Welcome to the 2006 Atlantic Hurricane Season. Our first guest: Tropical Storm Alberto, now churning in the Gulf of Mexico.
The National Hurricane Center is monitoring Tropical Depression 1, currently in the Carribean but expected to move up the Florida coast this week:
AT THIS TIME...THE MAIN THREAT FROM THE DEPRESSION IS HEAVY
RAINFALL. THE DEPRESSION IS EXPECTED TO PRODUCE TOTAL RAINFALL
ACCUMULATIONS OF 10 TO 20 INCHES OVER THE WESTERN HALF OF
CUBA...WITH ISOLATED TOTALS OF 30 INCHES OVER THE HIGHER TERRAIN.
THIS COULD CAUSE DEVASTATING FLASH FLOODS AND MUD SLIDES. GRAND
CAYMAN ISLAND HAS REPORTED 22.72 INCHES OF RAIN DURING THE PAST 24
HOURS... AND ADDITIONAL RAINFALL OF 5 TO 10 INCHES IS POSSIBLE OVER
THE CAYMAN ISLANDS. RAINFALL TOTALS OF 3 TO 5 INCHES ARE POSSIBLE
OVER THE NORTHEASTERN PORTION OF THE YUCATAN PENINSULA. THERE IS
ALSO THE POTENTIAL FOR HEAVY RAINFALL OF 4 TO 8 INCHES POSSIBLE
OVER THE FLORIDA KEYS AND WESTERN FLORIDA FROM SUNDAY INTO MONDAY.
I read every word in her column today, and I still have no idea what Maureen Dowd thinks of bloggers (sub.req.):
If I had to be relegated to the Dustbin of History, I'm glad it was in Vegas.
I, Old Media, came here to attend a New Media convention of progressive political bloggers aiming for a technological revolution that would dispatch mainstream media to the tumbrels. It was the journalistic equivalent of mingling with your own pod replicant in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."
Bemused, perhaps? I truy can't tell.
My father has posted his very first eBay listing: 50 decorative tea tins, mint condition. I'm so proud of him.
By the way, if you need any tea tins—perhaps for a school project, or an art installation—you have until next Thursday to bid on them.
Over at Talking Points Memo Cafe, Gene Sperling lays out the problems with the proposals to repeal the estate tax:
The nation is at war and troops have been having trouble getting the safest equipment. Child poverty has been on the rise for four straight years. Deficits are projected to total $4 trillion in the next ten years, our entitlement challenge is unresolved, working wages have been stagnating or declining, and fixing the estate tax for the top 3 of every 1000 estates in 2011 is what we should rush to the floor of the Senate in the summer of 2006?
Anne reports a disturbing trend in modern communications:
Apparently "add up" is the new "touch base:" "Let's add up this afternoon to see where you are on the research."
I've heard it 5 times this morning, from 2 different people.
At least with "touch base" one can kind of see the meaning, even if the phrase doesn't exactly hit one out of the park. But "add up?" I have no idea.
One of my daily digests contained a link to "How to choose the best database for your business." By Oracle.
Golly. Which database do you suppose they recommend? Think it's MySql?
The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson wonders why the President (959 days, 2 hours) thinks anyone really believes gay marriage is the most important issue right now:
Let's check in on what's happening in the real world:
Iraq has become a charnel house for the victims of escalating sectarian slaughter. On Saturday, a car bomb killed 28 people in Shiite-dominated Basra, and hours later gunmen killed nine Sunni worshipers in a mosque. On Sunday, on a road near Baghdad, assassins pulled travelers out of their minivans, sorted them by faith, killed nearly two dozen Shiites and let the Sunnis go. Yesterday, men wearing police uniforms grabbed at least 56 people from bus stations and travel agencies in Baghdad and took them away—no one knows why, no one knows where.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's new government remains toothless and ineffectual, despite his pledge to end the sectarian violence. On Sunday, he failed yet again to reach agreement on who will run the only two ministries that matter—the ones in charge of the army and the police. The butcher Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most prominent figure in the armed Sunni insurgency and the most hunted man in Iraq, remains at large and periodically manages to issue messages inspiring his followers to continue their jihad. (Just like his hero, Osama bin Laden.) Yet the president spent his weekend radio address pushing "a constitutional amendment that defines marriage in the United States as the union of a man and woman."
In other news, California is having a primary election today that will determine which Democrat will lose to sitting quasi-Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in November. Turnout is expected to be so low that the San Francisco Chronicle's story about the election is third down, under the top story that people really like Trader Joe's. (I have to say, Anne and I care more about TJ's than about the California Primary, so maybe the Chronicle's Web site is just playing to a more national audience.)
Suffering in Carmel again:
The dog suffers too:
And remember those minor renovations? Here's the "before:"
And the "after:"
In her column today (sub.req.):
There's no way to teach someone not to shoot an unarmed woman or child. If somebody doesn't already know why they shouldn't murder a baby, it's not clear that a refresher course will help.