Black Bloc in Action!

Look! There's a guy in a black shirt and black hat shouting! OMG! He's asking angry questions about a large corporation! And who  knows what he has in that plastic bag or in that shoulder bag -- probably bombs! Quick, get the riot cops to the Eaton Center and start clubbing bystanders!

Hurricane Alex .... Updated

Update: 30/1445Z
Hurricane Alex has intensified slightly and is now well defined. Central pressure was measured at 961 millibars with an initial intensity of 70 knot (148 kmh/92 mph) winds at the surface.

This thing is a behemoth. As you can see from the satellite shot taken less than an hour ago, Alex occupies a huge portion of the Gulf of Mexico.



Alex has been upgraded to a Hurricane by the NHC. That makes it the first hurricane of the 2010 Atlantic season and the first June hurricane in that basin for 15 years. (Hurricane Allison)



Alex will probably intensify before it makes landfall sometime Wednesday. The wind shear is below 10 knots, the sea surface temperature is extremely high and there is not enough dry continental air to stifle growth.

The central pressure has dropped rapidly to 973 millibars and surface winds have reached a sustained 65 knots (120 kmh/75 mph). The system has altered more to the west and is now tracking about 280 at 8 knots (15 kmh/9 mph). Intensification estimates vary but the official forecast is that Alex will remain a Category 1 Hurricane until landfall with sustained wind speeds of up to 80 knots (148 kmh/92 mph).

Landfall is a question. The track guidance provided by the models is quite wide so exact landfall predictions are difficult and of low confidence. The other thing is that this cyclone is huge. The radius of maximum winds is about 15 miles from centre, but the Tropical Storm Force winds have a radius of almost 3 degrees of latitude or 180 miles. That means that Alex will cut a wide swath into Mexico and Texas no matter where it makes landfall.The storm surge is now expected to be around 5 feet in the areas of landfall and 2 feet or greater as far away as Louisiana. That will have a negative effect on the oil blowout area by driving the surface slick towards shore. Along with the surge of seawater and the high winds, Alex will probably drop huge amounts of torrential rain as it crosses the coast. Flooding is almost inevitable. These webcams right on the beach at South Padre Island should give us an interesting look.

Alex is expected to make landfall in less than 24 hours.

Alex gives the Gulf oil spill response a whack

Here we go.

Gulf coast residents had feared a tropical storm. Monday's weather wasn't that bad, but it was bad enough to bring relief efforts on the water to a halt. Seven miles out to sea there were rolling seven-foot seas. It makes the skimming operations to recover oil much more difficult. Monday's foul weather also forced BP to delay plans of adding a third capturing system which would help the "Q-4000" and "Discover Enterprise" recover some of the 60,000 barrels of oil that continues to spew into the Gulf daily. For the armada of boats dealing with the spill, tropical storm Alex is serving as a dress rehearsal of sorts for what is expected to be an intense hurricane season here on the gulf.

Alex is now passing north east of the ocean buoy in the Bay of Campeche. Pressure is dropping although the winds seem to be reasonably steady at around 30 knots. The storm itself has developed an eyewall. You can see the spiral rain bands forming. It looked briefly as though Alex was picking up some dry continental air, although the latest photo below indicates that it may be filling in. NHC reported that there was some entrainment* of dry air from the west. That may have the effect of limiting Alex's growth.



The webcams at Padre Island are starting to show the effects of Alex as it approaches.

Toronto Police Chief making his own laws

Not a police state? (Emphasis mine)

Toronto's police chief is admitting there never was a five-metre rule that had people fearing arrest if they strayed too close to the G20 security perimeter.

Civil libertarians were fuming after hearing Friday that the Ontario cabinet gave police the power to stop and search anyone coming within five metres of the G20 fences in Toronto for a one week period.

However, the Ministry of Community Safety says all the cabinet did was update the law that governs entry to such things as court houses to include specific areas inside the G20 fences — not outside.

A ministry spokeswoman says the change was about property, not police powers, and did not include any mention of a zone five metres outside the G20 security perimeter.

When asked Tuesday if there actually was a five-metre rule given the ministry's clarification, Chief Bill Blair smiled and said, “No, but I was trying to keep the criminals out.”

Chet is being generous when he suggests this is the result of incompetence. I tend towards intentional malfeasance on the part of the Chief of the Toronto police department who clearly disregarded the law and made his own set of rules without the consent of his superiors.

So we do have new rules. It was convenient for him to trample on the rights of citizens. Oh well.

Cause for immediate dismissal. With disgrace.

