Hurricane Sandy Looms at the Beach

Skye and I met Joel and Red right on schedule down at the beach.  It's pretty obvious that the effects of Hurricane Sandy are making themselves felt even now.  The wind was up to 25 mph sustained with gusts to 30 and rising steadily.  They are now up to 35 sustained and gusts of 40.  Tropical Storm strength winds are considered to start at 39 mph (34 knots).

The wind seemed to be mostly coming out to the ENE, which is not a friendly wind for the beach.  Coupled with a low tide that was higher than Mean Higher High Water (MHHW) and approaching Maximum Astronomical Tide (MAT), there wasn't a lot of beach available for walking in the narrow places.  At high tide, I don't expect to see much beach

Skye made the mistake of stepping in some quicksand formed by the water pooling in the creek behind the sand bar at Charlies Creek, and fell in and flopped around trying to get her footing again.  Joel thought I was mean to let her flop while I took pictures, but he didn't step forward to grab her collar...

No problem, though, eventually she found her footing again and came bounding out.

A long shot down the Bay to the Gas Docks.  The long zoom makes the waves look bigger than they really are.

 A couple with a pair of dogs came down to observe too.  A pair of dogs?

 This one didn't look too happy with the weather.

Boats in Flag Harbor.  Even with the raise in the dock height, it looks like the storm surge will cover the dock at times in the next two days.  That's my little boat on the left foreground.  It should be OK; it's got a fresh battery to run the bilge pump, but I'll probably need to check it a few times, tide permitting, to keep the scuppers free of leaves.

Two Benghazi Defenders Killed 60 Attackers

Too bad they didn't receive any help, huh?

A short distance from the American compound, two Americans were sleeping. They were in Libya as independent contractors working an assignment totally unrelated to our embassy. They also happened to be former Navy SEALs. When they heard the noise coming from the attack on our embassy, as you would expect from highly trained warriors, they ran to the fight. Apparently, they had no weapons, but seeing the Libyan guards dropping their guns in their haste in fleeing the scene, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty snatched up several of these discarded weapons and prepared to defend the American compound.

Not knowing exactly what was taking place, the two SEALs set up a defensive perimeter. Unfortunately Ambassador Stevens was already gravely injured, and Foreign Service officer, Sean Smith, was dead. However, due to their quick action and suppressive fire, twenty administrative personnel in the embassy were able to escape to safety. Eventually, these two courageous men were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers brought against them, an enemy force numbering between 100 to 200 attackers which came in two waves. But the stunning part of the story is that Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty killed 60 of the attacking force. Once the compound was overrun, the attackers were incensed to discover that just two men had inflicted so much death and destruction.

As it became apparent to these selfless heroes, they were definitely going to lose their lives unless some reinforcements showed up in a hurry. As we know now, that was not to be. I’m fairly certain they knew they were going to die in this gun fight, but not before they took a whole lot of bad guys with them!

Meanwhile, the music in the game of "musical chairs" to find out who takes the blame is slowing down, and it looks like the Department of Defense under Leon Paneta is going to be left standing:

General Patraeus, head of the CIA, categorically denied that anyone at the CIA had refused to send aid:

"No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate. ”

Then the White Kouse denied denying aid as well:

"Neither the president nor anyone in the White House denied any requests for assistance in Benghazi," wrote National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor in an email to Yahoo News.

Leaving Leon Pannetta to take the fall:

(The) basic principle is that you don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on; without having some real-time information about what's taking place," Panetta told Pentagon reporters. "And as a result of not having that kind of information, the commander who was on the ground in that area, Gen. Ham, Gen. Dempsey and I felt very strongly that we could not put forces at risk in that situation.

Isn't that what rapid reaction forces are all about?  Doing the hard but necessary jobs with limited information?

A rapid reaction force is a military or police unit designed to respond in very short time frames to emergencies. When used in reference to police forces such as SWAT teams, the time frame is minutes, while in military applications, such as with the use of paratroops or other commandos, the time frame is hours to days.

Rapid reaction forces are designed to intervene quickly as a spearhead to gain and hold ground in quickly unfolding combat or in rather low intensity conflicts, such as uprisings that necessitate the evacuation of foreign embassies. Because they are usually transported by air, such military units are usually lightly armed, but often extremely well trained to compensate for their lower calibre weapons and lack of heavy equipment like tanks. 

