That's A Sound I Like

Ok I will accept the charge of speciesism when it comes to mosquitoes. In this case we can thank the arachnids for effectively doing what pesticides can't. And I am partial to spiders after all.

A real monster spider’s web has been found in Lake Tawakoni State Park in Texas, USA. Apparently the web, stretching 180 metres, is the result of millions of spiders working together, to the mystification of park rangers.

The web is proving effective in controlling the mosquito population. Donna Garde, park superintendent, said that “There are times you can literally hear the screech of millions of mosquitoes caught in those webs.”

Though scientists are yet to explain why, or which species, the spiders built this.

RICHARD MICHAEL PRUITT/DMN

Donna Garde, park manager at Lake Tawakoni State Park, sees tens of thousands of mosquito carcasses weighing down the webs.

Entomologist Professor John Jackman of A&M University said that similar webs were reported every couple of years. They are either created by social cobweb spiders working together, or by spiders spreading out from a central point. He commented that “until we get some samples sent to us, we really won’t know what species of spider we’re talking about”.

There is much debate amongst experts over the reasons for the web's construction, with some believing it was created by social spiders living as a colony, and others suggesting it is possibly a system of mass dispersal, with the spiders building webs in order to spread out. There is also uncertainty over the species of spider responsible, although it is known that smaller webs of an otherwise similar nature have been discovered elsewhere in the park, on another trail. It is thought that the species is likely a member of the genus Tetragnatha.

John Jackman, a professor and extension entomologist for Texas A&M University and author of "A Field Guide to the Spiders and Scorpions of Texas," said that the phenomenon is not particularly unusual and that reports are submitted to him every few years detailing similar webs. "There are a lot of folks that don't realize spiders do that," Jackman said. "Until we get some samples sent to us, we really won't know what species of spider we're talking about."

However, other experts disagree over the unusual nature of the discovery. "From what I'm hearing, it could be a once-in-a-lifetime event," said Herbert "Joe" Pase, a Texas Forest Service entomologist. "It's very, very unusual."

Norman Horner, an emeritus biology professor at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, has been studying spiders in Texas since 1965 and he says he's never seen anything like this. In 2002, there were reports of a massive spider web in northern British Columbia. And there have been anecdotal reports in other locations over the years.

"Social spiders," the rare exception, typically only form colonies in tropical areas across the southern hemisphere, said Dr. Horner, but they have been spotted in South Texas. After seeing pictures and learning that the webs would have been weaved in only a few weeks, Mr. Quinn decided this was probably not the work of social spiders.

Another theory is that the spiders secreted silk that lifted them into the air and landed them at this location. Dr. Horner, who has not visited the site, guessed these spiders dispersed together and landed on a windy day.

Multiple species of spiders helped weave the gargantuan spider web at Lake Tawakoni State Park, a Texas Parks and Wildlife biologist determined Friday.

But the highly unusual discovery of both frontal web and long-jawed spiders together raises more questions about just how the eye-catching phenomenon occurred, said Mike Quinn, the parks department biologist. He plans to send web and spider samples to Texas A&M University for definitive identification. The web spans an area estimated at 200 square yards. Once snowy white, the web has turned brown from the masses of mosquitoes and other bugs trapped in it.

Based on his preliminary evaluation, Mr. Quinn believes that it could only have resulted from what scientists call a “dispersal event.” Essentially, that means that baby spiders drifting in the wind all ended up in the same place somehow, for some reason.

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Postcard From Syria

From a travel article about Syria comes this striking example of culture clash.

There are some peculiarities to get used to when travelling in an Arab nation. We giggle watching Arab TV chat shows, where a burqa-clad host interviews a burqa-clad guest, testing TV's role as a visual medium.

In public, men vastly outnumber women, yet some girls wear tight jeans, sprout piercings and wear close-fitting Western tops, which no one seems to mind. G-strings and flimsy underwear are sold alongside scarves and burqas in the market. In restaurants, a menu is offered to my wife without prices. Despite the widespread poverty, there is no shortage of German luxury limousines zipping along the potholed streets.

