But bad for the Gulf coast. All of the models for Fay have shifted the track west, and it now looks unlikely that it will hit southeast Florida, so I probably won’t have to put up the shutters on Monday. Still need to keep an eye on it, though.
[Late morning update]
That was the 2 AM runs. The 8 AM model update has it coming back slightly to the east, over the Florida peninsula, with GFDL just to the west of us, which is a little too close for comfort. But still, no decision before Monday.
Do Democrats hate men?
It sure seems like it sometimes. And of course, if we object, we’re misogynists (and probably racists as well).
It’s hard to think of any sitting (or past, for that matter) member of Congress who has done more for commercial space efforts than Dana Rohrabacher. He’s been representing his southern California district for many years, so I was a little surprised to hear that he’s in a potentially tough reelection battle. But his opponent is currently out-fund-raising him, and it’s going to be a generally tough year for Republicans, even those whose seats had previously been secure. So for those of you who want to keep him in Washington for his space efforts (or for other reasons), a fund has been set up to help make that happen.
The circulation finally closed this afternoon, but the storm is going to have to fight its way through the mountains of Hispaniola. It seems to have gone directly from a low to a storm, without the usual intermediate tropical depression (does that mean that TD 6 remains available for the next one?). Unfortunately, even though the chances that it will actually hit Boca Raton aren’t high, I’ll probably have to shutter up on Monday, just in case.
The good news is that most of the models are taking it over Cuba as well, which will keep it from intensifying much. If it comes up here, the only chance for strengthening will be in the open water over the Straight of Florida (where it would beat up the Keys). If it stays at tropical storm force, as SHIPS is currently predicting, I may be able to get away without shutters, as we did with Ernesto two years ago. Only one of the 2 PM model runs (HWRF) has it coming through town. The tracking models are probably going to get better now that there’s a definite center of circulation to use as a starting point. Unfortunately, I’m kind of in the middle of the spectrum. By Monday, it should be more clear where this thing is going.
Sigh…
I prefer earthquakes. You don’t have any false alarms with them.
[Update about 6:30 PM EDT]
Jeff Masters confirms my own thoughts:
If Fay does hit South Florida, the storm is likely to be a tropical storm or Category 1 hurricane, since it will not have enough time over water to reorganize much. I think the models are overdoing the intensification of Fay once it does pop off the coast of Cuba. We saw in 2006 that Ernesto popped off the coast of Cuba as a weak tropical storm, and took a full 36 hours to get its act together. If Fay misses South Florida and veers either to the east or west of the Peninsula, the storm could easily reach Category 2 status before a potential landfall either on the Gulf Coast or in North Carolina/South Carolina.
So if it’s a major storm, it won’t be one here. But we won’t really know until late Sunday or Monday.
That’s the subject of a spam email I got this morning. It’s from “kenon nader” Here are the entire contents: “Greetings, how are you doing? Give we shall meet”
No link to a web site, just a return email address of someone at “allforchildren.org.” And right after typing this, I got another one, same subject and contents, from “duff shiahn-w <assessoriaadm@lo.unisal.br>”
What is the point of this stupidity?
[Update in the late afternoon]
Apparently it’s a buffer overflow attack trojan. I don’t think it works very well with Thunderbird, given that I have Javascript disabled (which is why I didn’t see the script). And my blog is now numero uno on Google for “give we shall meet.”
[Update a couple minutes later]
Here’s more info.
Jeff Foust has a report on the debate in Boulder between Lori Garver and Walt Cunningham. As I note in comments, if Senator Obama is now interested in prizes, that would be a change of position from when he criticized Senator McCain’s proposal for an automotive prize.
In Sevastopol? And I don’t mean the similar-sounding one in California.
We do need to recognize that we’re in a new Cold War with Russia, though many of the former “Republics” in the Soviet Union will now be (in fact have been) on our side, which will make it more manageable, but also more dangerous, with more trip wires.
When I read this piece by Walter Shapiro, I had much the same reaction as John Weidner did:
You were besotted with Edwards because he was (or was pretending to be) a liberal Democrat. And Edwards almost certainly paid flattering attention to the guy who was writing a book about his campaign. You dolt, Edwards and his wife almost certainly coldly planned how to woo you, and knew what your weaknesses are. That’s what trial lawyers do with a jury. They study every scrap of information available on each juryman, and, like chameleons, tailor the message, and paint their very selves, to fit them. (I know about this stuff; my dear wife’s on the other side, the good side, fighting scoundrels like Edwards every day.)
Everybody who retained any objectivity could see that he was a phony, and were not surprised by this. When a guy talks populism and green-ism while building the biggest mansion in the county, there’s a 99% chance that he’s a sham. When a guy spends minutes in front of a mirror fluffing his hairdo, there’s a 99% chance that he will not resist the sexual temptations available to a celebrity.
These media love affairs with (liberal) politicians constitute journalistic malpractice. They gave us the corrupt Bill Clinton, from whom, had any of them had done their job and looked into Arkansas history back in 1992, the nation could have been spared. Glenn Reynolds has asked, after the obvious biased non-reporting in the John Edwards case, what else are they deliberately hiding from us? And at least Walter Shapiro, if not the rest of the swooners, should now be asking himself, “by what other politicians am I letting myself be fooled and beguiled?” For instance, how about the inexperienced phony about to be nominated in Denver that is this season’s “it” girl for the media?
Why the oil “shortage” is made in Washington.