From Rantburg's Hurricane Center on the lovely and talented Space Coast....
The newest long-range forecast put Florida in the storm's sights. The storm's maximum sustained winds increased to 75 mph, just above the threshold for a hurricane, said the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Ernesto could grow into a Category 3 hurricane by Thursday, menacing a broad swath of the Gulf Coast including hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, the hurricane center said earlier.
The five-day forecast issued today showed Ernesto bending toward the northeast after it enters the Gulf of Mexico. The center of the forecast cone takes the storm north of the Tampa Bay region on Thursday and over Jacksonville on Friday morning.
The southern coast of Haiti issued a hurricane warning early today. The storm could dump 6 to 12 inches of rain on the island, with up to 20 inches possible in some areas, the hurricane center said. A hurricane watch was in effect for Jamaica, the Cayman Islands and Cuba, where 3 to 5 inches of rain were possible. Fisherman were warned to return to shore -- with tides of up to 3 feet above normal expected.
The latest forecasts have moved Ernesto's projected path far to the right -- which is bad news for Florida's Gulf Coast. For the whole freakin' state, actually...the projected path covers all of Florida, most of Georgia and a big chunk of South Carolina.
Taking about their computer models used in the five-day prediction, National Hurricane Center forecasters said today: "All of the global and regional models now agree on recurvature over the eastern Gulf of Mexico around 96 hours ... and take Ernesto northeastward across the central or northern Florida Peninsula by 120 hours. The official track is similar to but a little west of the consensus models."
On Tuesday morning, Ernesto is forecast to be over west-central Cuba with sustained winds of 80 mph. On Wednesday, the storm -- still moving northwest -- will be west of Key West with 90 mph winds. On Thursday morning, Ernesto is forecast to be west of Fort Myers as a major hurricane with sustained winds of 115 mph, fueled by the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. At this point, computer models have the storm taking a right turn toward Florida.
During late Thursday and early Friday, Ernesto is forecast to move northeast across the Florida peninsula, making landfall north of Tampa Bay and cutting across the state over Gainesville and Jacksonville. It is forecast to be over Jacksonville Friday morning with 80-mph winds. Well, kiddies, am off to stock up at Publix while my neighbors sleep in. Got to get the usual things...water, canned foods, and beer for the Tsar. Hopefully ol' Nesto will calm down a bit before he stops by.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/27/2006 11:07 Comments ||
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#7
Got the hurricane kit all good to go, just have to decide where to ride it out (apartment we're stuck with until end of Sep or new house we're in the process of moving to....). For now, will watch it and make the final decision later.
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/27/2006 14:54 Comments ||
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#12
Well, Joey's due 1 Oct. He's still got a ways to go. My doctor told me that low pressure thing is a myth (I asked him at the first appointment). I'm still going to double check with his office tomorrow, though, to see if he wants me to do anything other than stay in the house with all of the rest of the sensible people. ;)
#14
Latest update.....Gov Bush just ordered all the tourists, RV's and travel trailers to git the hell outta the Keys. Key West International is expected to stay open until Monday night and some residents will be moved to shelters early Monday morning. He already declared a state of emergency, and partially activated the emergency management center in Tallahassee.
At 2pm EST, it was about 165 miles SSe of Gitmo, and 105 miles SSW of Port-au-Prince.
APPARENTLY...THE HIGHLY MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN OF THE SOUTHWESTERN
PENINSULA OF HAITI HAS DISRUPTED THE CIRCULATION OF ERNESTO. THE
LOW-LEVEL CENTER HAS BECOME BROAD AND ILL-DEFINED...THE MINIMUM
PRESSURE HAS RISEN TO ABOUT 1004 MB...AND THE HIGHEST OBSERVED
FLIGHT-LEVEL WINDS WERE 42 KT.
Uganda and the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) rebels have signed a deal to halt hostilities in a breakthrough in efforts to end one of Africa's longest wars. The chief mediator at the talks, Sudan's vice-president, Riek Machar, said on Saturday: "We hope that now the two principals will take action so that the guns can go silent," referring to the Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni and commander of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), Joseph Kony.
... the LRA's leaders, including Kony, have not joined the talks and remained at bases in the Democratic Republic of Congo as they are wanted by the International Criminal Court.
The deal means both sides will cease attacks and hostile propaganda while negotiations continue and is due to take effect at 0600 GMT on Tuesday. Talks between the two sides began on July 14 in Juba, the capital of south Sudan. Until Friday, Uganda's government had said it would only sign a ceasefire as part of a comprehensive peace agreement, accusing the LRA of using earlier truces to regroup and re-arm. The rebels declared a cessation of hostilities on August 4.
Kampala has offered amnesty to the LRA's leaders, including Kony, who have not joined the talks and remained at bases in the Democratic Republic of Congo as they are wanted by the International Criminal Court. Thousands of civilians have died in the conflict and 1.7million have fled their homes according to relief organisations.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/27/2006 00:00 ||
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The health service will be plunged into chaos if Britain is struck by a bird flu pandemic, a Government report warns.