On the Al Jazeera TV network, we see US President Bush and then British prime minister Tony Blair talking about tackling the isolationism of Syria. We feel like sending them a postcard from Damascus.

And speaking of Burqa's and G-Strings it is a hot topic in secularist Muslim Turkey as well.

Debate on g-strings takes the Islamic community by storm Hürriyet

A very lively debate among religious columnists continues around the topic of the religious legitimacy of covered women wearing g-strings, reported the daily Hürriyet yesterday. Discussions about the religious compatibility of burka and g-strings are getting lots of attention from Islamic columnists. İlhami Atmaca, a columnist at Renkli magazine, was the initiator of the argument, by dedicating a whole piece to the topic, first explaining about the sexual motivation a g-string can give to a woman, then connecting this to covered women. Atmaca who defines the g-string as a “demoralization tool” drew strong reaction from female columnists with his controversial article. Halime Kökçe, editor in chief of Gerçek Hayat magazine – and also a columnist – wrote, “Information concerning the choice of undergarment of covered women is of extreme privacy and it is not possible for a truly pious man to get hold of such knowledge.” Another reaction came from Nigar Tuğsuz, a writer in the same magazine with Atmaca, who said, “Invading privacy neither makes you famous nor makes your readers more moral.” On another side of the debate Professor Saim Yeprem, ministry of religious affairs high commission committee member, former President of the Ministry of Religious Affairs Mehmet Nuri Yılmaz and researcher and journalist İsmail Nacar all agree that such matters should not be cared about, as what is inside a woman's burka is private in Islam and the real sin is the curiosity that concerns the issue.

Though I am sure the Koran never mentioned G-Strings.

Sura 24:31 in the Quran is the key to this entire debate. Shakir's translation of this sura goes as follows: "And say to the believing women that they cast down their looks and guard their private parts and do not display their ornaments except what appears thereof, and let them wear their head-coverings over their bosoms, and not display their ornaments except to their husbands or their fathers... and let them not strike their feet so that what they hide of their ornaments may be known; and turn to Allah all of you, O believers! So that you may be successful."

This is the crux of the matter and reading this translation, its pretty clear that veiling is compulsory and the woman is not to show herself except to her husband or close relatives.

I bet these would be popular in the Damascus market.


SEE

National Pest Gets It Wrong

Hajibs and Habits

Spot The Contradiction

Breaking Out Of The Cultural Burka

Catholic Hajib

Watch How You Dress

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Religion, babuskhka,Headscarves, Veils, Hajib, Patriarchy, Women, Muslim, Islam,

Parliamentary Collapse

As predicted last spring Harper is proroguing parliament. Harper delays Parliament's return until Oct. 16

Folks are speculating that Harper recalled Parliament late because he is planning to force a confidence vote. Canada PM set for confidence vote

I think it was because they were waiting for the Parliament buildings to get repaired, or collapse. Parliament Buildings 'in danger of collapse'

Since they won't be repaired by then their imminent collapse is expected, much like the Harper government.

And in the process of all this politicking, maybe we'll learn what this word "prorogue" means, anyway.

In fact, however, the word is derived from the Old French "proroguer," the Middle English "prorogen" (and Latin before that). To prorogue can mean "to defer" as well as "to adjourn." In Canada, a prorogation has come to indicate the period between two sessions of a legislative body. In effect, the parliament is in recess until the Governor General opens a new session on behalf of the reigning monarch and reads the Speech from the Throne.

The word has been prominent in history, although not always in stories whose endings our prime minister would particularly like.

in the early years of his reign, King Charles I of England issued prorogation orders in his battle with a Parliament reluctant to grant his demands for new revenue. At one point, he advised them to "Remember that parliaments are altogether in my power for their calling, sitting, and dissolution; therefore as I find the fruits of them good or evil, they are to continue or not to be."

