I will run for the first time in 6 weeks this coming Tuesday, and not a minute too soon. Unfortunately, it will be at least three months before I can do anything aggressive - I’ll probably be clinically insane by then. I should at least be able to maintain a slow burn until I can stoke the flames and start incinerating all this extra crap that’s clogging up my view.

Meanwhile, my father’s stud runner just suffered a devasting injury. Having had achilles pain on and off for a few weeks, they were being very cautious with her. Today, 300 meters from the finish…gunfire. The crowd heard it. A full rupture complete with evulsion fracture off the heel.

That does not happen. Unless you’re a football or basketball player, achilles ruptures should not happen. Three weeks of sporadic pain is not an indicator of a RUPTURE. That is not supposed to happen. Ruptures happen when you try to dunk and hit your foot funny on the plant, or when you’re shoving around a defensive lineman and your cleat gets stuck. It isn’t supposed to happen running on a cross country course.

I, for one, am very upset. Lillian, who I called Gebrselassie instead of her own similar last name, was a phenom. I first saw her run at Penn as a Frosh two and a half years ago and was mesmorized by her stride. Powerful and graceful; a true thing of beauty. She was a gazelle. This is a devastating injury. As an achilles victim myself, to see someone with such a bright future suffer the worst injury the body has to offer is exceptionally sad. It’s possible to come back. 12 months at least, more before she could actualize any benefits from training again. And right when she should be getting her scholarship locked up too. I’m sad. My father apparently wept.

Here at Team Hanna headquarters. Debate is on CBS, because that’s all they get on their rabbit ears. Michael is here, Kelly is most likely studying, since she’s awake and not eating.

By the way, Survivor is on leading on to the debate. These people don’t look like survivors. Do they have normal people here, or just beautiful people? My experience with beautiful people is that they don’t really “survive” so much.

9:02 PM: “Can I call you Joe?” asks Palin. “She’s been planning that all week” comments Michael.

9:04 PM: So, last week I made fun of McCain’s arms - and it turns out that happened in a Vietnamese prison camp. My bad. So how does Biden explain his hair?

9:06 PM: Question: Does Biden reach across the aisle?

9:08 PM: Question: Does Palin appreciate the American workforce or what?

9:09 PM: IFill in the lead so far.

9:10 PM: I didn’t see Palin wink. Kelly swears that it happened. It belongs on the blog, she says. There you go Kelly.

9:11 PM: Biden is using real examples, Palin is appealing to emotional sensibilities. Who is the republican here?

9:12 PM: IFill wants Palin to address something, but she doesn’t know anything about it. Instead, she answers whatever question she wants. This is a standard tactic.

9:14 PM: Michael would hate to be Palin - who dodges the question yet again. She wants nothing to do with the deregulation of the economy.

9:15 PM: I liked Biden in the democrat debates. I like him here too. Why can’t he be president?

9:18 PM: Palin has not been the train wreck we’ve all hoped for. IFill suspects Palin hasn’t heard of health care.

9:21 PM: Bridge to nowhere. After Michael asks what that mean, he observes that Biden has had that one lined up all week too.

9:23 PM: I almost forgot Palin was here. Biden went about 12 straight minutes. Thankfully, it doesn’t sound like we’re missing much, as Palin answers whatever.

9:24 PM: I don’t think Palin wanted to remind everyone that she’s been involved for 5 weeks.

9:25 PM: Let’s talk about taxes. Please, the entire time if possible.

9:27 PM: Palin just mixed up the Main St and Wall St analogy, then swapped to prove that she realized her mistake.

9:28 PM: Not sure Biden wants to classify his horse as a glass half empty kind of guy.

9:29 PM: Palin is annoying me. Michael just groaned.

9:30 PM: Let’s find out what two clueless politicians think about climate change. Great.

9:32 PM: Palin is in her element on the environment question. She’d make a good Secretary of the Environment in someone’s cabinet. If there is such a secretary.

9:35 PM: I thought she was going to call him Joe?

9:36 PM: I don’t think the framers of the constitution foresaw this entire same sex marriage thing.

9:38 PM: Palin is friends with people who are intolerant of same sex people, I think she just said.

9:41 PM: We did this funding and timeline stuff last time.

9:42 PM: Does anyone doubt that Iraq will be a stone age society in 20 years?

9:43 PM: Look at Biden’s big happy smile! He’s so friendly.

9:47 PM: Nucular, nucular, nucular. It is an alternative pronunciation. Na-eee-va-tay!

9:48 PM: Biden makes a good point about the theocracy in Iran.

9:52 PM: I might not make it the entire debate. This is boring. They don’t have the latent tension that McCain and Obama had.

9:52 PM: Joe Biden is a friend of Israel, claims Joe Biden.

9:53 PM: Michael is learning OpenGL for embedded systems instead of paying attention. Because Biden just said Iran was marching on Obama.