Not that you'll be able to tell ...
Faced with a possible 4.5 million victims, demand for hospital beds would outstrip supply and doctors might have to deny treatment to the sick and elderly to save younger, fitter patients.
The draft document for Primary Care Trusts, which will have responsibility for co-ordinating a response to any flu pandemic, also predicts demand for the NHS Direct hotline would soar from 170,000 calls a week to almost four million, swamping the system.
The study, released without publicity on the internet, details how ministers plan to cope by setting up a "national flu hotline" and ordering those with symptoms to stay at home. Flu assessments would be carried out by call centre workers, who would decide whether a patient needed treatment with one of the 14.6 million doses of the antiviral drug Tamiflu which the Government will have stockpiled by next month.
For children under seven and "at risk" groups, such as those with existing lung conditions, a general practitioner or a nurse might assess the patient before giving Tamiflu.
Patients would be expected to nominate a relative or friend who will be given a password and security number in order to pick up supplies. Those who have no one to nominate will have Tamiflu delivered.
In the "peak week", the report says, 4.5 million cases will emerge. Of those, four per cent would need hospital care, requiring 166,000 beds. About 54,000 victims would need intensive care.
However, the entire National Health Service has only 159,600 beds available each week, including just 3,900 ITU beds. The death rate from any pandemic is estimated at 2.5 per cent - 525,000 people. The Home Office has already warned that families might have to wait up to four months to bury their dead and that mass graves could be used.
Dr Martin Shalley, the president of the British Association of Accident and Emergency Medicine, said: "The first time we saw these figures our mouths fell open. It is every doctor's worst nightmare. There are plans in place, but there is the potential for meltdown.
"It is obvious that no hospital is going to have the capacity to cope with anything like this and a huge percentage of health care workers are going to get sick. Hospitals will be inundated with huge numbers of patients and doctors will have to make some difficult judgements."
A Department of Health spokesman said: "It is likely that NHS services will be under significant pressure during a pandemic and that is why we are also asking the NHS to develop local plans."
Scientists believe it is only a matter of time before the H5N1 strain of avian flu mutates into a form that can spread from person to person, creating a pandemic. Experts working for the Department of Health based their estimates on the outbreak of Spanish flu in 1918. They predict a 35 per cent "attack rate", meaning 21 million people will contract the virus at some point during the pandemic, which may last four months.
By last week, 141 people had been killed by the virus since 2003. Its presence has been confirmed in more than 48 countries and territories, including Britain, where a dead swan was found floating in the harbour of the coastal village of Cellardyke, in Fife, on April 6. The bird later tested positive for the H5N1 strain of avian flu.
Former Ukrainian prime miister Pavlo Lazarenko was jailed for nine years and fined £5.3m for money laundering, wire fraud and extortion. The sentence was half of the maximum sought by US prosecutors, who said the 53-year-old former premier misused his high office in the ex-Soviet republic to get rich through a series of business schemes.
He was the first former head of government to be tried in the US since Manuel Noriega of Panama. A 12-member US jury in San Francisco convicted him in June 2004 and he has since remained under house arrest at an undisclosed location on £45.5m bail. Lazarenko denied he siphoned funds or accepted bribes in exchange for government contracts and favours, claiming his multi-million dollar fortune was earned legitimately at a time his country, emerging from the Soviet Union's collapse, had a new and lawless free-market economy.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/27/2006 00:00 ||
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#8
This is just the kind of dhimmie the Islamofacists LOVE. Trust me. She probably already corresponds with them. They use idiots like this as proxy "operatives" to get their aims accomplished. If she ever gets in power, God help us.
#10
Iff the WOT/War against Islamofascism . also a WAR AGAINST FASCISM/RIGHTIST SOCIALISM, then by definition the WOT = WAR FOR COMMUNISM/LEFTIST SOCIALISM. * LIMITED TOTALITARIANISM-GOVERNMENTISM versus TOTAL TOTALITARIANISM-GOVERNMENTISM, IN-YOUR-FACE versus THOSE-WHOM MUST-NOT-BE-NAMED, POPULARISM versus SHADOW-ISM, etc.
ISLAMABAD: The Higher Education Commission has announced scholarships for Pakistani students by the Cuban government for graduate studies in general comprehensive medicine (equivalent to MBBS), in leading Cuban medical institutions. The HEC has finalised project implementation plan and other details with the Cuban embassy after the prime minister's directive for preparation of the scholarship detail.
A committee headed by HEC Chairman Prof Dr Atta-ur-Rahman was formed, which includes representatives of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health. The first meeting held on August 24 was attended by HEC Executive Director of HEC Dr Sohail H Naqvi, Human Resource Development Advisor, Dr S Mahmood Raza, Project Director, Rezwana Siddiqui, representative of the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health, PIMS and Member Planning Commission Gen (r) Dr Iftikhar Hameed.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/27/2006 00:44 ||
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#1
Cuba's guests will want subsidized Islamic centers and Muslim Family Law. And Cuba's official Atheism will have to change or the tiny minority of extremists might have to plant bombs.
