Friday, February 13, 2009

The air mass from the Arctic is rapidly descending on the USA West Coast. "Slamming" into the West Coast is more the word, actually.

One vortex leaves on the east coast and another arrives on the west. Okay.


February 13, 2009
1930z
UNISYS Visual Satellite (click on title to entry for 12 hour loop - thank you)



4 Hour Loop (Click here)



Big Storm Targets California (click title to entry - thank you)
Updated: Friday, February 13, 2009 2:42 PM
The storm that arrives on the West Coast Sunday will be one of the bigger ones in the series. This disturbance has potential to produce very heavy rain in California with flooding and mudslides possibly becoming a serious problem by Monday. In the mountains, snow will come down in earnest, piling up at 1 to 2 inches per hour. Total snow accumulations above 6,500 feet are likely to be in the 1- to 2-foot range.
In addition to the rain and snow, the coast and mountains can expect quite a bit of wind from this thing with gusts past 50 miles per hour possible.
This storm can also play a major role in the weather across the Central states and East next week.
Story by AccuWeather.com Expert Senior Meteorologist John Kocet.

Where are the fires? Victoria in the Southeast. Where are the floods? Queensland in the Northeast.

In one year, Climate Change due to Human Induced Global Warming has ravaged Australia. It took five years to reach the 'tipping point.'

Exceptional Australian Heat Wave (click here)
Posted February 5, 2009
For those who track their local temperatures using the Celsius scale, 40 degrees is a daunting number. In early February 2009, residents of southeastern Australia were cringing at their weather forecasts, as predictions of temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) meant that a blistering heat wave was continuing.
This map of Australia shows how the land surface temperature from January 25 to February 1
(2009) compared to the average mid-summer temperatures the continent experienced between 2000-2008.



The painful truth (click title to entry - thank you)
February 14, 2009

Tony Thompson kicked back, sipping a beer. It was last Saturday and he was oblivious to the convoy hurtling past his front gate as dozens of terrified families fled a satanic inferno that was set to reduce the pretty, high-country town of Marysville to an ashen graveyard with a postcode. He knew a bit about the Victorian bush. Ten years previously, Thompson had survived a fire in the Dandenongs.
Now, he assured the Canadians who had hired a tourist cottage on his 25-hectare farm that the smoke seeping into the valley from the west was a long way off. "Not a problem," he comforted the four tourists who just days earlier had retreated south, to escape the other extreme of the Australian bush - the Queensland floods. "That fire's not coming this way."
Minutes later Thompson's mobile phone rang. The caller was an insistent friend, telling him that if he was going to get out, he needed to go now.
"I said: 'No. I've got three blokes here. We can handle it.' "
With that feisty declaration, Thompson rolled the dice for his effort in what was to become Australia's greatest bushfire disaster - the horrific infernos of last weekend, a new milestone in national grieving in which no iteration of statistics quite conveys the enormity of the tragedy or the combustible fusion of nature's excess with man's shortcomings.
The death toll still stands at 181 - but with seven victims in intensive care and the search for bodies continuing slowly, it will rise....



Northern NSW prepares for floods (click here)
February 14, 2009 - 1:23PM
A record 200mm of rain has fallen in Bourke as the top end of NSW prepares for floods.
The weather bureau has issued a flood watch and a severe weather warning for the area, just days after flooding claimed lives and forced dozens of evacuations in Queensland.
Heavy falls are expected to continue over the central north of NSW on Saturday, followed by a deluge over the mid-north coast.
Bourke experienced the brunt of the storm conditions on Friday night with more than 200mm falling, causing flash flooding in the district, a State Emergency Service spokeswoman said.
But half of the calls made to the emergency service were from people in Sydney's metropolitan area, she said.
"We've had approximately 40 requests for assistance across the state," the spokeswoman told AAP.
"Approximately 20 of those came from the Sydney metropolitan area - they were related to trees down."
There were no injuries reported and no threats to property, but the worst is still to come, she said.
Heavy rain was expected to hit towns such as Walgett, while further south, Tamworth and Inverell could also be affected, the manager of the Bureau of Meteorology's Flood Warning Centre Gordon McKay said.
Heavy rain was also expected on Saturday and Sunday on the mid-north and north coasts, with the area between Coffs Harbour and Kempsey likely to see falls of 150-200mm.
"We expect over the weekend a low pressure cell to develop off the coast of northern NSW, and that's likely to lead to very heavy rainfalls," Mr McKay said.
AAP

They did it!! YES ! They lived up to their promise. There was a reason why the Democrats held the majority and elected a President.

