Posts from — October 2013

Position: 29.5N 48.2W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: East [085°] near 5 mph [ 7 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 35 mph [ 55 kph].
Wind Gusts: 45 mph [ 70 kph].
Minimum central pressure: 1008 mb ↑.

Currently about 1000 miles [1610 km] East of Bermuda.

It is expected to be a remnant low tomorrow.

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 latest news on the fire as the weather goes back to hot and dry with gusty winds.

Australia really needs to look seriously as air tankers, and expanding their fleet. They might consider the roll-on/roll-off systems for the C-130s that the US National Guard uses, as the RAAF also flies the Hercules.

Of course the conservative Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, says the UN climate official who linked the bushfires and climate change is talking through her hat, because his friends in the energy industry tell him there is no link, or something …

Lambert has a New York Times story on the ACA web site and its problems. It is essentially a typical government IT SNAFU: 7 change orders in the 10 months before the launch, and a delay in providing specifications to the programmers.

This thing should have been finished on July 1^st at the absolute latest for an October 1^st launch, and that is really three months short of good practice for major projects. It takes time to test big systems. I would have wanted a minimum of a thousand people who weren’t IT professionals banging on the project to catch the most obvious of errors. I can almost guarantee that anything that might be called testing was done by the people who wrote the code, which is a terrible idea if you are looking for bugs.

This system was supposed to interface with other Federal systems to verify some of the input, but when it was launched the government was in shutdown, so some of those systems may have been off-line.

Originally this was supposed to be the portal to 50 state systems that would actually process the information and provide the user with options, but about two dozen Republican controlled states refused to create exchanges.

The Medicare site is really straight-forward and a mature site. If they had permitted people to buy into Medicare, this would have been a lot easier, with a lot less drama.

Position: 29.6N 50.0W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: East [085°] near 9 mph [15 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 50 mph [ 85 kph].
Wind Gusts: 60 mph [ 95 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 70 miles [110 km].
Minimum central pressure: 1003 mb.

Currently about 895 miles [1440 km] East of Bermuda.

The Storm is headed into an unfavorable environment and is expected to begin weakening.

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: 29.3N 53.8W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: Northeast [055°] near 9 mph [15 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 40 mph [ 65 kph].
Wind Gusts: 50 mph [ 80 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 70 miles [110 km].
Minimum central pressure: 1008 mb.

Currently about 685 miles [1100 km] East-Southeast of Bermuda.

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.]

In Australia: NSW bushfires threat ‘unparalleled’ as conditions worsen

New South Wales authorities are aggressively back-burning in an attempt to avoid two major bushfires in the Blue Mountains joining up amid soaring temperatures.

The NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) has called the bushfire threat an “unparalleled” emergency, and warned a potential mega-fire could stretch across hundreds of kilometres.

Of course the new conservative government still plans to dump their carbon tax because there isn’t definite proof that burning carbon-based fuels has a role in creating the climate change that increases the risks of these disastrous bushfires.

In Canada CN fuel cars derail, explode west of Edmonton

A CN Rail train carrying liquefied petroleum gas and crude oil has derailed and exploded about 80 kilometres west of Edmonton, prompting an evacuation in the tiny community of Gainford.

Parkland County Emergency Services says it received a call about the accident involving a westbound train around 1 a.m. MT Saturday. The 134-car, mixed freight train left Edmonton Friday night bound for Vancouver.

The Transportation Safety Board says 13 cars — four carrying petroleum crude oil and nine pressurized containers carrying liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) — left the tracks along Highway 16 and Range Road 61.

Naturally the US shouldn’t view this as an indication of how dangerous it is to transport petroleum products, and just approve the Keystone XL pipeline.

In the US we learned that the reason the Tea Party was unsuccessful in their bid to destroy the ACA was because they were stabbed in the back by the gutless establishment Republicans. [This excuse was tried most recently by the German army after World War I, and it led to a very nasty German government and World War II. For some reason I can’t picture Mitch McConnell as the hippy he is accused of being by the NRPS crowd.]

When that women lost control in the House chamber, one of the things that stood out for me was the reference to ‘the Freemasons’. One of my uncles was in the Masons, and my Dad turned down membership because he thought it was too expensive. I turned down membership because the members were, honestly, too boring.

Apparently the Catholic Church thinks that if you join you are unCatholic, Muslims think you are a Zionist. Fundie Protestants seem to think it is some sort of Satanic religion. The Nazis sent them to concentration camps and the Soviets to gulags.

It is a fraternity for crying out loud. A bunch of guys getting together and performing their ‘secret rituals’ while making connections for business. If you travel in business it is an easy introduction to locals at their lodge. It is hard to imagine any group that is more ‘vanilla’ and mainstream boring than Masons. They don’t get involved in religion or politics, they don’t rock the boat.

I think the problem is that they have been around too long and through the magic of compound interest are perceived to be too powerful and dangerous by rulers who want their money.