Tsunami Warning from British Columbia Quake

Magnitude-7.7 earthquake strikes off western coast of Canada, tsunami warning issued

A magnitude-7.7 earthquake has struck off the coast of western Canada and a tsunami warning has been issued. There are no immediate reports of damage.

The U.S. Geological Survey in Colorado says the quake hit the Queen Charlotte Islands at 11:14 p.m. Sunday local time (0314 GMT) and was centered 96 miles (155 kilometers) south of Masset, British Columbia.

The National Weather Service has issued a warning for coastal areas of British Columbia, southern Alaska, Northern California, Oregon and Washington state. It says the warning area includes Craig and Sitka, Alaska

If it ain't hurricanes, it's earthquakes and tsunamis.

Pre-Sandy Beach Report 10/27/12

It was a pretty raw day, not too cold, about 60 F, but blowing moderately hard.  While I was comfortable in a T-shirt, this might well be the last time this year that's true.

Our fall color, such as it is, is about peaked.  If the winds from Sandy are anything like what is being predicted (sustained winds of 40 mph with gusts to 50), our trees should be pretty well stripped by Tuesday.  Which might be a good thing; I'll only have to clean up leaves in the yard once.

The eagles were out and about, but the photography didn't go so well.  I saw five at one time at one point, one sitting in a tree and four flying, and at least one set were dog fighting. We strongly suspect a second mated pair is trying to establish a territory in our stretch of beach and are being resisted by the original residents.


I may or may not get a chance to go tomorrow, as rain bands from Sandy move in.

But, But, But, Berlusconi!

Silvio Berlusconi four-year sentence quickly cut to one year

Silvio Berlusconi, the former Italian prime minister, was sentenced to four years in prison for tax evasion, only for the prison term to be reduced swiftly to one year. The court in Milan said the reduction was a result of a 2006 amnesty law, passed by a rival Left-wing government, aimed at reducing prison overcrowding.

Its decision to cut his sentence by 75 per cent was a reminder of how Mr Berlusconi, despite numerous marathon legal battles and four previous guilty verdicts, has never been to prison.

The real crime, of course, is that Silvio monopolizes an altogether unfair number of Italy's beautiful women (some of whom aren't even Italian).  It's so unfair of the 1% to monopolize the resources. 

Mr Berlusconi's lawyers appealed minutes after the pronouncement of the first conviction, which included a five-year ban on holding public office.

Given the shorter sentence and their client's record of running down the legal clock and winning appeals, the colourful 76-year-old politician and tycoon is unlikely to spend time behind bars in the near future, if at all.The statute of limitations in the case is set to expire sometime next year.

Defence lawyers Piero Longo and Niccolo Ghedini denounced the guilty verdict as "incredible".

Are conjugal visits allowed in Italy?  Will they queue out the door of the prison?

He has been tried numerous times for his business dealings as head of the Mediaset empire and AC Milan football club, beginning before he was elected to the first of his three terms as premier in 1994.

He has always denied wrongdoing and alleged that the cases were politically motivated. In each case to date, he has been cleared or seen the statute of limitations expire.

He is also on trial in Milan on charges of paying for sex with an under-age teenager and trying to cover it up. He denies the allegations.

The court found that Mr Berlusconi and 10 co-defendants were behind a scheme by Mediaset to purchase the rights to broadcast American films on his private television networks through a series of offshore companies, and had falsely declared the payments to avoid taxes.

Prosecutors said that they inflated the price for the TV rights of some 3,000 films as they re-licensed them internally to Berlusconi's networks, pocketing the difference that amounted to 250 million euros.

I knew it! It was all George Bush's fault all along!










Previous coverage of the trials and tribulations of Silvio:
 
Eye-Talians Hava da Besta Scandals
Bonus Berlusconi!
Bunga Bunga, Berlusconi!
Buono Berlusconi!Berlusconi Forever!
Our Man Berlusconi...
Berlusconi Defense: I Did It For My Country!
Say It Ain't So, Silvo!
Silvio! Silvio!
Tiring of Italy, Burlesconi Set His Sights on Argentina

Wombat-Socho included this in his weekly "Rule 5 Sunday: Medicine Show!" at the Other McCain. Linked at The Classical Liberal "Gucci Galore", too.

