Posts from — March 2013

I knew that the Iraq War was bogus from the get go. I knew Rumsfeld and Chaney from their work with Reagan and GHW Bush. I knew they couldn’t be trusted to even approximate the truth.

The entire thing smelled of AIPAC and the Neocon march to empire.

The UN weapons inspectors had to be pulled out so the Shrubbery could attack.

The ‘intelligence’ felt wrong and illogical as it was reported. The troops numbers and estimated costs were clearly delusional. Anyone who failed to fall in line for the march to war was sidelined and attacked for being un-American.

I live in an area dominated by military bases. Many of those from this area who died were buried from a church a block away from my house. I saw the cost of the lie in the slow parades of cars passing by.

That the people who supported the Iraq War are still listened to, is insulting to the memories of those who died in the pointless catastrophe, whichever side they were on, and especially those who weren’t on either side in the war – the ‘collateral damage’.

When he was running, candidate George W. Bush said he wasn’t interested in ‘nation building’. That was one of the truest things the man ever said. Look at what his Presidency has done to Iraq, Afghanistan, and the United States…

This week was the start of the Spring Break season on the Gulf Coast, when local tourist businesses start making some money, and local hiring edges up in the service industry.

Needless to say, what no one needed was a crane being pushed on a barge to slam into the bridge to the barrier island.

The water main to the island was busted, and there will have to be a complete inspection to see if the bridge can be repaired, or needs to be replaced, which would be a severe economic loss to the area. The bridge was constructed as two parallel structures, and only one was hit, but it was already over-capacity for a four-lane bridge, so limiting it to two lanes will be a traffic nightmare.

The island can be accessed via a second bridge at its eastern end, but almost all of the houses, hotels, and condos are built near the damaged bridge. Water taxis are going to be needed, and we don’t have any.

The crew of the ship pushing the barges is going to be having an uncomfortable discussion with the Coast Guard as to why the boom of the crane wasn’t lowered for transport.

It’s that time of year. Spring arrives at 6:02AM CDT this morning. You can have watch it come at Archæoastronomy.

The air is already filled with pollen and the live oaks are dropping last year’s leaves. The azaleas are fading as the camellias have already done, but the Easter cactus is budding. This is occurring earlier every year.

I would note that locally we have had 12 hours or more of daylight since St. Patrick’s Day, and usually do.

The BBC reports that Cyprus MPs reject EU-IMF bailout tax on bank depositors. The problem is two banks in Cyprus who got caught up in the disaster in Greece, but depositors in all of the banks on Cyprus were targeted. Apparently the EU [European Union] is trying to grab money from Russians that is deposited in Cypriot banks. The Russians will react by moving their money elsewhere, which will weaken the entire financial system in Cyprus.

They have extended the ‘bank holiday’ until Thursday, but the ATMs in Cyprus are empty, and the British government is flying in cash for British personnel stationed on the island. In addition to everything else there is now a liquidity crisis there.

I’m beginning to wonder if the EU isn’t trying to eliminate the Euro.

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In a win for reality, the EFF reports You Bought It, You Own It: Supreme Court Victory for Common Sense and Owners’ Rights. The case was Kirtsaeng v. Wiley, in which Wiley, a publisher was attempting to claim that Kirtsaeng couldn’t resell textbooks that he bought in Thailand in the US. The Court said that if you bought a legal copy, it is yours and you can lend or sell it without regard to geography.

Big media keeps pushing the idea that you are only ‘renting’ the copyrighted books, and media that you purchase, and you have no right to transfer them to others. Hopefully the pendulum is about to swing away from that insanity back into reality.

The floating banner at the top of the page is from the Internet Defense League, and it deals with the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. This sucker was shot down in the last Congress, but it has returned.

This bill turns your ISP into an agent for NSA by ‘allowing’ them to ‘share’ everything about you with the government with no pesky letters or warrants. They don’t tell you they are doing it, and it is exempt from Freedom of Information requests. It is a clear violation of your Fourth Amendment rights, but Congress doesn’t care, and you can’t challenge it in court unless you can prove the unprovable – that your data has been shared.

They are really trying to force everyone to encrypt everything they do on the ‘Net, which really is a waste of resources.

Once again – we had all of the necessary data to discover the 9/11 plot before it happened, but we lacked the people to analyze what we had. The solution to the problem was to hire more people, but they keep gathering more data. It is becoming so absurd that you have to wonder whose side Congress is on.

Robert Peston, the BBC business editor, explains that the Cyprus rescue breaks all the rules. There were rules established about structuring the bail-outs, and taking money from depositors is exactly the reverse of what the ‘rules’ mandate.

As things stand now, the banks in Cyprus may never reopen. The Euro-Techs may have forced the Cypriots into default with their ‘bailout’, which will flush markets and the Euro into the septic tank. Stand back and watch the dominoes fall.

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The Alaska Dispatch gives the real story behind what happened to Cindy Abbott. The best I can say about the ‘official’ announcement from the Iditarod Trail Committee is that they might have been concerned about privacy issues regarding Cindy’s medical condition.

