It makes too much sense. Senator Reid's source is Huntsman, Sr. a Bain investor.

Utah, Morman. Reid is correct. Huntsman, Jr. has no love affair with Romeny.

...But I do think Reid (click title to entry - thank you) has a real source here. Markos Moulitsas and a host of other online sleuths have compiled a pretty persuasive case that Reid’s source is Jon Huntsman Sr. Reid has described his source as a major Bain investor and a Republican. Huntsman (the father of the former candidate who’s now backing slowly out of the GOP) is a major Bain investor and a business partner with its managing director, as well as a Reid donor. Abby Huntsman curiously co-bylined a Huffington Post story claiming inside information about Romney’s returns.

So, assuming his source is Huntsman or some other legitimate figure, does Reid have a right to repeat what he heard? The answer becomes more clear if you consider it from Reid’s perspective....

Hillary on Turkish soil. That makes a great deal of sense. Turkey, while allied to the USA, has a relationship with Russia to be respected.

She is amazing. She is the best Secretary of State the USA has ever had.

ACCRA - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton landed in Turkey on Saturday morning for meetings as both countries plan for Syrian President Bashar Assad's fall.

Clinton, winding up an 11-day Africa tour, flew from the small West African state of Benin to Istanbul, where she plans to meet with Turkey's prime minister and foreign minister and hold talks with Syrians who have recently joined the growing exodus of refugees fleeing the violence.

In Washington, the Treasury and State departments announced new sanctions on Syria's state-run oil company Sytrol, saying it had supplied gasoline to Iran, and on Lebanon-based Hezbollah, charging that the group had provided training, advice and extensive logistical support to Assad's government.

The sanctions will add to Washington's arsenal of economic measures targeting both Syrian organizations and foreign entities, mostly in Iran, accused of helping Assad's government...

Rience Priebus cannot lose Wisconsin. He hung his hat on it. It is the birth place for his GOP priorities.

Ryan is the hopeful of the 1 percent. Priebus intends to make it happen. If sacrificing Romney will promote the GOP agenda, it will save Wisconsin's 1st Congressional District and further the agenda. But, the Right Wing is expecting to win by dollars, not votes.

...Given that a number (click title to entry - thank you) of Ryan’s positions fly squarely in the face of many voters in his district that have previously given the Congressman their vote, we are left to wonder if Ryan’s national stardom will carry him through with his constituency or whether the folks back home will send the message that they want a Congressman to represent their interests rather than serve as the star of a national ideological agenda that may be doing real harm to people in his district....

"Corporations are people my friend."

by STEVE MULLIS

UPDATE 1:30 a.m.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has chosen Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, to be his running mate, the Associated Press and other media organizations are reporting.

The Romney campaign said in press release that he will officially announce his choice Saturday morning in Norfolk, Va., at the Nauticus Museum following a tour of the USS Wisconsin....

Romney expects to buy this election. It is why his staff is not interested in polls.

By Michael Allen, Fri, August 10, 2012

GOP presidential candidate (click title to entry - thank you) Mitt Romney recently toured a cornfield in Des Moines, Iowa, to see the effects of the Midwest drought.

Romney's guide was corn and soybean farmer LeMar Koethe (pictured left), who wants the government to stay out of farming, except for the multimillion dollar farm bill, which includes subsidies for farmers.

Koethe told the Des Moines Register: “The people know what to do on their own. Just let them do it.”...

Romney hasn't really started spending the largest part of his campaign treasury. He is hoping post convention will give him a bounce he simply has to maintain.

If you thought the Right Wing attacks on President Obama are bigoted, you'd be correct.

Is this a personal attack on the President, you betcha.

By Dana Milbank,

...I covered welfare reform in 1995 and 1996 (click title to entry - thank you) as a congressional reporter for the Wall Street Journal, so I have followed the issue closely. And Romney’s assertion is, as has been widely documented, nonsense. Republican governors were among those requesting the recent waivers of the welfare work requirements, the “demonstration projects” that sparked Romney’s attack. Ron Haskins, who as a Ways and Means Committee staffer in the 1990s helped draft the welfare law for House Republicans, told NPR that “there’s no plausible scenario under which it really constitutes a serious attack on welfare reform.”