Preparations for Sandy

With Hurricane Sandy bearing down on us (expected to get serious Sunday evening), we spent much of the morning and afternoon preparing.

We removed most of the potential missiles from our yard; all the lawn furniture, potted plants etc that can be moved in have been.  That cycad gets bigger and more obnoxious with every move.

We have plenty of water (over 50 gal) set aside for drinking, flushing toilets, and cleaning, in case the propane at the water company runs out before it can be refilled.

We just went out and bought batteries in a variety of sizes, and we have all our rechargeable batteries charging.  That will ensure that I can fully document the extent of the damage with the digital camera.

We have a deep cycle boat battery at home, fully changed, and on our trip out we bought an inverter so we can run some AC stuff of the battery if necessary.  I got the last inverter at West Marine in Solomons.

If we don't loose cell service, we should continue to have contact with the world and be able to blog through the IPad even if we're out of power for some time.  But that's a big if.

We  swapped an empty tank of propane for a full one, so we can cook on the outdoor grill, which will ride out the worst of the weather in the garage.

Time to go take a file to the chain saw's chain and touch it up, and make sure I have a tank of premixed gas and oil for it.

Our worst fear is trees falling on the house; we live in a nice wooded setting, but that has it's drawbacks at times like this.

Draw the necessary inferences. This is important.

Ann Althouse's single comment to:

Petraeus: "No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate." William Kristol:

"So who in the government did tell 'anybody' not to help those in need? Someone decided not to send in military assets to help those Agency operators. Would the secretary of defense make such a decision on his own? No. It would have been a presidential decision. There was presumably a rationale for such a decision. What was it? When and why—and based on whose counsel obtained in what meetings or conversations—did President Obama decide against sending in military assets to help the Americans in need?"

I can't beat that.

Rule 5 Saturday - Once Upon a Time - Now!

Once upon at time (uh, like now), there was a show on ABC (on Sunday nights at 8 PM if you intend to watch).  It was very loosely based on a number of fairy tails.  The "hook" is that the town of  "Storybrooke, Maine, has a number of fairytail character marooned in our world by a curse.  The plot is complicated, contrived, and not worth following, but to make up for it they have a number of good looking girls.  Starring as Emma Swan, the bail bonds woman supposed to break the curse is Jennifer Morrison (left), leaving the reality of 130 episode of house for some fantasy.

As the maleficent queen, Lana Parrilla (of Bootown, Swingtown and Miami Medical) glowers darkly as Regina Mills, whose curse caused the whole affair.














While Ginnifer Goodwin (Big Love,  Mona Lisa Smile, Something Borrowed and He's Just Not That into You) seems clean and innocent in the role of Snow White/Mary Margret Blanchard.

Recently, Meghan Ory, with a long and diverse resume, joined the cast as Ruby, the avatar of Red Riding Hood.  Look! See!  Red and Hood! Riding!





That's enough.  Just more pictures below the jump.  You sort 'em out...

Today's Drudgetoposition

That made me a little sick...

It Shows, Barry

From JD at Patterico:

LENO: Here’s Samantha from Colorado: “When you help your daughters with their homework, is there a a subject you struggle with?”

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, the math stuff I was fine with up until about seventh grade.

LENO: Yeah.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: But Malia is now a freshman in high school and — I’m pretty lost.

Seventh grade math wouldn't cut it in my lab.

Biden vs. Biden

A Bikini Doesn't Make You Smarter or More Coordinated

But it helps you fail cuter.



Wombat-Socho has his Sunday Rule 5 extravaganza with "Half Your Age", in some cases, one third of mine. Also linked at the Classical Liberal "Rule 5 Bad Reputation", with Joan Jett and the Foo Fighters.

