i hope she is getting out. they are ordering evacuation for all of the keys-i think. i was half listening this morning to the weather channel. i gotta worry about my fellow (past or present) va. beachians...and a2kers...
good luck with the storm...stay safe...and your god child...
we lucked out on ophelia i tell ya. i think we had a few gusts of 15mph and a sprinkle.
no wonder oil prices are gaining like $2.50 a barrell...
scary for those potentially affected...all a2kers stay safe!!!!
I reckon I was lucky. I filled up about 10-14 days ago at $2.50 and missed the big spike and filled up again today at $2.78. If you need gas, or have space in your tank, top it off tonight or tomorrow. There probably will be a big increase in the next few days. Back up to $3-something?
It would appear on the radar that the Bahamas are chopping this thing up a little, but please, don't anyone let there guard down. That is some pretty warm water she's about to cut through, with a high pressure system North, but too far so to help. This thing could develop crazy fast, like a buzz saw, and if it tightens up just a little
. Heed the warnings friends and Dog forbid that High pressure system moves East early because this could be the next Katrina.
Bill
OCCOM BILL wrote:It would appear on the radar that the Bahamas are chopping this thing up a little, but please, don't anyone let there guard down. That is some pretty warm water she's about to cut through, with a high pressure system North, but too far so to help. This thing could develop crazy fast, like a buzz saw, and if it tightens up just a little
. Heed the warnings friends and Dog forbid that High pressure system moves East early because this could be the next Katrina.
If it hits the Gulf Coast again, the General in charge of the Army Corps of Engineers said the damaged levees in New Orleans will not hold up to more than normal tidal action.
BBB
this morning i saw that it is supposed to take a more westerly route, which while bad for south texas, is at least good for NO, i don't think they would survive another direct hit.
I follow the National Hurricane Center website. It is good except that it only has the boundary lines for the states. No cities within a state shown. So, if you are geographically challenged about where places are in Texas, for example, you have to refer elsewhere.
Anyway, by my very scientific calculation (one pinky finger = 125 nautical miles), Rita could be over the Gulf of Mexico, sucking up water and gaining strength for some 900 miles before it hits (as currently projected) Texas, mid-coast. Right through the oil drilling region.
Did yall know that Rita is the 17th named storm (they skipped Q) and when they finish our alphabet (sans, perhaps U, X, Y and Z), we will start over again, using the Greek alphabet.
Exactly, John of Virginia. The Alpha and Omega. That's a bit eerie.
When I went to bed last night, this was still a tropical storm. Now it is a Category 5 hurricane. My mother's name was Rita. She would not be amused.
nothing wrong with this tread, but edgar (in Houston) has started one called "And Then Rita."
BBB
CNN just reported one of the New Orleans levees has failed due to heavy rain reflooding one of the Katrina badly hit areas.
BBB
Opinion: The People Vs./ FEMA
By Sara DeHart
9/23/05 Bush Watch
So far there has been little scrutiny of Michael Chertoff, the new security czar who holds dual citizenship (Israel and the United States). Most of the media directed their attention and blame on Michael Brown, who as FEMA's director was clearly ill prepared to handle the job. Brown believes he has been scapegoated by the media and, in part, I agree. This debacle is much larger than merely placing political appointees in positions for which they are unqualified.
Changing personnel is not the answer to FEMA's problem. The American people need to demand that the structure of FEMA and Homeland Security be carefully examined by an independent commission that is willing to go back to the drawing board and demand that the structure fit the needs of the United States in the 21st Century.
Homeland Security and FEMA have failed a massive systems test, and in the language of No child left behind, failure will no longer be tolerated. To members of the House and Senate, the message is clear. Fix the structure or you will lose your jobs! We cannot wait for the next disaster to find out that the U.S. Cavalry is a no-show charade directed by incompetents placed into a Hydra-headed bureaucracy by a president addicted to cronyism.
Opinion: Isn't Competence A Criteria For President?
By Bob Herbert (excerpt)
Here at home, even loyal Republicans are beginning to bail out on Mr. Bush's fiendish willingness to shove the monumental costs of the federal government's operations - including his war, his tax cuts and his promised reconstruction of the Gulf Coast - onto the unsuspecting backs of generations still to come. There is a general sense now that things are falling apart. The economy was already faltering before Katrina hit. Gasoline prices are starting to undermine the standard of living of some Americans, and a full-blown home-heating-oil crisis could erupt this winter. The administration's awful response to the agony of the Gulf Coast has left most Americans believing that we are not prepared to cope with a large terrorist attack. And Osama bin Laden is still at large.