Why Romney is doing this is fairly plain. Romney polls best among white, working-class men, and he needs them to turn out in large numbers. Yet even at this late stage of the campaign, some of the GOP base remains suspicious of his candidacy — a suspicion that was encouraged by thisweek’s defense of “Romneycare” in Massachusetts by a Romney spokeswoman. And a poll by Pew Research Center last month found that nearly a quarter of white evangelicals were uncomfortable with Romney’s Mormonism. Romney therefore has incentive to revive the culture wars, which also accounts for his ad this week claiming Obama had launched a “war on religion.”

What makes Romney’s welfare gambit dispiriting is that, as a member of one of the most persecuted groups in American history, he knows more than most the dangers of fanning bigotry. Yet now he has injected into the campaign what has for decades been a standard device for race-baiting — a suspect move because welfare hadn’t been on the radar screen....

Are Republicans changing their minds about new taxes? Is Grover losing his grip on the GOP?

Osceola County Commissioner John Quinones

Perhaps Quinones is simply taking example from Jeb Bush who states he has refused to sign the pledge as well.

John Quiñones Leaves the Door Open to Tax Hikes (click title to entry - thank you)

Congressional candidate refuses to sign Taxpayer Protection Pledge to oppose higher taxes
Today, the John Quiñones for Congress campaign said that they will not be signing the Taxpayer Protection Pledge in his bid for the GOP nomination in Florida’s 9th Congressional District.  Republican candidates Julius Melendez and Mark Oxner have signed the Pledge.
Without a concrete written promise to taxpayers in the district, Quiñones is leaving the door open to higher taxes. For voters familiar with Quiñones’s record as a state legislator, this may not come as a surprise.
State Senator Quiñones voted in support of transportation bill, SB 1350, that included higher taxes. The bill targeted tourists by imposing a $2-a-day tax on rental car customers. Then Republican Governor Jeb Bush vetoed the legislation, noting that the “taxes will be paid disparately by tourists visiting Florida, consequently creating taxation without representation on a large scale.”...

Then again it would seem as though Quinones takes his own path.

Intervening in Syria means confronting Russia.

By Tom Parfitt, Moscow

5:10PM BST 13 Jul 2012

The Alaed's previous attempt to convey the Mi-25 gunships to the regime of of President Bashar al-Assad under a Curaçao flag caused anger in London and Washington. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the aircraft would be used to kill innocent civilians.

The ship's new destination is unclear but maritime data show it was travelling south off Norway on Thursday and is due in Baltiysk on the Baltic coast of Kaliningrad, Russia's exclave between Poland and Lithuania, on July 17.

A spokesman for Femco, the Russian company which owns the cargo vessel, said on Friday that it would arrive in St Petersburg two days later and may then head to the Russian Far East....

Besides trying to get helicopters into Syria, Russia has signed an agreement for Assad for his oil. Russia is carrying on relations with Syria as if nothing is happening in the country. Madeline Albright stated the USA should pull into the Syrian port. That isn't possible unless the USA wants to confront Russia.

The bill passed by the House nearly doesn't matter, except, for a symbolic gesture. The delivery to Afghanistan of 21 Mi-17s already occurred. So, there isn't any other contracts pending this would effect.

It isn't as though the action by the House isn't admirable, it just isn't causing that much impression on the company.

JULY 20, 2012 06:25

U.S. lawmakers passed a bill on Thursday (click here) breaking contracts between the Pentagon and Russian state-run arms exporter Rosoboronexport, which they claim is “arming the oppressive Syrian regime,” the House of Representatives said on its website, the Russian news agency Novosti reports. The bill, introduced by Democrat Congressman Jim Moran (VA), was passed by an overwhelming 407-5 vote and was attached to the 2013 U.S. military budget, according to the House of Representatives’ statement. The passage of the bill came several hours after Russia and China vetoed for the third time a UN Security Council resolution on Syria authorizing non-military sanctions against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime if it fails to withdraw heavy weapons and troops from urban areas within 10 days....