Sounds like King Stephen.

Of course if he does prorogue parliament he can blame the opposition for not passing his law and order bills which he has delayed implementing.

Proroguing would kill most bills currently before Parliament - including key government legislation on the environment and crime-unless opposition parties agreed to bring them back at the stage they were at.

And it will kill the green albatross around his neck, the controversial Environmental legislation that was redrafted by the opposition.

Perhaps the most important bill at stake is C-30, government environmental legislation that was substantially reworked by the opposition parties.

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Sub Prime Exploitation

Subprime mortgages impact disproportionately on the working class in particular the ethnic working class in the United State. Foreclosures will result in increased homelessness in the U.S. Even those who could afford better loans were subject to denial of access to better loan rates due to systemic racism.

This is what class war looks like under modern casino capitalism. It is the Enron moment for the mortgage industry.

The White House announcement of a Mortgage forgiveness program, after the Fed bailed out the financial markets, is too little too late.

Latinos and African-Americans who bought homes or refinanced mortgages in the San Jose metropolitan area last year were much more likely than white borrowers to get subprime loans, according to a study scheduled for release today.

In its annual survey based on federally collected data, this year titled "Foreclosure Exposure," community activism group ACORN said 47 percent of Latinos who got mortgages to buy homes in Santa Clara and San Benito counties in 2006 received "high cost" loans that the group considers to be synonymous with "subprime." Nearly 32 percent of African-American borrowers buying homes got high-cost loans, while only 8.5 percent of white borrowers did.

The trend is the same for those who refinanced loans - Latinos and African-Americans got subprime loans 23.5 percent and 22.8 percent of the time, respectively, compared with 9.4 percent among white borrowers.

"The racial disparity persists even among borrowers of the same income level," the report's authors wrote. Upper-income Latinos and African-Americans were more than five times as likely to get high-cost loans than upper-income whites, the study said. Upper-income borrowers were those with income of at least 120 percent of their area's median income.

Vallejo is the Bay Area's version of ground zero for the subprime loan crisis.

A significant number of residents of the largely blue-collar city of 120,000 have taken out subprime loans -- expensive mortgages issued to people with poor credit.

In 2005, almost one-quarter of mortgages in the Vallejo-Fairfield metropolitan area were subprime loans, according to the Center for Responsible Lending's analysis of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data.

Vallejo home prices fell 8.5 percent from November to March, according to DataQuick Information Services. For people who bought in recent months without putting any money down, that means they may owe more on their mortgage than the house is worth.

In a report called "Losing Ground," the center spotlights the Vallejo-Fairfield metropolitan area (which comprises all of Solano County) as a potential trouble spot, with one of the highest projected foreclosure rates in the country. The report predicted "that 23.8 percent of subprimes there will end in foreclosure," said Paul Leonard, director of the center's office in Oakland.

Areas with high foreclosure rates tend to share some characteristics. One is sinking home prices. Many "tend to be on the perimeter of major metropolitan areas rather than at the heart," said Leonard. "The housing prices in those areas are most subject to change. Often they tend to have a high concentration of minorities."

The people seeking help have almost identical stories, Hardy said. They bought homes using subprime loans. After a low initial rate, their monthly payments skyrocketed. Meanwhile, home prices in their neighborhoods went down, so they cannot easily sell or refinance. The result is that the homeowners owe more on their homes than the houses are worth.

Hardy said her clients tend to be blue-collar workers who earn close to the median income for Solano County, which is $75,400 for a family of four. Some of them used what are called stated-income loans, meaning a loan officer allowed them to claim that their earnings were higher than they are.

They bought homes about two years ago, using a type of mortgage loan in which they made low, interest-only payments for two years, followed by 28 years of adjustable-rate payments. Usually they did not make down payments. Once the initial two years were up, their monthly mortgage payments shot up.

