OBAMA DID IT - RUINED THE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION

According to Rush Limbaugh, Obama caused the Republicans to cancel the first day of their convention by ordering the National Hurricane Center to track Tropical Storm Isaac to Tampa.

The Republican National Convention. A pretty important one, too. Introducing the nominee, Mitt Romney. It’s only after the convention that Romney can actually start spending all of this money that he’s raised, so this convention is very important. It’s a chance to introduce Romney to a lot of people who don’t know him yet. And I noticed that the hurricane center’s track is — and I’m not alleging conspiracies here. The hurricane center is the regime; the hurricane center is the Commerce Department.\

It’s the government.

It’s Obama.

And I’m noticing that that track stayed zeroed in on Tampa day after day after day. And the Republicans react to it accordingly over the weekend, canceling the first day of the convention. What could be better for the Democrats than the Republicans to cancel a day of this?

….Again, I’m alleging no conspiracy. I don’t want anybody thinking I’m going somewhere with this. I’m just telling you what happened.

I’m sharing with you my thought process, ’cause I know full well that if you give these people the slightest chance and they’re gonna turn this into Katrina and they’re gonna scare the hell out of New Orleans and they’re gonna revive, “Bush doesn’t care about people” and revive all of it. They’re gonna politicize everything ’cause they do it. And now they had the model runs allowing them to do it.

Now they had these model runs allowing them to start scaring the hell out of people in New Orleans and make political connections to Bush.

Somehow Obama and the Democrats convinced the hurricane center, weather services, and weather experts from all over the world to disregard their own observations and information, including satellite feeds, to go along and ruin the Republican National Convention by tracking the storm to Tampa.  But remember, Rush is not alleging a conspiracy.

Nor is it a conspiracy when "these people", once again, persuade the hurricane center, weather services, and weather experts all over the world to collude to skew the election to Obama by tracking the storm to the vicinity of New Orleans, in order to scare the hell out of the people there and remind the US voting public of the Bush maladministration's incompetence after Katrina - a conspiracy of vast proportions, indeed, if it was a conspiracy, but it's not.  Exactly what it is, I can't say.  Rush will have to tell us.   

How gullible can a person be?  Apparently, there are no limits if you're intent on finding conspiracies to match your prejudices, and Rush is your man to provide the material.  Start with, "Obama did it", and go back from there to find your "proof".

Photo from Wikipedia.

LATER TRACKING MAP OF ISAAC

From WonderMap.  Click on the map for a larger view.

WEEKLY REMINDER

ON PLAYING THE RACE CARD

Note: I removed the earlier video with the extraneous segments. The video above is a longer segment from the "Morning Joe" show.

"I have to call you on this, Mr. Chairman,” Matthews said in an appearance with Priebus on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” as he responded to Republicans’ criticism that Obama is running a very negative campaign. “But they’ve both negative. That cheap shot about ‘I don’t have a problem with my birth certificate’ was awful. It is an embarrassment to your party to play that card.”

Matthews continued, turning the attacks up a notch:

"You can play your games and giggle about it but the fact is your side playing that card. When you start talking about work requirements, you know what game you’re playing and everybody knows what game you’re playing. It’s a race card and yeah, if your name’s Romney, yeah you were well born, you went to prep school, yeah, brag about it. This guy has an African name and he’s got to live with it. Look who’s gone further in their life. Who was born on third base? Making fun of the guy’s birth certificate issue when it was never a real issue except for the right wing.”

Thank you, Chris Matthews, for calling the Romney campaign on playing the race card.  Chris is right.  We all know what game the Republicans play, and it's ugly.

H/T to Charles Pierce. 

IT'S THE UNCERTAINTY, THE WAITING...

...and if Isaac, which the experts say will soon be a hurricane, comes our way, then it's the hurricane, loss of power, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.   After the last hurricane struck in our area, I vowed that the next scare would send me flying somewhere out of reach.  But the uncertainly is seductive in its own way, as I'm drawn to think, "Well, maybe I'll leave for nothing if the storm lands somewhere else."  So.  Here I am in sunny Thibodaux today.  We have a two-story house and a boat, so we will not be in danger of drowning.

Just look at the spread in the computer models in the illustration above.  The possible landfall for Isaac lies anywhere from the Louisiana/Mississippi border to the Louisiana/Texas border and all places in between.  Obviously, the places in between are all in Louisiana, including my place.   Sooo...we prepare, and we wait.

Image from Wunderground, which, to my sorrow, was sold to The Weather Channel.

OUR STRADIVARIUS

Pictured above is our genuine Stradivarius violin purchased from Sears by my father-in-law in 1913.  The year is hand-written on a label printed with the words "Antonius Stradivarius", which is pasted on the inside of the fiddle beneath the F-hole (Quiet in the back!).  The instrument is 99 years old.