In an article from RIA Novosti,  (the state newspaper) Russia is viewed as being backed into a corner and an embarrassment to the peace initiative.

Russia Caught Off Guard on Syria as Annan Leaves – Analysts (click here)

MOSCOW, August 3 (RIA Novosti, Alexey Eremenko)

...Annan’s decision to step down, voiced on Thursday, spells a diplomatic loss for Russia, which never managed to implement a proactive policy on Syria, experts said on Friday.

“We were chronically late on Syria,” said Vladimir Akhmedov of the Institute of Oriental Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences. “Now we’ve backed ourselves into a corner.”...

Strategic Overshot

Russia would wait for appointment of a new UN envoy on Syria and continue its push for negotiations between Assad and his enemies, said Leonid Kalashnikov of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Russian State Duma.

“I just hope it would not be a partisan person, because that will cause parties to retire into their respective shells,” said Kalashnikov, a member of the Communist Party.

Akhmedov agreed, saying that Russia will wait and see how the situation in Syria develops. He added it was time for “intricate secret diplomacy” as well as economic action, such as helping the three million Syrians who do not receive enough food at the moment.

But foreign policy expert Alexei Malashenko was more skeptical. “I have no idea how we are going to save face over this,” he said....

Russia and China have to come to terms with the fact Assad is committing genocide against the Sunnis within the country. He is killing without inhibition to whom he is killing including women and children. He is treating everyone in Syria as his enemy. He has no governance of the country anymore, he is simply killing on a daily basis.

Russia is putting itself in the middle of these killing fields and permitting Assad his agenda. 

Snyder is all about real estate, it is obvious from his emergency manager laws to his demand for management plans of Michigan lands.

Snyder is messing with tourism, stability of natural areas, adds to the heating of the waters of the Great Lakes, increases the evaporation of the waters and increases drought conditions.

9:01 PM, August 7, 2012

Gov. Rick Snyder has signed legislation (click title to entry - thank you) that makes the first significant changes to Michigan's sand dune law since the state established protections for critical areas more than two decades ago.

The law signed Tuesday cleared the Republican-controlled state Legislature last month. It gives builders an easier time gaining approval for houses, driveways and other projects on private land.

Environmental groups say the law will allow overdevelopment by weakening regulators' authority to block projects or require changes to reduce their impact.

Pro-development interests say the previous law was tilted heavily in favor of dune protection and prevents landowners from using their property....

Heavily favored in dune protection. 

Ah. Yeah. How about that, huh?

Snyder is destroying democracy in cities and natural resources while real estate values are in the doldrums. What does Snyder think he is doing to the depressed real estate markets in Michigan? Improving them? 

Snyder has got to be the worst Governor Michigan has ever seen in modern day economics. The worst! Nothing he is doing makes sense, only monies and exploitation to cronies.

I might add, the real estate values were recovering in Michigan before Snyder started his takeover of democratically elected government. Even Detroit was seeing increases in their real estate values.

By James Sunshine Posted: 08/03/2012 5:03 pm Updated: 08/03/2012 5:18 pm

...The arrangement allowed Macomb County (Michigan) to bundle up unwanted foreclosed homes (click here) with wanted foreclosed homes; McMachen is taking the unwanted property off the county's hands in exchange for paying all back taxes owed, an average of $7,500 per property, according to the Detroit Free Press.

"By packaging the good with the bad, it's in the center for somebody to come in and buy it all," Macomb County Treasurer Ted Wahby told Fox 2 in Detroit.

But some investors who wanted to bid for certain properties didn't like how the sale went down. One investor told the Fox affiliate that he was prepared to bid up to four times more on some properties than McMachen eventually paid. "I feel bad that it went that way," the investor said.

Too bad, argued Wahby. "People who are going to buy five or ten houses weren't buying them because they wanted to move in," Wahby told Fox. "They wanted to make money on them, and God bless them, I wish they could have, but that's not my mission. I have a job to do. I have to collect the taxes, and that's what we did."