"Nobody sat down with them and said if your interest rate goes up just 2 percent, here's what your house payments will be," she said. "These people all of a sudden are getting notices that in 60 days their house payments will go up $600 or $800 a month, and they say 'I can't do that.' "

"Until six months ago, we could almost always save the person's investment, either by helping them to refinance or explaining that they needed to sell and get their equity out before foreclosure," said Martin Eichner, director of dispute resolution at Project Sentinel, a nonprofit HUD counseling agency in Sunnyvale.

"But more and more, the calls we're getting are from people who bought on a shoestring and have few, if any, options to avoid the foreclosure. They haven't built up any equity and they put themselves in loans that were essentially doomed to fail with 100 percent financing and/or negative amortization."

But a series of interviews with subprime borrowers, mortgage lenders, appraisers, current and former regulators, and the inspector general of the Department of Housing and Urban Development paints a different picture — of a widespread pattern of questionable lending practices and outright fraud that has already sparked a wave of criminal and civil actions against various players in the $10 trillion market for residential mortgages.

Questionable mortgage practices can take on many forms, but the fall into two broad categories:

• Predatory lending. In this case, complex mortgage terms and interest rate risks were not fully explained as required by federal law. The borrower is usually the victim.
• Mortgage fraud. In these cases, often carried out by sophisticated swindlers, the lender is typically the victim.

As the housing market boomed in the early part of this decade, lenders proliferated with deals that often seemed too good to be true. To be sure, some borrowers - eager to "cash out" their rising home equity generated by the housing boom - were too quick to refinance at below-market interest rates and artificially low monthly payments.

SEE:

Canadian Banks and The Great Depression

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Canadian Banks and The Great Depression

I found this informative post at Market Oracle which made reference to a little known fact about how Banks in Canada and the U.S. faired differently during the great depression.

The comments from Market Oracle about Americas current Housing Bubble crash, once again remind us that American Exceptionalism includes massive market failures due to speculation.

Greed is as American as apple pie.

A Letter from a former Banking President Discussing the Housing Bubble

an article that came out in the Saturday Evening Post in November of 1932 from a former bank president in New York, three years after the crash, highlighting the economic situation of a post bubble world.

“This is a shameful and humiliating exhibition. It is uniquely bad. Across the border in Canada, there was not a single bank failure during our period of depression, and one must go back to 1923 to find even a small one. Nowhere else in the world at any time, were it a time of war, or of famine, or of disaster, has any other people recorded so many bank failures in a similar period as did we. We were not experiencing a war, a famine or any other natural disaster. All the economic tribulations we have undergone in the past three years have been man-made troubles, and Nature has continued to shower us with an easy abundance – more, indeed, than we have known how to distribute with economic wisdom.”

Of course the banks in Canada foreclosed on Western Farmers, during the depression and used the land bank to shore up their wealth. Until the creation of Canada's National Bank the commercial banks issued dollars and currency from which they made their profit. Canadians were big savers after WWI but without deposit insurance found their savings wiped out during the depression.

According to the Department of Finance, two small regional banks failed in the mid-1980s, the only such failures since 1923, which is the year Home Bank failed. There were no bank failures during the Great Depression.

The Canadian recovery from the Great Depression proceeded slowly. Economists Pedro Amaral and James MacGee find that the Canadian recovery has important differences with the United States In the U.S. productivity recovered quickly while the labor force remained depressed throughout the decade. In Canada employment quickly recovered but productivity remained well below trend. Amaral and MacGee suggest that this decline is due to the sustained reduction in international trade during the 30's.

It took the outbreak of World War II to pull Canada out of the depression. From 1939, an increased demand in Europe for materials, and increased spending by the Canadian government created a strong boost for the economy. Unemployed men enlisted in the military. By 1939, Canada was in the first prosperity period in the business cycle in a decade.

