Posts from — November 2016

Position: 10.7N 79.8W [ 9PM CST 0300 UTC].
Movement: West-Northwest [285°] near 3 mph [ 6 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 75 mph [120 kph].
Wind Gusts: 90 mph [145 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 70 miles [110 km].
Hurricane Wind Radius: 10 miles [ 20 km].
Minimum central pressure: 988 mb ↑.

Currently about 285 miles [ 460 km] East-Southeast of Bluefields, Nicaragua.

A Hurricane Warning is in effect for Limon, Costa Rica to Bluefields, Nicaragua.

A Hurricane Watch is in effect for the Costa Rica/Panama border to south of Limon, Costa Rica and Nicaragua from Bluefields to Sandy Bay Sirpi.

A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for Panama from Nargana to Colon, San Andres Island, and Nicaragua from Bluefields to Sandy Bay Sirpi.

A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for Panama West of Colon to the Costa Rica/Panama border.

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: 10.9N 79.1W [ 9PM CST 0300 UTC].
Movement: South [180°] near 2 mph [ 4 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 60 mph [ 95 kph].
Wind Gusts: 75 mph [120 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 35 miles [ 55 km].
Minimum central pressure: 998 mb ↓.

Currently about 210 miles [ 335 km] East-Southeast of San Andres Island.

A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for San Andres Island.

This was Invest 90L that got the minor bump to tropical status.

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 get old enough you are are considered wise, apparently because you have lived a long time. It doesn’t actually work like that, but, as Badtux keeps reminding us, half of all people are below average. This means when the younger folks need instruction in ancient traditions you are the first person called.

So it was on Saturday evening when a young tenant called in a bit of a panic and asked “Do you how to tie a tie?” The guy is in his in his early 30s and works in hospitality, but has forgotten how to do it.

I couldn’t just direct him to a web site, because data charges are outrageous, so he came over and I showed him how to tie the Windsor knot. I recommended that he not wear flip-flops.

I just can’t imagine an adult male who can’t tie a tie.

The media and others keep referring to Trump as President-elect and Pence as Vice President-elect. They are at best President and Vice President presumptive.Thanks to the Constitution, the actual election by the Electoral College, the 538 votes that actually matter, doesn’t happen until December 19^th, and those votes aren’t counted until January 6^th. If the electors decide to vote for Gary Johnson and Jill Stein, there is nothing anyone can do about it.

The positions of President and Vice President deserve respect, but the people in those positions have to earn it on their own. I see nothing that either Trump or Pence has done that is worthy of my respect. People who pay $25 million to settle fraud law suits are, and always will be, crooks in my moral code. I don’t respect crooks.

Several people wrote stories highlighting the fact that Tesla made more money last quarter, than the US oil industry made last year. It is true, but it has no greater meaning. Both Tesla and the oil industry are heavily subsidized by the government, but the oil industry was spending based on $100/barrel oil, and it fell to $50. Implying the ‘death’ of the oil industry is early. It is dying, like coal, but not quite yet.

The Oxford Dictionaries has selected post-truth as their new word for 2016:

The dictionary publisher defined post-truth as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”

It’s essentially a refinement of truthiness, Stephen Colbert’s 2005 coinage, which was the American Dialect Society’s Word of the Year 11 years ago: “the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true.”

The Economist wonders if, given that politicians have always lied, does it make any difference if they leave truth totally behind? I think that Britons waking up to the results of the Brexit vote and Americans seeing the results of the Presidential election would answer with a resounding ‘YES’.

Some people are not going to surrender their allegiance to the facts. The Chair of the Federal Reserve System Janet Yellen made it known that she intended to serve her entire term as the head of the independent central bank, and would not make decisions based on short-term political goals.

The government is not a business and the President is not a CEO. Drumpf is going find out about checks and balances.

There was a ‘Supermoon’ over the weekend as the moon reached its closest point in its orbit around the earth. I went out to look at as I probably won’t be around for the next Supermoon in 2034. It was the moon and could have been a bit bigger than normal.

Two weeks left the Hurricane season and there is a new Invest in the Caribbean. It has an 80% chance of going tropical in the next 5 days.

Ivanka was on Drumpf’s 60 Minutes interview and apparently broke some sort of rule or regulation by advertising the ‘bangle’ she was wearing on social media. I don’t really understand the rule, but apparently people on reality TV tend to advertise things on social media in violation of the TOS, or something. Anyone dumb enough to pay $10K for something ‘seen on TV’ should be eliminated from the gene pool.