There were 7,057 new foreclosures -- the majority bank foreclosures -- in Macomb County in June, or one in every 348 housing units, according to data from RealtyTrac....

And, oh, by the way. So, why not depress home values in Michigan if friends and cronies can cash in.

July 18, 2012

LANSING, MI - Michigan would spend the bulk of its $97 million share (click here) of a national settlement with banks to help homeowners hurt by the foreclosure crisis and reduce blight under legislation sent to Gov. Rick Snyder on Wednesday.

The bills, approved overwhelmingly by the House and Senate, would create the Homeowner Protection Fund.

Michigan was among 49 states to join the federal government in signing a $25 billion settlement this year with the country's five major mortgage lenders - which faced allegations of mishandling millions of foreclosures and loan modifications nationwide. It was the largest consumer financial protection settlement in U.S. history, according to the Justice Department, and involved Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Ally Financial....

The Soptic ad is accurate. The media is playing with semantics. This has been exactly the problem with the entire health care debate.

No one at the Super Pac is chuckling at the falsehoods, they are compelled by the truth.

To begin with, the woman discussed in the video is no simple, everyday woman, this is Mrs. Soptic. Mrs. Soptic was a beneficiary to her husband's insurance as well as her own while he was working in the steel industry.

The media loves to divide and conquer. They have sought to do that for decades to fight health care reform.

This is no different.

Mr. Soptic was well employed. At no point in time did he ever believe he would lose his job due to an industry outsourcing. He had been with the steel plant long enough to never have concerns about the future. He didn't quit from his job. He was fired when Bain Capital destroyed the steel plant's operation and raided its worth.

The footprint of 'job security' extends far past the demolition of it. The fact Mrs. Soptic died of late stage cancer speaks LOUDLY to the fact they could not afford preventive care. The Soptics neglected their optimum health because they didn't have the benefits or the income from Mr. Soptic's employment any longer. His job security was sold for profits.

Why is it the media and Republicans like to think the future of citizens are disposable to the whim of Wall Street? 

When this plant was closed the steel industry was no longer within the borders of the USA which threatened its national security. The steel the USA would need after the steel industry was destroyed and outsourced would have to come for Japan or Canada. Luckily, we didn't have the need we did entering WWII.

Mr. Soptic's ability to provide for his wife ended when he lost his job. His job security sold to the highest bidder. Then when she lost her employment and her health insurance; their health fell into peril. That is the truth and it matters. 

There are deaths happening everyday in the USA because of inadequate or no health insurance. This is another story about THAT TRUTH.

Mrs. Soptic died due to lack of health care, both her own and her husband's. Because that happened over five years makes it no less an assault against the American citizen and their condition.

Being this is a Super Pac Ad, the Obama campaign or White House staff cannot comment. They would implicate themselves in illegal behavior to comment on the activities of Super Pacs.

I suppose the White House Press was more interested in a "Gotcha moment," than the rules.

"It was a clown question, Bro."

The chart below comes from the CBO (Congressional Budget Office). This is what will happen to the National Debt when the Bush Tax Cuts expire.

This chart is percent of GDP as it exists today.

Report written by Reuters and cited by The Huffington Post. The chart was generated by the CBO. We are not in a hopeless scenario if the decisions regarding the elections of 2012 guaranteed the Bush Tax Cuts expire and the current cuts to military spending and domestic spending are maintained.

This chart is without the benefit of The Buffet Rule. It is based on the world as we know it today.

By David Lawder

WASHINGTON, June 5 (Reuters) - U.S. public debt would balloon (click title to entry - thank you) to twice the size of its economy in 25 years if current tax and spending policies are extended, Congress' budget referee said on Tuesday, delivering fresh fodder for a year-end budget brawl.

The Congressional Budget Office said in a new report that if tax cuts enacted under George W. Bush are allowed to expire as scheduled on Dec. 31, along with some other tax and spending policies, U.S. public debt would shrink significantly, falling to 53 percent of gross docmestic product by 2037 from 73 percent this year....

The outcome to the complaints from Delphi non-union employees may yet to be determined.