The Depression also led governments to be more present in the economy. It brought about the creation in 1934 of the Bank of Canada, a central bank to manage the money supply and bring stability to the country’s financial system.

Hard to imagine now, but not too long ago paper money in Canada was issued by commercial banks. That was before 1934, when the Bank of Canada Act established a central bank with the sole right to issue paper money. It was just one of the many roles the Bank of Canada would take on.

Creating a central bank was one of the first major things Canada did on its own after becoming more independent of Great Britain in 1931 (with the Statute of Westminster). But the Bank of Canada was not established just to assert our independence. Instead, Prime Minister R.B. Bennett was frustrated that there was no way for Canada to settle international accounts with England. A central bank could do that.

The time was ripe to set up a central bank. During the Great Depression, Canadians had criticized and mistrusted the commercial banking system. They had doubts about the efficiency of Canada’s financial structure. Pressure also came from outside our borders to create a central bank to help settle international accounts. There was no independent agency issuing notes or managing government banking.

The creation of the Bank of Canada was the result of protests against the banks by Western farmers in particular those from Alberta! Like the Wheat Board farmers demanded and got a Central Bank.

At the same time that the Canadian
government was doing nothing on the monetary
front, the chartered banks were repaying their
borrowings from the government under the
Finance Act.63 The resulting monetary contraction
exacerbated the economic downturn. The banks
became increasingly cautious about their own
lending activities as the economic environment
deteriorated. Banks may have also repaid their
borrowings under the Finance Act in response to
earlier criticism for having borrowed so extensively
prior to the stock market crash (Fullerton 1986, 36).
While the extent of the economic downturn
in Canada was undoubtedly made worse by
these monetary developments, the monetary
contraction helped to strengthen the Canadian
dollar, which reached US$0.90 by the spring
of 1932.

The government finally reduced the
Advance Rate to 3 per cent in October 1931 and
to 2.5 per cent in May 1933. (See Chart C2 in
Appendix C.)64 In the autumn of 1932, it also used
moral suasion to force the banks to borrow under
the Finance Act and reflate the economy
(Bryce 1986, 132). This easing in monetary policy
led to some temporary weakness in the Canadian
dollar, which briefly fell as low as US$0.80. The
weakness was short-lived, however.

Following the U.S. decision to prohibit the export of
gold in April 1933 and similar efforts in the United
States to reflate, the Canadian dollar began
to strengthen.65 The Canadian government’s
decision in 1934 to expand the amount of Dominion
notes in circulation by reducing their gold backing
to 25 per cent did not have much impact on the
Canadian dollar.

In the economic circumstances of the time,
and given similar developments in the
United States, this move was viewed as appropriate
and elicited little market reaction (Bryce 1986, 143).
The Canadian dollar returned to rough parity
with its U.S. counterpart by 1934 (Chart 3) and, at
times, even traded at a small premium. With the
U.S. dollar depreciating against gold and the pound
sterling, the Canadian dollar returned to its old
parity with sterling.

Not surprisingly, as the 1930s progressed
with little sign that the Depression was ending,
pressure began to mount on the government to do
something. In addition to concerns about the
adequacy of the Finance Act, there was also
widespread public distrust of the banking system,
largely because of the high cost and low availability
of credit.

Farmers, especially those in western
Canada, who were suffering from a sharp fall in
both crop yields and prices, were particularly
critical of banks and consequently very supportive
of the formation of a central bank. They hoped
that a central bank would be a source of steady and
cheap credit.

With effective nominal interest rates on farm loans in
excess of 7 per cent, real interest rates were very high
—about 17 per cent in 1931 and 1932, owing to
sharply declining consumer prices.

In July 1933, the government set up a
commission with a mandate to study the
functioning of the Finance Act and to make
“a careful consideration of the advisability
of establishing in Canada a Central Banking
Institution . . . .” (Macmillan Report 1933, 5).66
Lord Macmillan, a famous British jurist and known
supporter of a central bank, was chosen by Prime
Minister Bennett to chair the commission.
The other members were Sir Charles Addis, a
for mer director of the Bank of England;
Sir William T. White, the former wartime Canadian
Finance Minister and banker; John Brownlee,
Premier of Alberta; and Beaudry Leman, a
Montréal banker.