Alex spinning up, speeding up and heading for Texas

The US National Hurricane Center has now issued Hurricane Warnings on Tropical Storm Alex for the south coast of Texas and northeast coast of Mexico. Alex is gaining strength and will probably develop into a Hurricane by no later than tomorrow and make landfall on Wednesday night.

The wind shear is a little high but its forecast track takes it through decreasing shear in the next few hours. Sea surface temps are very high and the central pressure has dropped to 982 mb. It is moving North Northwest at 10 knots (12 mph/19 kmh).

As it stands now, Alex will have very little direct impact on the oil blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. However, given its track, intensity and radius, it will likely produce strong southerly winds and generate surface currents which will drive the surface oil slick onto the coast.

The big question now is how much damage this storm will cause. The expected storm surge could bring a rush of sea water inland of up to 3 meters above tide as Alex approaches and about a meter above tide over a wider area of the Texas/Mexico coast. There is some concern that the surge will reach the area of the oil slick, although it should be under a meter.

Coupled with all that is the fact that Alex, once it makes landfall is forecast to contain 80 knot (148 kmh/92 mph) winds gusting to 100 knots (185 kmh/115 mph) and will release huge amounts of moisture as it moves inland.


An interesting note. The ocean buoy centered in the Bay of Campeche is showing rapid and significant drop in atmospheric pressure and a rapid rise in wind. That particular buoy is almost directly in Alex's path. I'll be watching that buoy and I'll be checking out the webcams on South Padre Island.

G20 : Who was that masked man?

A photojournalist followed and filmed 75 to 100 Black Bloc for 90 minutes and 24 blocks as they rampaged through the streets of Toronto smashing windows and torching police cars while police looked calmly on from several different locations. Why was this rampage allowed?

Police say they had already infiltrated a Black Bloc group and knew what to expect, but tonight the head of G20 security operations told an incredulous Susan Ormiston on CBC that the police had better things to do than attend to the Black Bloc.

So much for "serve and protect" then if you don't happen to be a G20 fence.

The photojournalist is interviewed here by Paul Manly, who shot the footage of the three rock-toting police provocateurs at the SPP protests in Montebello back in Aug 2007 and wonders if this isn't a variation on the same theme as it was only after the rioters dumped their black gear and dispersed into the crowd that the police attacked the peaceful protesters.

Well, perhaps not all of them dumped their black gear. Below some 20 plainclothes, including a couple of blackclad guys in hoodies, are seen making a run for safety behind a police line. An crazyangry woman attacks the photographer and then scampers off with them.

So who were those masked men?

Some things are just pure irresistable

I know what causes the Northern Lights and I am still mesmerized by them. But that's not what this is about. I will provide you with a series of quotes and a link.

I was sitting down on University Avenue, when a group of police officers approached me and said they wanted to talk to me. Stunned, I opened my mouth getting ready to reply to the request, when one of the officers at the top of his lungs yelled: "I DON'T GIVE A FUCK WHAT YOU THINK!"

Well... that's pretty fucking rude. I would have grabbed him by the epaulet and driven his nose into my upward rising hand. But that's just me. I'm actually trained to do that.

Another officer said they didn't want to hear about my rights.

Non sequitur. The other officer is a follower, easily dispatched, and your rights, won through successive governments and decades are no longer the issue. They're gone. Why didn't you just grab the "followers" wrist? That's a moment of shock and you can do a ton of amazing things to him in that moment.

They then proceeded to demand I remove the earphones from my ears, forcing me to get off the phone with my colleague. I told them I was on the phone to which another officer responded, "we don't care."

Well, no. I understand that. Everything now is about their life - not yours. You are nothing.

Then they said they wanted to search my bag, because I was "wearing a black shirt". To which I replied, that I did not consent to any searches. I told them that I would not resist them, and that any search they conducted was under protest. They simply said, "we don't care. We want to make sure you don't have any bombs to kill us with."

Oooooh. Search. So did you say, "I have nothing lethal or offensive in my pack and in order for you to search my PRIVATE belongings I require you to secure a search warrant because, constable, I have an implicit expectation that the contents of my pack are private."?

Did you do that? (Even though it probably wouldn't have made a difference).

They demanded I present identification, once again I complied under protest. To which they told me they didn't care again.

Not required. Check out that Charter thing. I never carry identification unless it is lawfully required - like driving a car or a 46,000 ton ship. You could have said, "I don't have any," which would have put them in a momentary dilemma.

Then one of the officers told me that, and I quote, that I (me) "don't care about the security of the city." To which I protested. They then called me "ignorant".