#2
This will lead to operations to free Gitmo terrorists, take it too the bank, chavez has made a deal, this is but a cover story to get the independent forces on the island.
#3
They're to attack the Guantanamo Bay facility? What fun for the troops! It'll be interesting to see how Pakistan and Cuba try to explain that the result is actually a victory ("Yeah, we lasted 15 minutes against them! The other team only lasted 10!"). As for the education bit -- Cuba is going to have to remedialize them back to second grade before they'll be prepared to take on a real medical school. Either way it'll be humiliating for them, and expensive for Cuba. Perhaps this latest incident affected Castro's brain.
#4
I suspect the growing integration of latin american leftists with jihadis is one reason we've been slowly emptying Gitmo.
A couple months back I had a chance to chat with the guy who was US military attache in Venezuela when the coup almost deposed Chavez a couple years ago. He had some stories to tell - most of which he didn't, but the bits that did come out were disturbing.
#5
Cuba's guests will want subsidized Islamic centers and Muslim Family Law. And Cuba's official Atheism will have to change or the tiny minority of extremists might have to plant bombs.
I posted an article a few months ago that Cuba had a small but increasingly confident Iranian-backed Shia contingent that was strong enough to begin agitating publically for their own mosque. They stated they had about seventy members, which I estimated was about right for an effective terror cell.
If reports are accurate, Iran will have $50 billion more petro-dollars to play with this year. Money means persuasion; missiles means coercion. For reasons that are too numerous to count, the Ayatollahs have to go.
#9
Some of that $50 billion will have to go to resupplying Hizb'allah, and training replacements for their casualties. Not to mention that $12,000/household that Hizb'allah committed them to in South Lebanon and Beirut.
#10
Pak docs run the gamut from awful to pretty good. Pakistan has a few good medical schools (e.g., Aga Khan Univ., and 'good' defined on a global scale). A fair proportion of the better ones learn English and come to the US/UK to obtain further training, and some of them decide to stay on with the infidels. Importing Pak docs to Cuba isn't that much of a stretch -- the classes very likely will be in English, and again, some of the Paks are good.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/27/2006 15:59 Comments ||
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#11
#9 tw: "Not to mention that $12,000/household that Hizb'allah committed them to in South Lebanon and Beirut."
That doesn't need to come from Iran, tw - though the Hezzie printing presses probably did.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/27/2006 16:05 Comments ||
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#12
Muzzies like their women wrapped in black because muzzie boys have no self control (and never take personal responsibility for their behavior). The Pakis will have a hard time dealing with the hot women to be found throughout Cuba.
Posted by: Mark Z ||
08/27/2006 19:47 Comments ||
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The Interim Constitution Drafting Committee on Friday submitted the draft of the statute to the Government and Maoist negotiations teams. The interim statute has proposed a referendum during the election to the constituent assembly to decide the fate of the monarchy. It wanted the bicameral system of parliament scrapped for an interim period and said there should only be a single House. Similarly, it wanted the post of Speaker and Deputy Speaker replaced with a Chairman and Vice-Chairman. It suggested expansion of the fundamental rights of the people. Merger of the two armies (state army and the Maoists army) after the constituent assembly elections was also proposed.
Committee Chairman Laxman Prasad Aryal handed over the draft to Home Minister Krishna Prasad Sitaula and Maoist Chief Negotiator Krishna Bahadur Mahara. Mr. Sitaula said "we will soon convene summit talks between the top leaders and give final shape to the statute." Mr. Mahara said the differences would be sorted out.
Since the Seven Party Alliance (SPA) and the Maoists could not agree on key issues to be included in the draft statute, the committee has given various options for contentious issues. Differences remain on four key issues: What should be the status of the monarchy in the interim period? What should be the process and modality of the constituent assembly? What will function as the interim legislative body? Who will promulgate the interim statute?
Posted by: Fred ||
08/27/2006 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Uganda and the 
The health service will be plunged into chaos if Britain is struck by a bird flu pandemic, a Government report warns.
Former Ukrainian prime miister Pavlo Lazarenko was jailed for nine years and fined £5.3m for money laundering, wire fraud and extortion. The sentence was half of the maximum sought by US prosecutors, who said the 53-year-old former premier misused his high office in the ex-Soviet republic to get rich through a series of business schemes.
The Interim Constitution Drafting Committee on Friday submitted the draft of the statute to the Government and Maoist negotiations teams. The interim statute has proposed a referendum during the election to the constituent assembly to decide the fate of the monarchy. It wanted the bicameral system of parliament scrapped for an interim period and said there should only be a single House. Similarly, it wanted the post of Speaker and Deputy Speaker replaced with a Chairman and Vice-Chairman. It suggested expansion of the fundamental rights of the people. Merger of the two armies (state army and the Maoists army) after the constituent assembly elections was also proposed. 