Hillary won the popular vote, but the voters were in the wrong states, so Drumpf gets to play President. The ad hoc manner in which he is putting together a transition team shows his total failure to plan.

Republicans are claiming a mandate, but losing the popular vote makes that absurd. A majority of voters voted for someone other than Donald Trump.That means the majority of voters didn’t want him or his outline sketch of a program.

Obviously the gerrymandering that Republicans have been doing in the states after the 2000 and 2010 censuses give them a lock on Congress even though fewer people vote for them.

Clinton was sandbagged by the actions of James Comey, a nasty reminder of Hoover’s FBI interference. She should have expected this crap as there has been an organized campaign to defame the Clintons since their days in Arkansas. The media has never reported on them fairly, nor made any effort to present the truth.

Republican controlled states are removing probable Democratic voters for various alleged reasons and the effect was obvious in the numbers from Florida, Ohio, and North Carolina. Trump ‘won’ with fewer votes than McCain or Romney lost with.

Since the Electoral College is the only way Republicans can win the Presidency, it would be a waste of time to attempt dump this 18th century compromise/construct.

At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918 the guns fell silent. The Great War, The War to End All Wars, was over…for a couple of decades.

The red poppies of Flanders fields became a symbol of that war and the veterans that returned from it. Known as Remembrance Day in much of the world, the poppies will be in evidence. Remembrance Day observances have more in common with the American Memorial Day as a day to honor those who have died in war.

First called Armistice Day in the United States, the name was changed to Veterans Day, and its purpose changed to honoring those who are serving, or have served in the military. The change was made to avoid a conflict with the existing Memorial Day observance that goes back to the Civil War era.

A heart felt salute to everyone who managed to survive basic training. We can hope that sooner, rather than later, there will be no need for another generation to put on uniforms.

As if the news hasn’t been depressing enough, the poet, novelist, singer, songwriter Leonard Cohen passed away tonight according to his official Facebook page. The BBC has a short but complete obituary of the Canadian who just released an album last month.

The ABC has a collection of his best known songs.

Secure your place as a participant in one of the more insane elections in US history.

If you are a Florida voter, I would appreciate a ‘yes’ on amendment 2.

In Florida the polls are open from 7AM to 7PM local, and if you are in line when the polls close you still get to vote. There may be rain tomorrow afternoon and evening on the Panhandle.

Update: An easy way to keep up with what’s happening tomorrow if you have an IOS or Android device is with The Guardian‘s app. You can opt in to election alerts and receive them as things happen.

Daylight Savings Time ended in the US this morning, November 6^th at 2AM. It became 1AM and you got an extra hour of sleep, unless you work the “graveyard shift” or forgot totally like I did.

Most new 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”

He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don’t let that fool you. He really is an idiot. Groucho Marx

So this weekend James Comey goes all Emily Litella over his ‘breaking news’ of last weekend with a new letter to Congress saying “Never mind…” Everyone in the FBI and media who said an indictment was coming LIED.

Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post‘s blog The Fix thinks that we need to trust the FBI. He presents no cogent reason for doing so, other than he thinks we should. He presents no indication that he actually knows what the FBI is supposed to do or what it is not supposed to do, but we should blindly trust that it means the best.

The FBI does conduct some internal investigations. They accept a lot of lame excuses, but their IT department fixing something, and on a Sunday, was too much.

Among the people hitting out at James Comey’s decision to drag the Anthony Weiner case into the election is the Weiner victim.

The FBI has a criminal case with an actual victim. Society prefers crime that has victims, someone they can look at and say that is the person that was hurt by the defendant’s actions. If the victim refuses to testify after complaining about the actions of the police, society doesn’t like it and tends to not like the police.

She has already had to put up with one old pervert; she shouldn’t have to put up with another.

But the FBI are honorable men [for a given definition of honorable which may not include honest or truthful].

A week and a half before the election the Director of the FBI sends a letter to Congress implying that the Bureau may have discovered more information regarding Hillary Clinton’s e-mail server as a result of a separate case. He does this although he is not required to do it. He does this although doing so violates a long standing Justice Department policy and procedures. He does this although he has no idea whether such evidence exists because the FBI didn’t get a search warrant until two days after the letters were sent to Congress.

Then, after not working for a year, a system that publishes responses to multiple Freedom of Information Requests starts posting FBI reports on the investigation of Bill Clinton’s pardon of Marc Rich in 2001, one week before the election.

We are not supposed to assume this has anything to do with politics because James Comey is an honorable man, and the FBI, they are all honorable men 😈