Cindy did not injure her leg on the Burn, and she did not pull a muscle on the Yukon – she broke her pelvis about 20 miles out of Willow after losing control on glare overflow ice. Because of her underlying medical condition, she lives in fairly constant pain, so she has a high tolerance and didn’t realize how serious her injury was. She traveled about 600 miles on a dog sled with the broken ends of the bone grinding on each other.

She was caring for her dogs, lifting hay bales and dog food, and mushing, while occasionally taking a couple of ibuprofen, until just short of Kaltag when the team refused to race into the wind on the Yukon.

Back in my Day 11 post, I expressed my concern and frustration about the fate of Cindy, because she was way overdue in Kaltag. I watch the leaders, but the stories in back of the pack, especially the stories about the rookies, are of real interest to me. I do some number-crunching to figure out how they are doing and whether they are waxing or waning at various stages of the race. Cindy was doing fine [which is fairly amazing given her injury], with good consistent times, and then this anomaly.

The woman has real intestinal fortitude, true grit. I’m sorry that she didn’t realize her goal of finishing, but she is a great example for people who think things are just too hard to do.

Christine Roalofs made it into Nome at 4:36PM CDT yesterday, and took the Red Lantern for the Iditarod XLI.

The second place and second-to-last place finishers were the same as last year: Aliy Zircle and Bob Chlupach.

There were 1029 dogs and 65 teams at the start, but only 543 dogs and 54 teams finished. 140 dogs and 11 teams left the race when they scratched or were withdrawn, meaning 346 dogs were dropped during the race for various reasons. Dorado, a dog on Jodi Bailey’s team died as the result of an accident after being dropped at Unalakleet.

Only two of the 11 teams that failed to finish were rookies. There were 3 scratches at Unalakleet, tied to the trail conditions. Five teams scratched during the first half of the race, including two at Iditarod. [Ed Stielstra is not counted in these numbers because he scratched before racing started at Willow.]

[Read more →]

The ‘technocrats’ who control the European economy have decided the best way of serving their masters, the major banks in Germany and France, is by starting a bank run in Cyprus. The run will quickly spread as other people realize this theft of deposits could happen to them in other Eurozone countries.

The reason people put their money in banks is to protect it. If the Eurozone bureaucrats and Angela Merkel think they can just confiscate money from bank accounts without people abandoning banks, they lack the intellectual capacity of rocks or bricks, and certainly can’t approach the sophistication of a box of hammers. Comparing them to dirt is probably too kind, as dirt is quite useful, while the technocrats keep proving they are not.

Christine is having a terrible time getting over the finish line. It took her 15½ hours to get to Safety, and she had to drop a puppy, which probably explains part of the speed loss. It isn’t certain that she will make it, but you have to admit she is certainly giving it her best effort. I definitely would not want to be the first patient she sees [she’s a dentist] after this, unless she has a solid week of recuperation built into her plans.

The trail from Safety to Nome is mostly downhill and the temperature is above 20°F, but there is 20 knot wind and blowing snow. At least the wind is out of the East, so it is pushing the team towards Nome, rather than hitting them in the face.

Christine made it in around 1:30Pm local time after a decent run from Safety, and has taken the Red Lantern. She has about an hour to clean up before the banquet starts.

Finished At Nome
50 Mikhail Telpin (63)^Q
51 Cindy Gallea (17)
52 James Volek (66)^R
53 Bob Chlupach (43)
54 Christine Roalofs (37)^R Φ

The Mushers in bold are former winners of the Iditarod, while italics indicates Yukon Quest winners. The numbers in parentheses are their Bib numbers. The small “R” indicates a total rookie, while the small “Q” indicates an Iditarod rookie who has completed a Yukon Quest.

These are the official standings. That means they are official, not that they are correct. Things jump around a lot as people decide to update the standings. This problem is especially bad in the back of the pack, as no one bothers to update those standings when the lead is changing.

This post will be updated during the day, and the map changed on all posts to reflect the current situation.
All posts on the Iditarod can be seen by selecting “Iditarod” from the Category box on the right sidebar.

Éireann go Brách!

Well everyone agrees that he died on March 17^th, but the year is subject to debate. This is his feast day on the Catholic calendar. Enjoy as you are wont.

Wikipedia has more on Saint Patrick’s Day, if you need more.

So I was picking up a couple of small parts at the orange home improvement store and there was a Hummer parked next to me. When I came out the guy who owned the Hummer was trying to get a gas barbeque grill in the back and having no luck. It was a small grill, and it would have easily fit in the back of the Civic if I put the seat down.

Apparently most of the space is taken up by the spare tire, and the guy ended up taking the grill apart to get it into the Hummer. I’m missing the ‘Utility’ of the thing if there isn’t enough cargo space for a small gas grill or a week’s worth of groceries.

Later I had to go to MalWart to pick up something that isn’t sold anywhere else in town, and the person who wanted it would not accept substitutes. I got a good space that was actually close to the doors, and then though I should leave because the Civic was totally out of place facing a Bentley and a Range Rover. The Range Rover starts at $80K for the base model, and Bentleys are about a quarter step below a Rolls in price and prestige. If they were driven by the ‘staff’ they would have been parked well away from other cars to avoid dings. These things were parked by the owners – who didn’t worry about the cost of dings to the doors.

