NBC reports that Socal Edison Retiring San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.

I saw them every time I went to LA from San Diego – right on the ocean so they could get hit by a tsunami, built on an earthquake fault so they could be cracked open like an egg. This was some of the worst siting ever for a nuclear reactor, and it was made worse by recent remodeling. They have been shut down since January of 2012 because the new changes leak. This is prime beach property, and it will be generations before anything can safely be done with it.

The beatings will continue until morale improves – the BBC reports that Austerity ‘may last until 2020’. George Osborne just can’t understand why laying off thousands of people and slashing government spending while increasing taxes during a recession hasn’t managed to balance the budget and made the British economy grow, so he is going to continue to do it for another 5 years. He is really puzzled that the only bright spot was when they spent all that money and hired all those people for the Olympics.

Since playing with the price of oil wasn’t evil enough, the CBC reports that corporations have been playing with the price of Chocolate:

Authorities in Canada have charged the food giants Nestle and Mars, together with a network of independent wholesale distributors, in an alleged conspiracy to fix prices of chocolates.

The Competition Bureau in the capital Ottawa said it has uncovered “evidence” suggesting price-fixing.

Nestle Canada, Mars Canada, and the distributors ITWAL have been charged.

The Bureau said the Canadian division of the US confectionary company Hershey co-operated with its investigation.

What do they have to do before we start throwing CEOs in prison? First they steal homes, and now they are going after chocolate. When will people agree that enough is enough?

Position: 43.6N 68.8W [10AM CDT 1500 UTC].
Movement: Northeast [050°] near 39 mph [63 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 45 mph [ 75 kph].
Wind Gusts: 55 mph [ 90 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 230 miles [370 km].
Minimum central pressure: 1000 mb ↑.

Currently about 75 miles [ 120 km] East of Portland, Maine.

The storm has left the National Hurricane Center’s area of reporting and passed to the Canadian Hurricane Centre as it transits Nova Scotia and brushes the tip of Newfoundland before heading out to the open ocean.

It is a bit amazing that it has maintained tropical storm force winds while the center has spent so much time over land.