I hate it when that happens. It's almost as though they care more than I do. But then, they have their Master Agreement to make them look better. Calling you ignorant? I don't know. Does that demand future single combat? I think it does. But that's just me.

I asked them why they were using such vulgar language with me, and they simply denied that any such language had been used. Despite having literally sworn at me multiple times, seconds prior.

Ever been to a police bar? The language would curl your hair. I take some pride in that I can be so vulgar as to make them puke. It's a learned art. It's funny how cops so try to pretend that they are as tough as those of us who really do the tough stuff. Oh well. That's them.

There was one police officer, who was mostly quiet, who seemed to be looking at me somewhat sympathetically. I sensed that he was not comfortable with what his fellow officers were doing.

A liberal. Don't trust him/her.

But I was just subjected to an warrentless, suspicionless search, contrary to my Charter Rights. And when I protested my treatment, I was repeatedly told that they "don't care". They accused me of not caring about the security of Toronto, and they called me ignorant twice. I should note that I was never given any chance to really say much to them at all, so I can only assume that they had some prior knowledge of who I was.

Well, I don't know. The fact that they didn't care is relevant. No warrant, no prior suspicion, no probable cause. Goddamn, you gotta love this new lawnorder society. Fuck the Charter, at least until it fails to serve you, but let's face it, the damned thing only makes it harder for cops to catch the real criminals.

If you're not doing anything wrong then you have nothing to fear.

And if you want you can read Terrence Watson's uninterrupted posting on The Shotgun Blog, the home of Ezra Levant and KKKate McMillan.

Terrence's rights, no less than any other Canadian's entrenched rights, were grossly violated, and he has every right to complain. He is a Canadian and expects full protection from the possibility of an overbearing police state.

Let's back him to the hilt and make sure this never happens again. He just experienced the embryonic stages of a Hitlerian Canada.

If you're not doing anything wrong, the police can do whatever they want to whomever they want.

Hat tip Stage Left.

Do you have a complaint against the Toronto Police?

Were you harassed? Were you beaten? Were you treated as less than a citizen? Were you arrested for doing nothing more than trying to see through some overpaid goon's sunglasses? (That's right you fucking morons. If you allowed yourselves to be suborned by a questionable law which had yet to be published to give you comfort then you are an overpaid fucking goon.)

Did you have an ugly encounter with the cheapest members of law enforcement?

Too bad.

A police state is a tough thing to break down.

Vacant of thought; absence of innovation

This editorial in the Globe and Mail could have been so much more. The opener was tantalizing enough but then it wanders off into a minefield.

Despite the best efforts of radical protesters aptly called thugs, G20 security accomplished its most critical task. Summit work was conducted without disruption for the participants. But the same can hardly be said of its impact on the rest of us. The major disruption caused to the economic life of Canada’s largest city, and the staggering cost of the summit to Canadians generally, raise serious questions about the future of such meetings, and invites serious reflection about how to host a G20 summit.

And that's about where the navel-gazing started and the lint-picking commenced.

There is no doubt that the "thugs" commanded too much attention - both on the streets of Toronto and inside the G20 meeting venue. The truth is, they attract each other. While both groups purport to be out to save the world, neither is capable of doing so.

The Black Bloc are neither right nor left politically and I don't believe for a second that they are true anarchists. Under brighter lights they are little more than behaviour challenged children throwing a violent tantrum without a shred of legitimate cause. They're attention junkies, which makes them little different from the horde of overblown egos meeting at the G20 summit.

The sheer scale of the G20 – so many leaders accompanied by so many large entourages – makes it virtually impossible to host at a resort in the way that the G8 has often been in the past. [...] The problem is there are very few places in the world outside of a major metropolis that can accommodate 10,000 delegates, 4,000 media, together with the security and ancillary hangers-on associated with a G20 summit.

And that's where the G&M went straight off the rails.

The G20 leaders and the thousands who accompany them, will tell you that they are out to save the world. Except that, in order to do that, they have to meet in palatial surroundings, couched in comfort and savour levels of luxury, all the better to make the meeting go smoothly.

Never mind that the meeting was hardly necessary in the first place. Most of what was done at the G20 had been agreed upon well ahead of the arrival of the first delegates. The final results were as shallow as the fake-lake and nothing was binding. Further, the decisions by this group may well send the world reeling. These are not the sharpest knives in the drawer.

That means the G20 will by necessity end up in large cities, a fertile environment for radicals, with plenty of support, places to hide and easy targets.