Public hearings began on 8 August 1933,
and the final report was presented to the government
less than seven weeks later on 28 September. While
the commission voted only narrowly in favour of
the establishment of a central bank, its conclusion
was never really in doubt. The two British
members of the committee, joined by Brownlee,
voted in favour of a central bank, a position
supported by both the Conservative government
and the Liberal opposition.

When we look back at the monetarist policies put in place during the Depression and those in effect today one gets a disturbing sense of Deja Vu.


SEE:

Social Credit And Western Canadian Radicalism

Historical Memory on the Eve of the Election

Calgary Herald Remembers RB Bennet

Origins of the Capitalist State In Canada

Rebel Yell

A History of Canadian Wealth, 1914.

Radical Capitalists Not So Radical

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Blaming Others

The reason for the failures in Iraq are not George Bush's fault they are the fault of others.

Just whose brilliant idea was it to disband the Iraqi army? The former U.S. boss of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, says President Bush knew about and supported his plans to dissolve Saddam's military, according to letters he released to the New York Times yesterday.

Annoyed that Bush was quoted in a recent book as suggesting that he had gone a bit Rambo out in the desert, Bremer disclosed his spring 2003 correspondence with the president.

The impetus for Bremer's action was Bush's interview with Robert Draper, author of the new book "Dead Certain," in which the president sounded as if he had been taken aback by the decision.

"The policy had been to keep the army intact; didn't happen," Bush told Draper. When Draper asked how he had reacted when the policy changed, Bush replied, "Yeah, I can't remember. I'm sure I said, 'This is the policy, what happened?'"

Rumsfeld also serves as a major, if absent, character in today's sweeping USA Today investigation tracking the Defense Department's slowness to equip the troops in Iraq with protective gear like body armor and devices to jam signals from detonators.

Even as the president and Pentagon officials claimed they were doing all they could to get these items for the soldiers, the paper digs up documents suggesting that "the military cut or underfunded several programs and moved so slowly and grudgingly that members of Congress" had to step in with "extraordinary measures."

Interviewed officials complained of a refusal among top military brass at the beginning of the war to believe that the fighting would be anything but brief. Once things started to get bogged down, there was a "peacetime mentality" guiding acquisition of "up-armored vehicles," the paper reports.

In one particularly striking example, Pentagon officials "balked at pleas from battlefield commanders and their own analysts to provide the lifesaving MRAP, or Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle, for patrols and combat missions." Only after Rummy left and Robert Gates took over did the Pentagon embrace the MRAP.

Draper's account of the bulk of Bush's presidency sheds light on a loyal and secretive inner circle that, at least privately, was not always on the same page. Draper tells of an April 2006 dinner at which Bush asked aides for a show of hands on whether his divisive defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, should be fired.

The vote: 7-4 to get rid of him, with Bush siding with those who wanted him kept on for the time being. Rumsfeld was replaced after the elections that fall switched control of the House and Senate to Democrats.

White House aides who wanted Rumsfeld out were privately dismayed when retired generals called publicly for his ouster, fearing that would steel Bush's resolve to keep his defence chief, the book says.

Bush, without addressing that meeting, suggested to the author that the ex-generals did get under his skin. "My reaction was, 'No military guy is gonna tell a civilian how to react,"' he said.

Just like his failure to deal with Hurricane Katrina.

The latest book published about George W Bush reveals that the US president was not fully engaged in key policy areas, including the disbandment of the Iraqi army and the build-up to Hurricane Katrina.

At a briefing at his Crawford ranch the day before the hurricane made landfall, Mr Bush was "gassed" after an 80-minute bike ride and asked no supplementary questions following a briefing from advisers. He merely assured them the federal government was prepared to help.