DELPHI HRLY-RATE EES PENSION PLAN (click here)

Date of Plan Termination	July 31, 2009
Date of PBGC Trusteeship	August 10, 2009

STATUS

Liability

4: PBGC has completed calculating pension benefits, subject to legal limits, owed to all participants and beneficiaries in the plan. We are now sending formal determinations of pension benefits to participants and beneficiaries.

The trusteeship started August 10, 2009. 

The PBGC has applied its rules to the outcome of those without unions and are sending letters to those people. It is now when they can file lawsuits to challenge those decisions. 

Non-union employees are on their own. They don't have anyone to mitigate for them. Their process will be ongoing and it will be a burden to the people involved, but, what do they expect? 

Unions only represent their members and not others. 

There are rules and standards GOVERNING this. It may be the non-union employees will receive less than they wanted, but, the short fall to the companies promise is due to the bankruptcy, not the government. If there were improprieties I am sure it will show up, but, to compare the outcome of non-employees to union members is comparing apples and oranges.

When PBGC takes over as statutory trustee of your plan, (click title to entry - thank you) we will send you a letter informing you that we are now responsible for paying your pension benefits.

PBGC reviews your plan's records to determine what benefits each person will receive.

We will continue paying you without interruption during our review. These payments, an estimate of the benefits that PBGC can pay under the insurance program, may be less than you were receiving from your plan but will be paid in the annuity form you chose at retirement....

...Please note that this may take two to three years from the date we take over as trustee of your plan....

September 25, 2012 (click title to entry -thank you)

If you can't vote for any reason, don't forget to file an Absentee Ballot.

Bain still practices Romney's Business Model. A business model destroying American jobs while seeking low tax levels.

TUESDAY, JUL 17, 2012 12:38 PM EDT

While Mitt Romney struggles (click title to entry - thank you) to explain his retroactive retirement from Bain Capital, the company he created keeps offshoring U.S. jobs.  Among them: the jobs of 170 workers in Freeport, Ill., now training the workers who will replace them when Sensata moves their jobs to China. SEC filings reveal that the U.S. share of Sensata’s workforce has been dropping ever since Bain acquired it in 2006.  And the Sensata workers aren’t Bain’s only recent casualties.

Some Sensata employees blame Romney for their impending layoffs. “He designed the business model for that company,” says production associate Tom Gaulrapp. “Venture capitalism, where they’re out for every last dollar, no matter what … that’s the attitude they still have.” (The Romney Campaign and Bain Capital did not answer inquiries from Salon.)...

The Petroleum Industry is disgusting.. More pollution, higher gas prices. It never stops.

The industry is a pain in the ass. There is no nice way of saying it. One calamity after another across the board. This time it's Chevron.

Why, in god's name, does the USA want to continue to achieve energy dependence on petroleum? Makes no sense. Even the USA military is seeking alternative fuels for their jets.

HOUSTON | Wed Aug 8, 2012 12:16am EDT

...Crude distillation unit No. 4 (CDU), (click title to entry - thank you) the only one of its kind at the refinery, begins the process of turning crude oil into motor fuel in the atmospheric tower. The CDU supplies feedstock to all other production units, which are now using feedstock made before the fire.

The refinery is the second biggest in California and the CDU is expected to be shut for up to three months for repairs, West Coast refined products traders said on Tuesday.

A similar fire earlier this year at BP Plc's Washington state refinery lifted gasoline prices by more than $1 a gallon....

I swear they do this intentionally. Mo' money.

The Fed was annoyed at sanctions with Iran? Really? So, basically, when it comes to banks and money damned USA Sanctions?

What else is new? Banks sincerely have no integrity. They covet monies no matter the nature and could not care less about the security of the global community. 

These are not just funds from or for Iran, these are the methods to insure Iran take its nuclear activities with brevity. I suppose understanding that paradigm of international law and consequence is beyond the ability of regulators and the Fed to comprehend. Destabilizing the Middle East and eroding international nonproliferation efforts just doesn't seem to be a 'money thing' I suppose. 