No... that means the authors didn't even think about how to do it differently. They also didn't acknowledge that holding a summit like G20 in a Northern Hemisphere city in June, after universities have ended their exam sessions, when the weather is good and the daylight hours are long, is just about as intelligent as taking a Guineau Pig for a walk through a pit of Boa Constrictors.

Unless the violence and heavy-handed security is something Harper intentionally manufactured. That's possible, but then Harper is another dull knife. He may be a master political manipulator but most of that is focused inward and serves to feed his over-sized ego. He only plays a long game if someone explains it to him first and Harper isn't much of a listener. He is, however, prone to impulsive, poorly thought-out behaviour and ideas as evidenced from things like the Alberta Firewall Letter, his addresses to American conservatives and his enraged response to the Chretien government's refusal to join the Bush/Cheney expedition to Iraq.

The police deserve praise for securing the summit site. Farther from the site, though, their success was less obvious. True there were no serious known injuries. True also the police showed too much restraint in dealing with the so-called Black Bloc, which ran amok.

The police showed too much restraint?! From any angle it is viewed, the police failed to protect people and property. And the coincidence of strategically placed, unattended police vehicles will continue to raise suspicion. It is not a stretch, at all, to suggest that the Toronto police, under orders from the ISU were running a strategy. They wanted that first rampage to happen. It gave them permission to behave through the remainder of the summit security exercise like Stalinist goons.

It’s important not to overstate what happened: too many windows were broken and cars destroyed, but the damage to property was neither massive nor widespread. Despite the mass police presence, Toronto did not become a “police state.”

Did the weekend at the lake without a radio or TV, did we? Police charged crowds who were doing nothing. They sent organized assaulters into peaceful gatherings of people. They threatened people who took photographs and videos. What's not "police state" about that? Not to mention the egregious secret law they felt happy to operate under.

But the lesson is clear. World leaders need to meet in sufficiently large but flexible groups to tackle big collective challenges – Skype is no substitute for face-to-face contact. And they must be able to undertake their deliberations securely.

Well, we finally agree, albeit only on one point. If they have to meet, and I still don't see the need to have to gather and thump chests like a bunch of old frat brothers out for a weekend at a high-priced sweat lodge, then doing so in a secure venue is required. A large city will never be a secure venue. At least not without trampling on the rights of its citizens and making a tacit declaration that the high and mighty, elected though they may be, will look down their noses at the revolting peasants. It is big brother wrote large.

This is the major conundrum: only major cities can host such gatherings, but future G20 meetings should not produce another Toronto, with its great security costs, massive disruption, and temporarily curtailed freedoms.

It is not a conundrum at all. It only remains so if things like the G20 continue in their present form.

This pack of bananas keep telling us they are out to save the world from... itself. They attach huge amounts of urgency and importance to the need for such summits. Only they and their huge "entourages" can do it.

Fine. Lose the luxury.

Let's see how often G20 summits occur when the meeting is held in the hinterland; when the accommodations are a mixture of portable structures and tents; when the fine dining is replaced by camp food; when a large number of the toilets for the "entourage" are porta-potties and the communications is provided by military satellite links.

Let's see if these people are so intent on saving the world that they are willing to give up the opulence of their privileged existences to do so. We might find out exactly how many of these clowns were actually necessary for such a summit and how many were only here to waste their own and the host country's taxpayer dollars to attend a weekend summer party.

Charlie ain't happy . . .

THE NY TIMES MAGAZINE has an article, "Tuna's End", by Paul Greenburg. Doesn't look good for bluefin. 

What was in the water that day was a congregation of Atlantic bluefin tuna, a fish that when prepared as sushi is one of the most valuable forms of seafood in the world. It’s also a fish that regularly journeys between America and Europe and whose two populations, or “stocks,” have both been catastrophically overexploited. The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, one of only two known Atlantic bluefin spawning grounds, has only intensified the crisis. By some estimates, there may be only 9,000 of the most ecologically vital megabreeders left in the fish’s North American stock, enough for the entire population of New York to have a final bite (or two) of high-grade otoro sushi. The Mediterranean stock of bluefin, historically a larger population than the North American one, has declined drastically as well. Indeed, most Mediterranean bluefin fishing consists of netting or “seining” young wild fish for “outgrowing” on tuna “ranches.” Which was why the Greenpeace craft had just deployed off Malta: a French fishing boat was about to legally catch an entire school of tuna, many of them undoubtedly juveniles.

Worth the read.

Alex back in warm water... and growing.

Alex emerged from the Yucatan intact and with enough organization to quickly regenerate. While it had been downgraded to a Tropical Depression over the Yucatan, it is now back to Tropical Storm and the expectation from both guidance models and forecasters is that Alex will spin up to a Hurricane sometime before it makes its next landfall.