Another view which shows the carvings on the tailpiece.  I believe the chin rest, fingerboard, and tailpiece to be of ebony.

Now for a bit of human interest - my grandson posed with the violin.   Yes, I know the positioning of the instrument is not quite right.  He's the busybody who snooped around and found the violin in the closet, but I'm glad he did, because I had not seen it for quite a while.

UPDATE with further information on the Sears violins:

This Sears ad reads "A two piece maple back, beautifully flamed, as shown in the illustration. top of resonant spruce, especially selected; reddish brown varnish, beautifully shaded in imitation of an old violin. The neck and scroll are made of curly maple to correspond with the back and sides The fingerboard and tailpiece of solid ebony. Readily retail at $15.00. No finer model in existence than the celebrated Stradivarius. In addition to the violin as above described, we furnish a regular Artists' Tourte model wood bow, german silver trimmed; ebony frog and button; & a solid wood case, American made, handle and lock: a piece of artists' rosin and a full set of four strings and one of out most valuable and complete instruction books."

The violins were mass-produced in Germany and Czechoslovakia, but ours appears to be well put together.

WUNDERGROUND, HOW COULD YOU?

The announcement on Monday that the Weather Channel Companies, owners of television’s Weather Channel and weather.com, would buy one of its rivals, Weather Underground, set off howls of displeasure on social media platforms and around water coolers across the nation. The purchase price was not disclosed.

In the eyes of Weather Underground’s ardent fans, the Weather Channel appears to represent the wrong kind of weather information: personality-driven sunniness and hype, they say, rather than the pure science of data. As Mike Tucker, a computer professional in New Hampshire, put it on Facebook, reacting to news of the deal: “Nooooooooooooooooo! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

My sentiments exactly.  If what is now a pure weather service does not become a commercial enterprise polluted with ads and personalities, I will be very surprised.  Wunderground has been our mainstay for weather information, especially during hurricane season.  I can hardly bear to watch The Weather Channel, and I never visit the website.

I especially liked the "Discussion" feature, although I did not always fully understand the lingo.  Wunderground was for people who were serious about weather and not looking for entertainment in their weather reports. So long, Wunderground.  It's been good to know you.

ROMNEY - AT ONE WITH THE BIRTHERS

"No one has ever asked to see my birth certificate -- they know that this was the place we were born and raised."

Romney in Michigan.  

TRUTH NOT TRUTHINESS, GOVERNOR JINDAL

Yesterday's issue of the Daily Comet carries an opinion piece and Republican commercial by Governor Bobby Jindal sent out before he left for the Republican convention in Tampa Florida.  I assume that's where the governor is, although we never know for sure until he's left the state and landed wherever he's headed, because he doesn't tell. 

Jindal was passed over as Romney's choice for vice-president, and he is not the keynote speaker at the convention, although he will give a speech sometime during the gathering, thus he may not have been in the best mood when he wrote "A Peek Behind the Curtain".   He speaks of gaffes and spin by Obama and Biden, but Jindal has his own collection of gaffes and spins.  You can read the entire propaganda piece with its varying assortment of truth and truthiness, but I want to focus on the one untruth that is spreading wildly in Republican commercials and speeches.

Romney says it, Ryan says it, the commercials say it, and now Jindal says it.  Although it has been pointed out time and again that that Obama did not remove the work requirement from the welfare reform law, the Republicans continue to push the lie.  Apparently, Republicans care not at all about the truth.  What a surprise!  An article in the Los Angeles Times explains the waivers to various states well.  I thought I should answer Jindal's false statement with the truth, so I left the following comment to the article in the Daily Comet online site.

Governor Jindal says:

"Even with rising unemployment, the President has moved to dismantle the historic reform of 1996 that instituted work requirements for welfare. Despite the fact that the welfare caseload fell by half after those historic reforms, the President is telling states that his administration will waive established work requirements for welfare assistance."
  
Either Governor Jindal is ignorant about what the waivers to the 5 states that requested them do, or he is less than candid about what he knows.  Why not ask his fellow Republican governors in the States of Utah and Nevada why they requested the waivers and how the waivers work?  The waivers do not eliminate the work requirement.  Any state that fails to meet the 20% employment requirement loses the waiver.

Republicans call for more power to be returned to the states, but when the president does just that, they slam him.  Gov. Jindal suggests that the American people don't need spin from the president and vice-president, but the governor seems to have learned a bit about spin himself, as he's spinning like a top with his charges that the work requirement for welfare has been eliminated.

There you have it.  I also gave a contribution to the Obama campaign, my first and probably only contribution of this election season, because the thought of the Romney-Ryan team running the country scares me to death.

YIDDISH CURSES FOR REPUBLICAN JEWS

• May your grandchildren baptize you after you’re dead.

From Yiddish curses from Republican Jews.

Thanks to Paul (A.) for the link.