SEE:

Daddy's Boy

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Daddy's Boy

So come January 2009 what will Ex-President Bush be thinking about? His failed war in Iraq? His failed war on Terrorism? All the homes not built in New Orleans? Crumbling American infrastructure? Nope. True to form he will be thinking of how he can make a buck off being an Ex-Pres. Just like Daddy does. And of course he has to keep up with the Clinton's.

After he leaves office, President Bush is quoted as telling Draper that he wants to build what he calls a "Fantastic Freedom Institute" in Dallas. He describes it as being a place where young leaders can come, write and lecture.

But first, Bush tells Draper, he wants to make some money to "replenish the ol' coffers,” noting he can make "ridiculous” money on the lecture circuit.

“I don't know what my dad gets. But it's more than 50, 75 [thousand] … Clinton's making a lot of money," the president is quoted as saying.

Given his failed presidency the only place that would welcome him on the lecture circuit is Albania.

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Double Trouble

Two Hurricanes have hit Mexico and Nicaragua , but don't expect the folks at CNN and Fox who do their Wild Weather/Wicked Weather reports to make much about this since all they care about is their gulf coast. There will be no wall to wall coverage, just updates.

Oh yes and remember last year when the hurricane season was milder and all the climate change deniers rejoiced at how wrong predictions were for a nasty hurricane season. Well this year it is a nasty hurricane season as predicted due to climate change. However since they have not hit the U.S. corporate America could care less.

The U.S. still has not paid up its funding obligations to Nicaragua after Hurricane Mitch.

Hurricanes swept ashore in Nicaragua and Mexico within hours of each other Tuesday, the first time Atlantic and Pacific hurricanes have made landfall on the same day since the National Hurricane Center began keeping records in the 1940s.

Felix arrived first, punishing sparsely populated northern Nicaragua with 160 mph winds before dawn, then plowing inland across Honduras, threatening floods and mudslides in a region still recovering from Hurricane Mitch, which killed nearly 11,000 people in 1998.

More than 1,900 miles away, Henriette swelled to hurricane strength Tuesday afternoon and roared onto the southern tip of Mexico's Baja Peninsula, an area thick with some of Latin America's swankiest hotels and vacation homes.

Tuesday was historic for two reasons: It was the first time on record that two Category 5 Atlantic hurricanes made landfall in the same year, with Felix coming two weeks after Hurricane Dean slammed into southern Mexico.

And Atlantic and Pacific hurricanes had never made landfall on the same date, according to records that began in 1949.

A NOAA map on Tuesday shows hurricanes Henriette, left center, and Felix. There were no reports of serious damage from Henriette, but Felix cut a swath of destruction as it headed into Honduras.

This storm will now be true test of the Harpers Development Agenda with his new found interest in Latin America and the Caribbean. Lets see how quick he responds to this disaster.

As they say there is always a silver lining in every storm cloud this case Alvaro Orozco who has gone into hiding, may not be deported to Nicaragua since his home may not be there anymore. Wishful thinking.




SEE:

Hurricane and Howard Dean

Mother Prevails

Remember Katrina and Rita?

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Shark Bait

More stupid human speciesism.

Since all sharks look the same.

Lucky for the shark there was a 'Life' guard at the beach to save his life.

These are Michael Coren's kind of folks, beating up on a poor shark.

When a Coney Island lifeguard spied a shark near an upset group of swimmers, he did what he thought was right: He rescued the fish

Marisu Mironescu, 39, said he was prompted to action Monday after seeing about 75 to 100 people circling the 60-centimetre sand shark off the beach and "bugging out."

"They were holding onto it and some people were actually hitting him, smacking his face," said Mironescu. "Well, I wasn't going to let them hurt the poor thing."

He grabbed the largely harmless shark in his arms and carried it, backstroking out to sea, where he let it go. "He was making believe like he's dead, then he wriggled his whole body and tried to bite me," Mironescu said.