I can’t believe that people who handle poisonous snakes as part of their ritual, think people who play at laying bricks are a Satanic cult … [wanders away shaking his head]

I had to get a new cell phone. I liked my LG800 touch-screen well enough, but the battery would not hold a decent charge. I got another battery, but it was no good because if the phone wasn’t charged every night it would die, and if you were on it for even close to hour, it would die. Something was wrong with the charging circuit, because a lot of people were complaining about the same thing.

A relative has a Samsung that he swears by, so I bought a 425 which looks like a conventional ‘brick’, but it has a slide out keyboard. I don’t text, but it would be nice to leave a note in comments if the DSL or power has died. I charged it a week ago and it still shows three of five bars on the battery. That is important when you expect to lose power for an extended period.

The other device I’ve been working with is a Kindle Paper White reader that was sent to my Mother. It looks like it will help her to continue reading without have to spend money on larger print books, but I’m a little concerned that the touch-screen may be too sensitive for her. I re-read The Hobbit on it, and it would work for me, but she might get irritated with it. I’ll have to see.

If you are a retailer, you are probably calling suppliers to cut back on your Christmas orders, because this is not going to be a merry Christmas season. People who were affected by the October shutdown are going to be paying off that disaster and preparing for round two in January – Christmas is not going to be a big item on their shopping list.

Based on their comments, the NRPS Congresscritters learned nothing other than to not trust establishment Republicans. People should have learned not to trust the GOP at all.

The ‘deal’ that was worked out might make the “pundits” happy, but it is definitely not what retailers wanted to hear. The problem is going to show up the consumer confidence numbers which were already bad, and are probably going to get worse.

If they screw around and do more cutting, we may well head into recession. Too many people have no jobs and no money because there is no demand. Cutting government demand only makes things worse. Even the IMF has finally figured that out, so why can’t Obama? The Village needs to stop backing the policies that are burying Greece.

Looking for Trouble

…

[Editor: Ms Underhouse is back from ‘catspace’ and looking for something to beat up or eat. The perfect feral mother cat.]

Friday Ark

In sports, the military, and politics leaders are expected to inspire their followers for the coming ‘battle’ with a great speech. Probably the greatest example of the genre is the St. Crispen’s Day Speech from Shakespeare’s Henry V.

So I was a bit surprised to find out that in the caucus meeting for their final attempt at relevance, the House Republicans decided to have Steve Southerland, of Florida’s Second District [just East of me] sing Amazing Grace.

Now, I’m sure that he is very accomplished at singing that particular song, as he has call to do it a lot, which is why he knows all the verses. What puzzles me is why they decided to have a funeral director begin that meeting in that way if they were planning to do anything other than surrender? Did they follow up with a recitation of the 23^rd Psalm?

The Philippines was just getting over a typhoon when it got slammed by a 7+ earthquake.

If you look at the map you will see that the Southeast coast of Australia is on fire.

Asia has had an active and destructive typhoon season, with major storms hitting everywhere from Japan to India.

The rest of the world is dealing with natural disasters while the US is creating its own.

Charlie Pierce commented on the unusual behavior by an employee of the House of Representatives at last night’s vote on opening the government, using the article from USA Today, and then compares it to statements by Michele Bachmann and Ted Cruz.

Unlike USA Today, CNN has most of her remarks:

“Do not be deceived. God shall not be mocked. A House divided cannot stand,” she said, according to a House GOP aide. After a few seconds, she was escorted out by the Sergeant-at-Arms, but an audio recording by Todd Zwillich of Public Radio International captured the rest of her rant.

“He will not be mocked, He will not be mocked, (don’t touch me) He will not be mocked. The greatest deception here, is that this is not one nation under God. It never was. Had it been… it would not have been… No. it would not have been… the Constitution would not have been written by Free Masons… and go against God. You cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve two masters. Praise be to God, Lord Jesus Christ.”

They characterized it as a ‘rant’ and the Capitol Police turned her over to the medics for a psych eval because she was just an employee. If she had been elected it would be part of the Congressional Record, and in a fund-raising letter.

HR 2775 – Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014 [PDF], the final Government Printing Office copy.

The House roll call vote showing my Congresscritter, Jefferson Beauregard Miller of FL-1, voted against ending the stupidity.

The Senate roll call vote showing my junior Senator, Marco Rubio, voted against ending the stupidity.

McClatchy noted that on page 20 they included: “Notwithstanding any other provision of this joint resolution, there is appropriated for payment to Bonnie Englebardt Lautenberg, widow of Frank R. Lautenberg, late a Senator from New Jersey, $174,000”. This is a Congressional courtesy thing, sending a year’s pay to the surviving spouse of a member who dies in office, so what was it doing in a bill needed to avoid the destruction of the US credit rating? Frank Lautenberg had tens of millions of dollars in assets, so his wife wasn’t in desperate straits like the mothers and children who depend on programs like WIC. These people are really not connected to the world the rest of us live in.