This is what happens when voters choose a president because he seems like a nice guy, like someone who'd be fun at a barbecue or a ballgame. You'd never use that criterion when choosing a surgeon, or a pilot to fly your family across the country. Mr. Bush will be at the helm of the ship of state for three more years, so we have no choice but to hang on. But the next time around, voters need to keep in mind that beyond the incessant yammering about left and right, big government and small, Democrats and Republicans, is a more immediate issue, and that's competence.
[quote="BumbleBeeBoogie] This is what happens when voters choose a president because he seems like a nice guy, like someone who'd be fun at a barbecue or a ballgame. [/quote]
The last time the country did this they got Warren G. Harding.
BBB, my friend, get a grip. This has been a lets talk about Hurricanes thread from the onset. Does it have to be a Bush sucks thread too? Is that what's really important? (Shakes head in dissappointment).
More people are dying, Democrats, Republicans and others... let's try to pretend we care.
Bill
OCCOM BILL wrote:BBB, my friend, get a grip. This has been a lets talk about Hurricanes thread from the onset. Does it have to be a Bush sucks thread too? Is that what's really important? (Shakes head in dissappointment). More people are dying, Democrats, Republicans and others... let's try to pretend we care.
Bill, if you were my true friend, you wouldn't out my not caring about people dying and that my only true mission in life is bashing bush. I'm so disappointed that you would blow my compassionate cover.
I feel like I've lost a friend---and I will never be able to get a seat in your restaurant.
Sob! BBB
Bush Hoards Billions In Drilling Money For Iraq War
Opinion: Bush Hoards Billions In Drilling Money For Iraq War, Turns Down Share-Repair Requests From Gulf States,
By Jason Leopold
9/24/05
To hear the president in a televised speech promise to spend whatever it takes to rebuild one of the nation's great cities is not a sign of progress, rather it's a symbol of the total breakdown of his administration and an attempt to conceal what could arguably have been a man-made disaster because of Bush's policies....In June. Louisiana state officials had been hoping that a provision included in the Senate energy bill that called for $500 million in offshore energy revenue from the federal government would finally provide Louisiana and four other coastal states with the funds it desperately needed to repair its damaged wetlands to protect itself, among other things, against possible future weather-related disasters.
But the White House adamantly refused to part ways with the $5 billion it gets from drilling in the Gulf Coast, its second biggest source of revenue (after income the Internal Revenue Service brings in) choosing to use most of those funds to finance the Iraq war. To ensure that the message came across crystal clear, Bush personally ordered White House aides to take the unusual step of sending a letter to House and Senate negotiators advising them to kill the revenue-sharing plan in the final version of the energy bill.It wasn t long after the White House issued its statement on the revenue sharing concept that Louisiana lawmakers predicted an apocalyptic end to the city of New Orleans. Clifford Smith, a Houma, La., civil engineer and coastal advocate who is also a member of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Mississippi River Commission, told The Courier in June that without federal assistance New Orleans could very well drown if it took a direct hit from a hurricane. "We re not going to get the kind of recognition and concern we deserve until we have a disaster," he said.
Opinion: Bush Trifecta: The Crisis Of Confidence, Paul Krugman (excerpt)
The available measures say that consumer confidence, which was already declining before Katrina hit, has now fallen off a cliff....Most Americans say the war was a mistake; a majority say the administration deliberately misled the country into war; almost 4 in 10 say Iraq will turn into another Vietnam. And many people are outraged by the war's cost....Fragmentary evidence...suggests that the confluence of Katrina and the fourth anniversary of 9/11 has caused something to snap in public perceptions about the "war on terror."...
The hapless response to Katrina, which should have been easier to deal with than a terrorist attack, has shown that our leaders have done virtually nothing to make us safer....These blows to our national self-image are mutually reinforcing. The sense that we're caught in an unwinnable war reinforces the sense that the economy is getting worse, and vice versa. So we're having a crisis of confidence....But who will provide leadership, now that Mr. Bush is damaged goods?