Your Friday Monkey Dacker Genius

Baby macaque monkey bears striking resemblance to Albert Einstein

White House Comments on Terrorist Reports

When asked about reports showing that the administrations was notified within two hours of the Benghazi attacks, that the Al Queda affiliated group Ansar Al Sharia had taken credit for the attacks (and the attacks were not, as the claimed for two weeks, the reaction to the film trailer for "Innocence of Muslims"), the administration responded:

“I have been asked by one of our spokespeople to relay ‘that we decline to comment,’”

Former Libyan Ambassador Chris Stevens, former Navy Seals Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, and former Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith could not be reached for comment, either.

Credit to Curious George at Althouse.

China Foils Obama's Foreign Fund Raising

Chinese unverified credit card donation used by foreign donors

The Chinese government has blocked access to a Web site used as a conduit for donations to President Obama’s re-election, The Post has learned.

The action comes following a report in Sunday’s Post that the Obama.com site had been registered to Robert Roche, an Obama campaign bundler who lives and works in China.

An analysis by the Government Accountability Institute found that Obama.com gets almost half its traffic from foreign computer addresses.

But, you might argue, there's no evidence that Obama's campaign is accepting the money from unverified, or even declared foreign addresses. But there is:

I’ve been able to donate $25 to the Obama campaign in three separate transactions, despite being a lifelong British citizen resident in the UK. What’s more, two of my donations were processed despite the Obama campaign noting that I had provided a non-U.S. address, and despite my failure to provide proof of American citizenship when asked to do so.
...
As a control, I then tried to make a donation to the Romney campaign, entering the same information. This time, I was asked for the three-digit CVV number, and when I clicked “donate” I was immediately informed that the address I had entered did not match the address on file for the card.

Good for the Chinese, but forgive my suspicion that they are beginning to think they may have to deal with a President Romney, and this might be a bit of placation. 

Chickenshit Suit Goes to the Judge

Federal trial ends, but lawyers to prepare more arguments

Testimony wrapped up Wednesday in the federal court trial of a lawsuit accusing an Eastern Shore poultry farm and Perdue of polluting a Chesapeake Bay tributary, but a ruling isn't likely until later this year.

After 10 days of hearing witnesses and legal arguments, U.S. District Court Judge William M. Nickerson directed lawyers for the Waterkeeper Alliance, Berlin farmers Alan and Kristin Hudson and the Sallisbury-based poultry company to submit post-trial statements by Nov. 14, with responses due a week later. He tentatively set Nov. 30 to hear closing arguments in the case.
...
Alan Hudson said he and his wife, who denied letting any poultry manure get in a nearby drainage ditch, hope to "put this nightmare completely behind us."

A spokeswoman for Perdue, which is fighting allegations it should share liability for any pollution, said it expected to be vindicated. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Assateague Coastal Trust, a Berlin-based member group of the Waterkeeper Alliance, said testimony presented at the trial raised "troubling issues" about the state's oversight of farms to prevent water pollution.

My title expresses my feelings of this suit adequately.  I think this was a case where the EPA set out to crucify the first five farmers they could find to get the attention of the rest.

Reporter Flips over Loose Fish

News Reporter Flips For Fish Out Of Water - Watch More Funny Videos

I'm pretty impressed she picked it up and held it in the first place. And I like the dress out on the jon boat. I've heard of a "field tuxedo", but never a "field cocktail dress".

Wombat-Socho has his Sunday Rule 5 extravaganza with "Half Your Age", in some cases, one third of mine. Also linked at the Classical Liberal "Rule 5 Bad Reputation", with Joan Jett and the Foo Fighters.

The Shark Jumps California

In addition to its financial woes, California appears to under assault by sharks.  Two stories today on sharks in California.  The first, of course, is that fatal shark attack on a surfer near Lompoc:

A 39-year-old man surfing off Surf Beach near Lompoc was pronounced dead Tuesday after he was pulled from the water suffering from an apparent shark attack.

A friend pulled the victim onto the sand and started CPR while another surfer called 911. The victim was pronounced dead at the beach, which is about 60 miles northwest of Santa Barbara on Vandenberg Air Force Base (map).

The victim was identified as Francisco Javier Solorio Jr., 39, of nearby Orcutt. An initial investigation said he was "bitten by the shark in the upper torso area," according to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department. Solorio was not affiliated with the military base, according to a press release from Vandenberg, which initially said the victim was 38 years old.