The question still remains, where will Alex make landfall and how much effect will it have on the oil blowout off Louisiana. (And should the containment effort be interrupted because of a possible hurricane?)

Based on models and forecasts, the probability of Alex plowing through the oil spill is very low. That doesn't mean there won't be some effects felt in that area. Significant winds, seas and swells will have the effect of blowing the surface oil towards the coast.

The area of low wind shear, high sea surface temperatures (29.5 C) and high mid-level moisture all suggest Alex has the necessary conditions to fuel it further. Models present a wide range of possible landfalls from north of Corpus Christi, Texas to Tampico, Mexico. For the next 48 hours Alex is expected to continue a slow North West movement as it intensifies.

I'm keeping an eye on the ocean buoy (42055) in the Bay of Campeche over the next day or so.














I'm also watching the weakening ridge over the central US. If two of the models are correct, further weakening will have the effect of steering Alex poleward.

At the going down of the sun ...

With condolences and respect to the families and friends of Master Corporal Kristal Giesebrecht, 1 Canadian Field Hospital, and Private Andrew Miller, 2 Field Ambulance. Both medics were serving with Task Force Kandahar Health Services Unit.

Killed due to enemy action.

Militi Succurrimus

Alex. Landfall in Belize.

Tropical Storm Alex made landfall at just after 2300 GMT yesterday. The movement slowed slightly and, as expected the storm lost intensity. It has been downgraded to a Tropical Depression for the time being. It dropped large quantities of moisture on Belize and the surrounding environs.

A good description of the passing of Alex through coastal Belize is provided by the Cay Caulker website where the writer describes the rapidly changing weather.



Alex will soon leave the Yucatan behind and enter the Gulf of Mexico. What happens after that is currently a guess. The high sea surface temperatures and low wind shear will give Alex renewed energy and reintensification to Tropical Storm status and possibly into a hurricane. Everything now depends on how much the storm slows once over water and how long it stays there.

Right now there is a ridge of high pressure north of Alex which would have the effect of causing the storm to alter to the west and make an eventual landfall on Mexico's east coast. A good number of computer models are providing that forecast guidance, however, there are some models and model ensembles which have the ridge weakening enough to cause Alex to recurve poleward and toward the northern reaches of the Gulf of Mexico.

At this point a high confidence forecast is going to require a later-in-the-day model run with more atmospheric data. That underscores another point of contention.

On at least two U.S. television stations the personalities reading and pointing at the weather conditions made statements to the effect that Alex had made landfall well to the south of the Gulf of Mexico and that all danger of the storm becoming involved with the oil blowout in the Gulf had now passed. Nothing could be further from the truth.

A majority of tropical storms which make landfall on the Yucatan survive and continue to present a threat with a large percentage of them strengthening to hurricanes. As the US National Hurricane Center states in its forecast discussion:

ALL OF THE MODEL UNCERTAINTY WITH THE TRACK OF ALEX OFFERS A
REMINDER TO NOT TO FOCUS ON THE EXACT FORECAST TRACK...PARTICULARLY
IN THE EXTENDED PART OF THE FORECAST PERIOD...WHERE AVERAGE
FORECAST ERRORS CAN BE 200 TO 300 MILES.

I suspect the forecaster at NHC added that statement to the discussion because of the unsubstantiated conclusions being reached by US media broadcast personalities.

Alex remains a danger and at present we have no conclusive idea as to where it will end up.

G20 : The first rule of Fight Club is ...

"For the past few weeks, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association said, it has been in talks with police to clarify the rules in and around the security zone: What are the rights of citizens, what search powers are police entitled to, and what should protestors be told before they go out to protest. They were told of a number of requirements, rules and laws that could be invoked.

But the Public Works Protection Act never came up, they said. Not once. Not even when the CCLA sent the police a version of the “Know Your Rights” brochure to review before handing it out to protestors as they geared up for the summit.
“They replied to us, but nowhere was this legislation even mentioned,” said Abby Deshman, a project manager with the CCLA "

~Toronto Star

Ignorance of the law is no excuse...

But if it has not been Gazetted yet, I cannot "reasonably" be expected to know it exists.

Over the top? Yeah. Somebody is over the top.

The connection between Stephen Harper's department and the Hitlerian security being rammed down the throats of citizens supposedly protected by a Charter of Rights for a "summit" for which the final communique has already been written is becoming very apparent.

That this whole thing has been planned for a long time, including the crushing of rights no government has the final authority to remove is finally starting to occur to people - especially those outside Toronto who are wondering why it had to be this way.