You know, the global economy and how it can't be touched for the recovery and everything. It would seem to those that are complaining, the sanctions should be able to wait until 'conditions in the market are perfect.' Not that nuclear proliferation and the real threat of a nuclear exchange would do anything to secure the global economy or anything like that. 

Hm? I wonder what Wall Street would look like after a few nuclear exchanges in the Middle East?

Geeze! The banks are pathetic.

...By going it alone through the order he issued on Monday, (click title to entry - thank you) Benjamin Lawsky, head of the recently created New York State Department of Financial Services, also complicates talks between the Treasury and London-based Standard Chartered to settle claims the transactions, several of the sources said.

Lawsky's stunning move, which included releasing embarrassing communications and details of the bank's alleged defiance of U.S. sanctions against Iran, is rewriting the playbook on how foreign banks settle cases involving the processing of shadowy funds tied to sanctioned countries. In the past, such cases have usually been settled through negotiation - with public shaming kept to a minimum....

...But, given the content of the order - which described Standard Chartered as a "rogue institution" that "schemed" with the Iranian government and hid from law enforcement officials some 60,000 secret transactions over nearly 10 years - the bank may need to come up with a strong defense....

...New York's attack on Standard Chartered's integrity, and a threat to revoke its state banking license, wiped $17 billion off the bank's market value on Tuesday....

Mr. Romney lies. He always lies. The 'story' about the changes to TANF (welfare) is no different.

July 12, 2012

Purpose: HHS is encouraging states to consider new, (click title to entry - thank you) more effective ways to meet the goals of TANF, particularly helping parents successfully prepare for, find, and retain employment.  Therefore, HHS is issuing this information memorandum to notify states of the Secretary’s willingness to exercise her waiver authority under section 1115 of the Social Security Act to allow states to test alternative and innovative strategies, policies, and procedures that are designed to improve employment outcomes for needy families....

The majority of recipients are women with dependent children. The percentage is about 78%. So this is about putting women back to work. Or, as in some recipients case, to work for the first time.

The changes to the program came from the Department of Health and Human Services. It was not an executive order, it was from Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

The REFORM to the USA Welfare Program known as TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families) is to expand the possibilities of finding work for these families. The recipients are Heads of Households. They have a lot of responsibility. Their options for finding work can be limited by many factors, but, in considering the current economic recovery, the place where they would normally find jobs may be contracted. So, to facilitate their ability to find jobs in a timely fashion, Secretary Sebelius opened options to the States.

If the States are finding their recipients are floundering, they can institute programs that will work for their best interest. In other words, training programs in Technical Schools with programs such as computers, nursing, automotive technologies and others can provide not just a job, but, a career. There is nothing wrong with a woman on welfare completing a training program and beginning a career as a nurse that would pay more than $45,000 per year to start. It would be an overwhelming success and would insure the future of her children.

So, Secretary Sebilius did not simply eliminate the job requirement of TANF, she improved it along with the chances the recipients will have a better opportunity when moving off the program entirely. 

The Romney attack on Secretary Sebilius is another attack on women and their families.

New study finds higher quake incidence with Hydaulic Fracturing.

06 Aug 2012 | 21:08 BST
Posted by Jeff Tollefson

...Cliff Frohlich, a seismologist at the University of Texas at Austin, used highly sensitive data from the seismic component of the National Science Foundation’s EarthScope initiative to investigate the impact of hydraulic fracturing operations tapping into the Barnett Shale. Operating across a 70-kilometre grid, Frohlich identified 67 tremors with magnitudes as small as 1.5 from November 2009 and September 2011, according to the study, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. All of the 24 earthquakes for which the epicentre could be reliably located were within 3.2 kilometres of at least one injection well....

I think there is a move to better cars. There might be some vacation debt, but, care sales are good.

WASHINGTON — U.S. consumers (click title to entry - thank you) likely took on more debt in June, even as they largely kept spending in check.

Economists forecast that consumer borrowing increased by $10.5 billion in June, according to a poll by FactSet. The Federal Reserve will release its report at 3 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday.