9:55 PM: Past is prologue Gwen. Palin is sitting there trying to figure that out. Lots of Bushes according to Biden.

9:58 PM: I’m going to drive home and listen to the rest of this on the radio. I’m bored.

It’s interesting how little coverage Ike is getting in the media. It has done a tremendous amount of damage on the Texas coast line, to the tune of something like $27 billion, third all time behind Katrina and Andrew. 400 people are still unaccounted for, meaning the death toll is substantially higher than the 67 currently confirmed.

In other news, I’m still alive. Debate tonight; I’ll be looking for a home as I remain TV-less. Sarah Palin was a complete unknown before her first public appearance, and I thought she was awesome. In the interim, she has become a Dan Quayle-esque laughingstock. People all the sudden question her ability to think for herself (or even to think in general) - the woman disappears and is disassembled immediately. There are no positive expectations for her, but she’s going to have a tremendous amount of negative expectations to overcome before people take her opinions serious. People are going to laugh at everything she says, “ha, did you hear that, she just said that she can see Russia! She’s so stupid!” Why is that? Because people believe what they want to believe and cram everyone else into their worldviews. At least I do that. It’s fun.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to it, and I’ll be broadcasting live.

Addendum
Looks like CNN is finally coming onboard with the story.

I’m going to write about the debate as it happens, by popular demand. Not really popular, nor demand, but by personal preference at least. I’m borrowing Jason’s TV and internet feed as I’m still without both.

20:56- “Most anticipated debate in US history…” Most shortsighted promo in the last 20 minutes.

20:58- Newsflash: Bess is my popular demand! She loves me afterall!

21:00- I trust Keith Oberman to give me a fair and balanced opinion. I liked him on SportsCenter. Not as much here.

21:02- John McCain is the stiffest man on the planet. Does he have cartilage or did the Vietnamese steal it?

21:04- Barak Obama is looking skinny. He’s not nearly as good at unrehearsed speeches. And-and-and-and.

21:06- McCain is actually surprisingly good. What a scam artist; I can’t believe he just stole Ted Kennedy, on his deathbed, for the Republicans. He’s almost as good at speaking in debate as Obama is in speaking from a teleprompter.

21:08- No Barak, no, that’s not the question here. The question here is “do you support the current plan?” The question is not “do you blame George Bush?” Because that doesn’t matter right now.

21:10- McCain was there at Normandy. I forgot how debates worked. They ask a question, you answer whatever you feel like.

21:12- McCain made a funny. He also indicated that he can still hear, which is good, because he’s 83 years old. Thankfully his wife is 34, thanks to all varieties of “regulatory oversight”.

21:15- Read McCain’s lips: No new taxes. McCain just gave Obama a zinger, and Obama might cry.

21:17- Obama whacks him back, using math. The notation would be 18<<300. Obama looks a little haggard and agitated.

21:17- Laser beams from Obama's eyeballs! I thought McCain was going to be the angry one.

21:20- Ireland, that Mecca of industry. What is pork barrel spending? Does someone come up with a list? Do we all agree on it? It sounds like they both do.

21:22- I hope I never want to make more than $250K a year. Obama has a good point on the loopholes if it's true. I have no idea how to judge the accuracy on that, but he sounds like he's making a good point.

21:23- Glad we're having a debate about foreign policy.

21:24- McCain just swatted the moderator away. They're going to have to restrain him.

21:26- They both look like they want to fight. Jason wonders who would win, and we're discussing the tale of the tape right now. I'd take an old McCain over a young Obama - Obama's a pansy.

21:28- China just had a space walk. We did that about 40 years ago. I bet they're listening to the Beatles too. McCain needs to say what he’s going to cut. Whoa whoa whoa, wait, don’t stop cost-plus contracts! Those are good.

21:32- Obama is stumbling through his phoney dictionary right now. Wrongheadedness.

21:33- Holy crap McCain, 45 new nuke plants? Where are we going to put all that waste?

21:36- We need to get rid of all money below $1000 and bump everything back down. $800 billion? That’s too big. It doesn’t mean anything to me. Also, I’m pretty sure money is just a bunch of paper.

21:37- I can’t picture McCain in an “orgy” with Bush. Yikes. Thanks Barak. But Miss Congeniality, maybe.

21:40- So Iraq is official over now? Foregone conclusion?

21:41- Obama! Listen to me! We’re in a damn war in damn fool Iraq! Nobody cares about 6 years ago. Deal with the NOW! Ut oh, $600 billion! That’s like 600,000 games of Monopoly.

21:42- Good point John, yes, we are there already.

21:44- Quit your smirking McCain. And you’ll get to talk. Hold your horses. By the way, I would be awful here too. I’d be bouncing up and down looking like a three year old that has to pee.