Perhaps this explains it. Harper doesn't give a red rat's ass about your rights. Everything is about him and if you rain on his tinker-toy parade, he'll punish you. He, who should be defending everything constitutional about this federation has proven, once again, that such things are mere trifles to be cast aside for his own personal aggrandizement.

This is the second Canadian city to have endured extreme and unnecessary measures in less than a year to provide empowered right-wingers, and especially Harper, with a sanitized environment in which to hold an expensive party which purposely excluded most of the population.

So ... we all called this "over the top" and the moment at which the Paul Martin campaign had jumped the shark. If it had been written by Nostradamus the superstitious would be calling it "dead on accurate". At the time, I thought it was appalling.



I no longer view it that way.

Stevie strikes again . . .

Taser tales . . .

THE DAILY MAIL ONLINE has a report, well, ya gotta wonder — 'Don't taze my granny!' American police accused of using a Taser on an 86-year-old, bed-ridden grandmother. Really. And this was after asphyxiating the poor old woman.

Lonnie Tinsley called the emergency services to his home in El Reno, Oklahoma, when he became concerned that his grandma Lona Vernon had failed to take her medication.

But instead of a medical technician, he claims at least a dozen armed police officers answered his call.

In order to ensure 'officer safety', one of his men 'stepped on her oxygen hose until she began to suffer oxygen deprivation'.

Another of the officers then shot her with a taser, but the connection wasn’t solid.

A second fired his taser, 'striking her to the left of the midline of her upper chest, and applied high voltage, causing burns to her chest, extreme pain', and unconsciousness.

Tropical Storm Alex

The tropical wave we have been watching in the Caribbean has evolved and gained enough energy to become the first named storm of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season - Tropical Storm Alex.


The direction this cyclone will take is still only a best guess at this time. There is considerable variance in the forecast guidance models although for the next 24 to 48 hours the estimate is that Alex will move in a general direction of West Northwest at about 9 knots (16.6 kmh/10.4 mph).

The wind shear over Alex remains low and the sea surface temperatures are very high. There is plenty of moisture and the storm is producing heavy rainfall which does not bode well for the estimated landfall areas of Honduras, Belize and the Yucatan peninsula.

What happens after Alex crosses the Yucatan is a big question. This storm is intensifying quickly and stands a good chance of emerging from the Yucatan landmass with enough energy to become a hurricane within the next 96 hours. Most forecasts are taking guidance which suggests that once Alex is in the Gulf of Mexico it will be influenced further westward making landfall somewhere around Tampico, Mexico.

How to match a headline with a photo...

Over at Laila Yuile's.

Tropical Depression ONE ...

... is forecast to become a Tropical Storm by Saturday morning. If that happens the first named tropical cyclone in that area will become Tropical Storm Alex.

We'll have to wait to see what happens over the next few hours. Jeff Masters has a great history of past systems which developed in a similar fashion.

Most forecast models have this system crossing the Yucatan, increasing in strength but passing west of the oil blow-out area. Right now the concern is the amount of moisture this system will drop (and has already started to drop) on the coastal areas of the Yucatan Peninsula, Belize and Nicaragua.

Harper : $1.1 billion for maternal healthcare

$1.3 billion to deliver it . (h/t Antonia Z)

Liveblogging the demos : Torontoist and The Star

Spinning up Invest 93L. UPDATED

UPDATE 252300Z: Apparently I had no sooner posted the information below and the NHC upgraded Invest 93L to a Tropical Depression (labelled TD1). Further, they are now projecting this system surviving a transit of the Yucatan and reaching into the Gulf of Mexico with Tropical Storm strength. The projected cone if influence provided by NHC through to Wednesday.



A little update from this past Monday. Remember Invest 93L, that disorganized bunch of clouds in the Caribbean that had all the right conditions to become a cyclone?

Well, here it is now.


Some pertinent conditions:
1. Wind shear - Low.

2. Sea surface temperature - extremely high.

3. Surrounding air - lots of moisture.

4. Landmass to interfere with development - too far away.

The US National Hurricane Center is now saying this one has an 80 percent chance of developing into a Tropical Depression and becoming a cyclone. I think may already be there. The latest readings of ocean buoys all through the Caribbean say this system is already at the depression stage.

What now?

Well, if it keeps tracking WNW it will make landfall over the Yucatan peninsula and likely weaken. I doubt if there is enough energy in it to pop out into the Pacific with any force. However, on the way through it will carry huge amounts of moisture and it puts Central America in peril of flooding.