J.P. Morgan Chase out ranked every bank that found itself in mergers. It is the intact sole survivor of the market collapse. (click here)

Goldman Saks, besides indulging in the 'bailout' funds, took $5 billion from Warren Buffet in order to keep afloat. (click here)


President Barack Obama meets JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon, second right, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Friday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. are expanding their efforts to halt home foreclosures while the Obama administration develops its plans to help the U.S. housing market.


Obama to outline plan to stem home foreclosures (click here)
By ALAN ZIBELAP REAL ESTATE WRITER
WASHINGTON -- The biggest players in the mortgage industry are halting home foreclosures while the Obama administration develops its plan to help struggling homeowners.
The White House said President Barack Obama on Wednesday will outline his much-anticipated plan to spend at least $50 billion to prevent foreclosures in a speech in Arizona, one of the states hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis.

JPMorgan, Banks to Halt Foreclosures for Three Weeks (Update2) (click here)
By Margaret Chadbourn
Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) --
Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo & Co. agreed to suspend foreclosures while the Obama administration crafts a housing plan to modify mortgages for troubled borrowers....

Washington sees nation's largest drop in sales (click here)
By AUBREY COHENP-I REPORTER
Sales of existing homes fell further in Washington than in any other state in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to a report Thursday.

The state had 76,800 sales of existing houses and condominiums in the quarter, down 35.6 percent from a year earlier and a seasonally adjusted 10.7 percent from the third quarter, according to the National Association of Realtors. The quarterly change was good for 37th place among states and Washington, D.C....

(the stimulus plan)...That includes more than fifty billion dollars in aid to states. And it includes money for roads and bridge projects as well as investments in health care, education and energy. The plan also calls for expanded aid for people without jobs or health insurance....


This is an interesting mix. Tax relief puts added spending into the hands of the consumer over time, appropriations carry an interest in the future and direct spending adds relief today. $276 billion directly into the heart of the nation will create jobs and the appropriations will sustain it. Nice job. Congratulations to the House of Representatives.



House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., second from left, shares a laugh with, from left, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., and Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday after the House passed of the stimulus legislation.

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (click here)
Making supplemental appropriations for job preservation and creation, infrastructure investment, energy efficiency and science, assistance to the unemployed, and State and local fiscal stabilization, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2009, and for other purposes....

OpenCongress Summary:This is the economic stimulus package making its way through the House of Representatives and the Senate. The final version, as agreed to by the conference committee, is estimated to cost $787 billion over the 2009-2019 period....


Subtitle B--Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board (click here)
SEC. 1521. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE RECOVERY ACCOUNTABILITY AND TRANSPARENCY BOARD.
There is established the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board to coordinate and conduct oversight of covered funds to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse....

Let the world take notice. Pakistan is a terrorist haven. Limit arm sales within that country until this is under control.

It's Danny Peral all over again. Haven't seen this maneuver in awhile. I don't know whether its because there is a new openness with Barak taking office or simply the terrorists within Pakistan feeling the heat.

These organizations are ALWAYS "a hitherto unknown" bunch of thugs. Always. Pakistan can't bring their terrorists under control? Why?

Balochistan group says it kidnapped Solecki (click here)
By Saleem Shahid
QUETTA, Feb 7: A hitherto unknown organisation, Baloch Liberation United Front (BLUF), on Saturday claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of John Solecki, the head of the UN refugee agency in
Quetta.
Mr Solecki, an American citizen, was kidnapped and his driver was shot dead after his vehicle was ambushed on Monday....

This is an image from mobile phone footage released by Online Photos Friday, purportedly showing John Solecki, a seized American U.N. worker. The kidnappers have threatened to kill Solecki within 72 hours unless more than 100 prisoners are released. The threat was contained in a letter delivered with a grainy video of the hostage to a Pakistani news agency on Friday. Solecki appears blindfolded in the short clip and appeals to the world body to act quickly to secure his release.

There is a series of pictures in the gallery at the Seattle Post Intelligencer (click here).