. I didn’t vote for the major party candidates when they were elected before, and I refuse to lower my standards.

I’ll vote for the Democrat for Congresscritter because he is the best of a bad lot.

For local offices I’m voting against every incumbent, because they don’t believe in government, and it shows in their lack of competence.

None of the amendments to the state constitution is worth voting for, as they either help special interest groups or weaken local government.

I am voting to increase the millage for the Ocean City-Wright First District because they provide good service and are up against a funding wall because of fallen home prices. I want house fires put out, so it has to be funded. This isn’t an immediate increase, but it makes any necessary increase possible.

I’m voting to retain all three Supreme Court Justices. These votes are normally non-partisan but this year the Republicans are urging people to vote against retention so the Fraudster-in-Chief can appoint new justices. Scott has enough to do finding replacements for all of the politicians who have to resign, or are removed from office for their illegal and/or immoral conduct. I don’t want to consider what kind of appointments the CEO of company hit with the largest Medicare/Medicaid fraud fine in history would make. I prefer the boring, middle-of-the-road, no excitement Florida Supreme Court currently in place.

It is a crowded ballot, so people who haven’t looked at it in advance are going to spend a lot of time wading through it. If you just vote no on all of the amendments you will get out of the voting booth a lot quicker.