The likelihood of this system finding its way to the Gulf of Mexico and over the mess created by the BP well blow-out, is very slim. Although, it depends on how quickly and with what force it spins up.

Once this one finishes its performance, there's always Invest 94L well to the East to watch closely, although there is currently only a low probability of development.

Getting to the end of the Monopoly Game . . .

WASHINGTON MONTHLY has a disturbing article by Barry C. Lynn and Phillip Longman, "Who Broke America’s Jobs Machine?". Scary stuff:

If any single number captures the state of the American economy over the last decade, it is zero. That was the net gain in jobs between 1999 and 2009—nada, nil, zip. By painful contrast, from the 1940s through the 1990s, recessions came and went, but no decade ended without at least a 20 percent increase in the number of jobs.
. . .

But while the mystery of what killed the great American jobs machine has yielded no shortage of debatable answers, one of the more compelling potential explanations has been conspicuously absent from the national conversation: monopolization. The word itself feels anachronistic, a relic from the age of the Rockefellers and Carnegies. But the fact that the term has faded from our daily discourse doesn’t mean the thing itself has vanished—in fact, the opposite is true. In nearly every sector of our economy, far fewer firms control far greater shares of their markets than they did a generation ago. 

Indeed, in the years after officials in the Reagan administration radically altered how our government enforces our antimonopoly laws, the American economy underwent a truly revolutionary restructuring. Four great waves of mergers and acquisitions—in the mid-1980s, early ’90s, late ’90s, and between 2003 and 2007—transformed America’s industrial landscape at least as much as globalization. Over the same two decades, meanwhile, the spread of mega-retailers like Wal-Mart and Home Depot and agricultural behemoths like Smithfield and Tyson’s resulted in a more piecemeal approach to consolidation, through the destruction or displacement of countless independent family-owned businesses.

And when the Monopoly game is over, you just dump the pieces back in the box . . .

I smell a stainless steel rat

That $1.1 billion had to be going somewhere and now we know where a chunk of it is going -- to a security firm that isn't even licenced in Ontario and is offering about double the going rate for its glorified bouncers. I'm sure the firm in question - Contemporary Security Canada - has absolutely no ties to the Conservative Party of Canada and that everything was strictly on the up and up in granting them the massive contract for providing about 1,000 security screeners, many of whom were hired last month so I'm sure they will be trained to a razor's edge.

“We’ve had some intense discussions about this at APSA in the last few days,” says Ross McLeod, president of the Association of Professional Security Agencies based in Toronto. “I’ve been doing RFPs and tenders for 30 years in this business, and it doesn’t pass the smell test.”

(snip)

On May 31, Contemporary Security set up a hiring office at Humber College in Toronto and was taking applications up until today.

Contemporary held the $97-million security contract for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. On its website Contemporary says they will be "Supervised by the RCMP and Integrated Security Unit" and will be responsible for providing "airport-type pedestrian security screening, including inspection of persons and items at  the G8 and G20 sites."

According to its own website, CSC has received its licence to operate in Ontario and since I can't determine the exact publication date of the article quoted above except to narrow it down to sometime this month, I suppose it is possible CSC has been licenced in Ontario for as long a two whole weeks.

(With apologies to Slippery Jim DiGriz for this post's title) Crossposted from the Woodshed.

Bizarro weighs in . . .

Go read the Jurist...

Who read Gardiner before I did.

Of course it's worth it. Do you think I want you to read stuff that makes no sense?

Perspective

Some things aren't worth reading (I've written some of them) and others are.

This one... yeah. A definite read.

Richard Fadden and Pandora's Box

Really, Mr. Fadden?

"We're in fact a bit worried in a couple of provinces that we have an indication that there's some political figures who have developed quite an attachment to foreign countries,"

Indeed.

Well, Mr. Fadden, our intelligence organization, (Of course you don't know about it! We operate in secrecy.), has serious suspicions that sworn members of CSIS have been suborned by foreign governments and are therefore not operating in the best interests of Canada.

We're watching them. Closely.

Oh please, may I update? Thanks. Let me do so. (Emphasis? Mine... all mine)

“I have not apprised the Privy Council Office of the cases I mentioned in the interview on CBC,” he said, adding that “CSIS has not deemed the cases to be of sufficient concern to bring them to the attention of provincial authorities.”

But it's good enough to announce on national television. Is this man some kind of fucking nut?!!

I swear, if any one of our intelligence agents ever did this, I have that person seen to the door.

Leadership is the art of leaders and often involves long periods of silence.

Mouthing off about your boss is juvenile, water-cooler, office politics. And I, for one, would never follow such an individual into harms way. A general who is unable to abide the direction of his civilian superiors has but one option - resign.