More borrowing is generally viewed as a healthy sign for the economy. It suggests consumers are gaining confidence and growing more comfortable taking on debt....

That doesn't reflect poor consumer confidence at all. Americans know enough to realize they are being gutted on energy costs. Fuel efficient vehicles are helping the American household to enjoy life in the face of a draconian petroleum industry.

July 31, 2012, 4:57 p.m. EDT

...In the second quarter of 2012, (click here) U.S. sales of clean diesel autos increased 22.3 percent in June over June 2011, increased 14.4 percent in May, and increased 28.2 percent in April.

During the first six months of 2012, U.S. hybrid car sales increased 63.5 percent and the overall automobile market increased 14.9 percent, according to the new sales information....

This is the 2013 Chevy Volt. Nice. Auto sales are stated to slump in July. There is a limit to the number of cars a family will purchase new each month. I do believe during the months of April, May and June the American public got the message they need to change up on fuel costs.

Chevy Volt Sales Rank in the Upper 15 Percent of Alternative Energy Cars (click here)

PUBLISHED AUGUST 6, 2012

BY JEFF COBB

...Actually, for the past three months straight the Volt has been a verifiable best-seller ranking at least 9th out of over 60 alternative energy cars sold, placing it in the upper 15 percent of all automakers' efforts in North America...

Eight months of record heat.

Nick Wiltgen Updated 11 mins ago weather.com 

From a winter with more tornadoes (click title to entry - thank you) than snowstorms to a summer full of triple-digit heat, 2012 has been marked by consistent, widespread, often extreme warmth.

In fact, every month so far this year has brought monthly record-high temperatures to various cities around the country. Senior Meteorologist Guy Walton adds, "There are now more daily record high reports (27,042) for 2012 than for all of 2011 (26,674), and it's only early August."

We take a look back at the "high"-lights of the record warmth we've seen these past eight months....

Two storms brewing in the Atlantic, Ernesto and Florence with a potential third tracking behind Florence.

August 7, 2012
1430.00z
UNISYS Water Vapor GOES East Satellite (click title for 12 hour loop - thank you)

Ernesto is the storm in the Caribbean. Its reach extends into the Pacific. It is a huge storm.

Ernesto Holding Steady with 65 mph Winds (click here)
Published: Aug. 6, 2012 at 11:38 PM

MIAMI, Aug. 6 (UPI) -- People on the Belize coast and the east coast of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula were warned to hunker down ahead of Tropical Storm Ernesto, U.S. forecasters said.
At 11 p.m. EDT Monday, Ernesto was about 265 miles east of Isla Roatan, Honduras, and about 365 miles east of Belize City. The storm, with sustained winds of 65 miles per hour and higher gusts, was moving to the west-northwest at 13 miles per hour....

Currently there are bands of Ernesto reaching nearly to the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida. Southern Florida will definitely receive high winds from this storm. Tides and rip currents are probably already building along the Gulf of Mexico. It will most likely follow the direct sun rays into Mexico, but, it will fuel again once it crosses the Yucatan Peninsula.

Storms Pop Up Over Central Florida (click here) 

Yep. This was yesterday evening, though. Ernesto is no joke.

Last Updated: Monday, August 06, 2012 @ 04:46PM

ORLANDO - Showers and thunderstorms pop up over Central Florida Monday afternoon as a good deal of moisture remains in the area.

Lots of moisture remains in the wake of a tropical wave, giving us a 60 percent chance of rain today. Highs will range from 88 at the beaches to 93 inland....

Ernesto could be on a trajectory for Southern Texas.

Florence is headed for South Carolina. There is a tropical depression of sorts off New Jersey - Delaware, it will prevent Florence from turning north at this point.

There is also two turbulent areas just north of the Florence path. They could consolidate and fuel Florence more. I mention that simply because that is very close to land and it would not allow much time for emergency considerations. It just needs to be watched and anticipated.

August 6, 2012

“Ernesto could become a hurricane tonight,” (click here) the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) warned at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on August 6, 2012. The storm was headed in the direction of the Yucatán Peninsula, traveling at roughly 12 miles (19 kilometers) per hour....