The rescue ended a holiday weekend that began with another city shark scare Saturday, when a 1.5-metre thresher shark washed up on Rockaway Beach, sending hundreds of swimmers out of the water.

And size does matter. Five feet is a lot bigger than 3.5 feet.

At least these New Yorkers did do the 'right thing'. Since sharks are an endangered species thanks to stupid humans.

A five-foot-long thresher shark that washed up on a crowded city beach this weekend — and was pushed back into the sea by beachgoers — is dead.

Rockaway Beach was back open Sunday, a day after a shark sighting shut it down.

Park officials say a shark washed up on the shore Saturday near Beach 109th Street. Some New Yorkers approached the creature and pushed it back into the water.

The Parks Department ordered swimmers back on the shore and closed the beach and surrounding bay for the rest of the day.

Sunday morning, a dead thresher shark, five feet in length, washed up on the shore at Beach 113th Street. Parks officials say they believe it was the same shark as Saturday.

An expert from the New York Aquarium told the New York Post that thresher sharks don't attack nearly as often as the famous Great White, although swimmers have been injured by their tails.

Thresher Shark

The genus and family name derive from the Greek word alopex, meaning fox. Indeed the long-tailed thresher shark, Alopias vulpinus, is named the fox shark by some authorities.

All three thresher shark species have been recently listed as vulnerable to extinction by the World Conservation Union (IUCN).

Sand Shark

The sand tiger (Carcharias taurus) is a coastal shark often encountered by shore fishermen while fishing for striped bass and bluefish. Please note that this species is protected by both State and Federal laws .

Sand tigers have two dorsal fins of equal size and are grayish brown in appearance, often with dusky spots on their sides and tail. They are most often confused with smooth dogfish (Mustelus canis), but sand tigers have very noticeable long thin teeth while smooth dogfish do not. The spiny dogfish (Squalus acanthias) is another small coastal shark, but can easily be distinguished from a sand tiger by its two dorsal fin spines and the lack of anal fin. If you accidentally catch a sand tiger,you should take care to return it to the water unharmed.

SEE:

Prison Zoo Complex

They Walk Among Us

Nessies Relative

Nessie?

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Senator Craig Lies, Again

I am resigning he said, but apparently he had his fingers crossed. Ok he ain't gay, he didn't solicit sex in a public washroom, and he is not resigning. Wow just for lying he should be run out of town on a rail way before the end of the month.

But the pièce de résistance is that he is so incompetent he left a message about his clever subterfuge on a complete strangers answering machine.

U.S. Sen. Larry Craig says he might reconsider his decision to resign if he clears his name in his arrest for disorderly conduct in a restroom sex scandal.

That’s why Craig chose his words carefully during his resignation speech Saturday in Boise, according to a voice mail message he mistakenly left on a stranger’s phone. In the message obtained by the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call, Craig tells a man named “Billy” that his choice of language is deliberate because it leaves the door open for him to stay in office.

In the message, Craig mentions that he has the support of Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., a backer who Craig saw as pivotal for giving his efforts political legitimacy.

The day after Craig’s resignation speech, Specter went on Fox News Sunday. “I'd still like to see Senator Craig fight this case," Specter said. "He left himself some daylight, when he said he "intends" to resign in 30 days. I'd like to see Larry Craig go back to court, seek to withdraw his guilty plea and fight the case.”

The voice is indeed Craig’s, spokesman Dan Whiting said. Whiting would not say who “Billy” is. Later that day, Craig announced that he had hired high-profile criminal defense lawyer Billy Martin, whom Craig hired to help him unravel the guilty plea Craig filed last month.

Whiting confirmed in an e-mail that his boss “intends to resign on Sept. 30th. However, he is fighting these charges, and should he be cleared before then, he may, and I emphasize may, not resign.”

H/T to Cowboys For Social Responsibility.


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