As POGGE made very clear, in past times a general who had so clearly verbalized his objection to his clear subordinate position, and had been discovered doing so, would have drawn his blade and fallen on his own sword.

General Stanley McChrystal, United States Army, has several superiors, but his ultimate boss is the person sitting in the Oval Office of the White House. He has but one duty to that person after he has presented his advice to that person - obey his orders. If he objects, he has the right to say so, directly. If that objection is overruled, he is duty bound to step aside and not assume the position he was requested fill or accept his instructions, salute and get on with it - without complaint.

McChrystal, however, did none of that. McChrystal was not just insubordinate; he vented his own personal disapproval of his superior, while still serving him, to his subordinates. That is a heinous and unforgivable crime in any military organization.

Most of McChrystal's offending comments in the Rolling Stone article were those repeated by his staff and cannot be attributed by the article's author to McChrystal's direct answers. But the fact that subordinates feel comfortable enough to repeat McChrystal's words and the context in which they were spoken suggests that McChrystal lacks the necessary leadership skills to lead anything larger than a reserve section (10 person squad) in any form of combat.

McChrystal's worst crime is the downward infection of his own subordinates. They are bound by traditional loyalty to their commander. If their commander is dissing his boss, they assume the same posture and the infection moves out of the staff organization into the line formations. The idiocy of it all is that it actually ended up on the pages of a globally-consumed publication.

You can't push poor judgment and blatant disloyalty further out into the light than by doing that.

The fact that it was so much more than a passing comment demonstrates, not just arrogance, but a false sense of superiority and invincibility which calls into question the man's ability to recognize, not just his own weakness in any area, but that of his command. Such a blindness leads to unit failures which, instead of solving at his own level with innovation, motivation and strong leadership, he declares inevitable and blames those above him. Read it in any fashion you wish to interpret it, but that is simply poor leadership and it needs to be corrected before it spreads further downwards.

McChrystal's poorly aimed and badly timed comments have probably already caused the career destruction of most of his command staff who had incorrectly presumed that he possessed a cloak of invincibility to superior civilian authority which allowed him to vent his insubordinate opinions in their presence.

Leadership at military command levels is always difficult. Sometimes a leader is asked to perform seemingly impossible tasks with too few resources. Often a leader finds her/himself saddled with orders which, on the surface, appear ridiculous. In the end, however, it is the job of a military leader to provide the necessary inspiration to subordinates and demonstrate the loyalty to one's superiors to execute those orders with innovation and adaptability. Failure is assumed personally and only transfers to a higher level if the superior commander reaches down and takes the cloak.

That's staff school stuff and McChrystal knows it. His barrack-room performance, clearly done to create some kind of impression on his staff, had no place under the multiple stars on his epaulets. Along with the comfort and authority which accompanies a general officer of his status comes the obligation to instill loyalty in his staff. Sometimes that means keeping silent on matters with which he disagrees. It always means demonstrating to subordinates a professional loyalty to one's superiors. Failure to do so quickly shatters the discipline of a command and encourages individuals to act outside their orders based on a disdain for their commanders at all levels, the example having been provided by the theatre commander.

That may work for John Wayne in a war movie, but it regularly leads to disaster in a real combat organization and diminishes the professionalism required to carry off the often obscene job of war-fighting.

McChrystal demonstrated all the maturity of command of a newly-minted corporal. Corporals can occasionally bitch over a beer about the insanity of their distant superiors; Generals enjoy no such luxury. Clearly, if he cannot accept the responsibility to set the proper example from his superior level of command, that responsibility should be removed lest he further damages his subordinates.

Mr. Sensitivity . . .

Food for the shredder...

Harper, the hillbilly "economist" who, in the face of a global financial meltdown failed to even acknowledge its existence, then tried to tell Canadians it wouldn't affect them, is scrambling to make sure he doesn't get left standing when the music stops.

With days to go before Canada hosts the leaders of the world's richest countries, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is calling on the G20 nations to show the same kind of "solidarity" in nurturing the global economic recovery as they did in battling the financial crisis.

[...]

On Monday, Harper gave a series of media interviews to call for greater co-operation within the G20, which emerged as the premier forum for discussing economic issues during the financial crisis.

[...]

In a recent letter to the other leaders, Harper called on the G20 countries to cut their deficits in half by 2013 and stabilize their debt-to-GDP ratios, or put them on a "downward path," by 2016.

The synchronized whir of paper shredders worldwide in response to the leader of a country which has lost more global respect in four years than anyone could have thought possible.