Solorio's fatal injury appeared to be a shark bite, and his surf board had "visible signs of bite marks," according to Lt. Erik Raney of the sheriff’s department's Santa Maria station. The sheriff's department did not have details regarding the type of shark involved in the attack but had contacted an expert to confirm the injury, the Vandenberg release stated.

It's almost certainly a case where a Great White mistook the surfer for a more delectable meal (a sealion or elephant seal), made an initial strike to disable and bleed out the prey, realized the prey was not what it had expected (neoprene skin and fiberglass board instead of skin and blubber), and left it.  Not a pleasant way to die, but one of the risks you must accept to surf in California (or almost anywhere else for that matter).

The second "attack" is more of a whimsical affair:   Live Shark Drops Onto San Juan Capistrano Golf Course.

Imagine this: You're having a pleasant afternoon with your buddies, playing the links at San Juan Hills Golf Club. You arrive at the 12th tee box at the San Juan Capistrano course and there you see it: A shark, very much alive and thrashing around on the grass.

OK, so it was only a 2-foot-long shark, but still.

"Shark falling from the sky, kind of odd," said Melissa McCormack, director of club operations at San Juan Hills.

The fish was actually found about 4 p.m. Monday by a golf course employee, who picked it up, put it into the back of his golf cart and drove it to the clubhouse, she said. A group of golfers had just left the tee before the shark was spotted.

The shark had two puncture wounds, which made McCormack think a predatory bird had scooped the fish up out of the water, dropping the shark down onto the course. She first relayed the story to the Capistrano Dispatch.

Still, that's a pretty big shark to fall out of the sky.  At two feet, it ought to be in the 3-5 lb range. There are only two likely candidate birds, in my opinion.  A Bald Eagle could probably handle a shark that size, but I'm not so sure about Ospreys.  I think that might seriously stretch an Ospreys carrying capacity.  I have seen Ospreys on the California Coast area (near Pismo Beach there seem to be quite a few), but I have never seen a Bald Eagle.  Not to say there couldn't be a few about. According to this California Dept. of Fish and Game site, there is at least one pair on Catalina Island.


Perhaps these attacks on California are a delayed and geographically displaced (sharks aren't necessarily in a hurry, nor terribly smart) atrocity committed to sharkdom in the Philippine Islands.

A Facebook picture of a girl 'surfing' a captured whale shark has sparked outrage among environmentalists and animal lovers.

The girl, identified as Carinn Lestolis, her family and other tourists gathered around the shark in the waters of Barangay Granada in Boljoon, Philippines, after its tail was tied to a post.

They were seen petting the three-metre long fish just off shore while fishermen held on to it. Miss Lestolis was then helped onto the creature where she appeared to use it as a surfboard.

GM:Deadbeat of America

Swiped from Ace's.

Halloween Horror Show On the Bay

Barry Levinson's 'The Bay' Is A Fictional Horror Movie Meant To Save The Real Chesapeake 

Born, raised, and still a proud resident of Baltimore, Maryland, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Barry Levinson (Diner, Rain Man, Good Morning, Vietnam) has used his native home as a backdrop to many of his films—but never quite like this.

His new film, The Bay, documents a Fourth of July on the tranquil shores of the Chesapeake Bay. The seemingly benign holiday quickly takes a terrifying turn when mutating isopods begin to eat swimmers and water drinkers from the inside out.

Where exactly did the fast-growing parasites come from? The combination of agricultural pesticides, random pollutants, and steroids-in-chicken-manure that have been dumped into the bay, which have (in fact) rendered the Chesapeake 40 percent dead.

I'd like to know where that statistic comes from.  The bay now probably has as much or more biomass as it did when the white men colonists first arrived. The effect of eutrophication is to increase the biomass of algae, and other generally unwanted organisms dramatically.  Even the so called "dead zones", the anoxic areas of the bottom during summer, are teeming with anaerobic bacteria.  It may not be life that we desire, but it is "alive" and perfectly natural.

“Eighty five percent of the story is based on facts,” says Levinson, in an exclusive interview with TakePart. “In most cases we aren’t making this stuff up.”

The Bay opens on November 2.

The trailer



It might prove amusing, if I'm allowed to roll on the floor of the theater laughing...