That was certainly more fun than shopping at the Anchorage WalMart. You shoot an employee because he wanted your dog on a leash? WTF, over?! What kind of charge is “weapons misconduct”?

Of course WalMart didn’t interrupt shoppers just because one of their employees was gunned down. OK, they stopped selling guns and ammo during the crime scene investigation.

If you wonder why they took away the suspect’s prosthetic legs – he gunned down a guy over a leash, so he would probably remove one and beat you over the head with it, or bust up the patrol car.

While Florida elected officials are working overtime to dump any money associated with the Internet gambling scheme that masqueraded as a veterans’ charity, the Federal government has been demonstrating it’s ‘concern’ for vets.

The wait for a claim to be processed by the Veterans Administration has grown to 500 days and the copay for the TriCare medical insurance that provides medical care for military families has been significantly increased, while the base pay has been flat for a couple of years.

Now, in response to the sequester, the active duty Tuition Assistance Program has been suspended. Under the program the military would pay up to $250/course for active duty personnel taking college courses.

This is how they support the troops, by gutting their benefits.

This is the last day of the race. This morning only minutes separated Luan and Mikhail, and Christine only has an hour lead over Bob, so things aren’t quite settled at the moment.

Mikhail has had to finally drop a puppy at White Mountain.

Update: Mikhail is showing no interest in catching Luan, but Luan is really roaring down the trail at better than 8mph.

Bob is only 8 minutes behind Christine having shaved an hour off her lead between Elim and White Mountain.

Update: Dorado’s cause of death has been determined to be: asphyxiation as the result of being buried by snow in severe wind conditions. He was chained and couldn’t move, so he was smothered by drifting snow.

Finished At Nome
45 Mike Williams Sr (35)
46 Gerald Sousa (49)
47 Louie Ambrose (53)^R
48 Angie Taggart (40)
49 Luan Ramos Marques (47)^R
50 Mikhail Telpin (63)^Q
51 Cindy Gallea (17)
Beyond White Mountain
52 James Volek (66)^R
At White Mountain
53 Christine Roalofs (37)^R
54 Bob Chlupach (43) Φ

The Mushers in bold are former winners of the Iditarod, while italics indicates Yukon Quest winners. The numbers in parentheses are their Bib numbers. The small “R” indicates a total rookie, while the small “Q” indicates an Iditarod rookie who has completed a Yukon Quest.

These are the official standings. That means they are official, not that they are correct. Things jump around a lot as people decide to update the standings. This problem is especially bad in the back of the pack, as no one bothers to update those standings when the lead is changing.

This post will be updated during the day, and the map changed on all posts to reflect the current situation.
All posts on the Iditarod can be seen by selecting “Iditarod” from the Category box on the right sidebar.

The final ten teams are heading west into Nome. Luan finally dropped a dog from his team at Elim, but Mikhail’s team is still intact.

Update: The Alaska Dispatch reports that May has been found after she trekked back almost to the start from the Burn. She has lost weight and her feet are a mess, but she seems fine otherwise.

Miscellany: Jim Lanier and Bob Chlupach have both competed in the Iditarod since the 1970s, in five different decades. If Christine Roalofs (37) makes it to Nome it will be thanks, in part, to the tubing clamps, wire, duct tape, and birch branch that have been holding her sled together since the Burn. Unlike the ‘big guys’, Christine doesn’t own a backup sled.

Update: Bad news – Dorado, a 4½-year-old male on Paige Drobny’s team, has died after being dropped at Unalakleet. The Iditarod Trail Committee is not being very transparent about the circumstances of the dog’s death, and are talking about high winds and drifting snow.

Finished At Nome
40 Karin Hendrickson (29)
41 Aaron Peck (58)
42 Kristy Berington (20)
43 Anna Berington (31)
44 Jodi Bailey (4)
45 Mike Williams Sr (35)
46 Gerald Sousa (49)
47 Louie Ambrose (53)^R
Beyond Safety
48 Angie Taggart (40)
At White Mountain
49 Luan Ramos Marques (47)^R
50 Mikhail Telpin (63)^Q
51 Cindy Gallea (17)
At Elim
52 James Volek (66)^R
53 Christine Roalofs (37)^R
54 Bob Chlupach (43) Φ

The Mushers in bold are former winners of the Iditarod, while italics indicates Yukon Quest winners. The numbers in parentheses are their Bib numbers. The small “R” indicates a total rookie, while the small “Q” indicates an Iditarod rookie who has completed a Yukon Quest.

These are the official standings. That means they are official, not that they are correct. Things jump around a lot as people decide to update the standings. This problem is especially bad in the back of the pack, as no one bothers to update those standings when the lead is changing.

This post will be updated during the day, and the map changed on all posts to reflect the current situation.
All posts on the Iditarod can be seen by selecting “Iditarod” from the Category box on the right sidebar.