21:47- Obama answered the funding question well. Timetable v funding. Good answer, quit trying to slip one past me McCain. I think Obama is getting into his grove.

21:52- Obama says country names like a European. Pak-E-Staun.

21:53- McCain just made a really good point about Pakistan. And I think the American people are going to agree with him. By the way, I want to give McCain a high five. How does he brush his teeth? His arms don’t move that high.

21:56- Obama was supposed to be the one that sounded patronizing. But it’s McCain who has that voice. He wants to take Obama on his lap and read him a book about Pack i Stan.

21:59- Don’t let that lady in New Hampshire dictate our foreign policy.

22:00- We all need bracelets! It’s all the rave on capitol hill!

22:02- Obama went to Al Quaeda training school in Indonesia, didn’t he? And you’re criticizing him for NOT going to Afganistan?

22:03- We need to get rid of oil. I want to ignore the Middle East. Go away! I don’t care about those lunatics. A League of Democracies! That sounds like a Cartoon Network show.

22:06- Somebody talking Somebody talking Somebody talking. Can’t hear TV, Can’t hear TV.

22:08- Ut oh. McCain can’t even say the Iranian guy’s name. He’s already talking about it in NY, what more legitimization is talking to them going to give them? Why do we pander so much to Israel again?

22:10- We don’t drink tea over here Barak. Go back to Europe. Though I do drink tea, myself.

22:12- Spain that’s crazy talk! Look at McCain’s contempt. Whoops, the seal joke didn’t fly. And McCain just flicked his tongue out of his mouth like a serpent. Maybe he’s the anti-Christ.

22:14- Wait, why are the North Koreans short? Huh? McCain looks so self-satisfied right now. Pat yourself on the back John.

22:15- Amy is home now too. We’re discussing Obama’s strange makeup/complexion. McCain is beating him up. Almost physically. Obama’s gonna need an aspirin. He’s looking skinny, did I say that? So was the missus.

22:17- 15,000 nukes is more than we need anyway. You don’t refer to Russia as a him when you personify her. Russia is a female bear, that is the only way you allegorize her.

22:19- We all agree that Russia is strange right now. What the hell is she up to?

22:21- McCain is showing his chops in the Black Sea fleet issues and the lease with Ukraine. Wait a second, we need to rebuild Georgian’s economy too?

22:25- Don’t we all oppose nuclear waste?

22:27- McCain reaches across the aisle, just an FYI. But he doesn’t talk to Obama, as he’s too far to the left.

22:28- We’re definitely safer from my shampoo. The War on Personal Hygene in airports has been won, I’d say. By the way, have you noticed how much some foreigners smell? Wow. Hurts your nose.

22:30- Also, Senator Obama doesn’t understand. Really, McCain has made that clear about 11 times. He just said “American blood and treasure,” in his best bed room voice.

22:33- McCain is about 40% more abrasive. I’d rather hang out with Obama.

22:35- If Obama’s father wanted to get to college from Kenya, he should have told them he could run a 29:12 10K Someone would have given him a scholarship site unseen. At least, it works that way today.

22:35- McCain was sad.

22:38- McCain and his wife just kissed, and I swear their faces clanged together in a metallic manner. It confirms one of my theories. She’s a robot.

10:43- Here’s a shocker, Pat Buchanan thinks McCain won. Who would have guessed. Meanwhile, Bess is also writing.

It’s not every year that eastern Maine/Nova Scotia gets to take a whack from a hurricane. Kyle may be a weak one when it hits. It probably won’t be as bad as the Nor’Easters they deal with on a regular basis, but it will be tropical, which is a change of pace for them.

Addendum
I not sure I like the new development where the blind guy walks around the halls while talking on his cell phone. Exactly which sense is he using to not whack me with the cane - taste?

Also, the non-straight guy just described his type. I’ve been wondering what criteria non-straight people find attractive. He basically described himself - same height, same build, same everything. Get a mirror, dude.

Despite how hilarious his pictures are, I generally find myself in agreement with Roland Martin on many topics, especially politics. I don’t know what his political affiliation is. I also tend to agree with Glenn Beck, and I think he’s a republican. One can only assume Roland is not a republican. He argues his points well, and I respect that, whatever his affiliation may be.

Anyway, he thinks he’s biting off a religious debate when he pronounces boycott against some big Christian store. The issue is females in the pulpit. This is one of those things that I don’t care about nearly as much as most conservative Christians think I should. Not my preference, I think that the Bible is generally opposed to it, and I’m not sure why systematic patriarchy is a bad thing - just like I’m pretty well convinced it’s OK for guys to lift heavy objects. I don’t want to argue about that. I don’t care. Really, just barely.

I also don’t think it’s relevant. If a bookstore or a bookstore doesn’t agree with the content of some magazine, then they have the right to not carry it. Why is this a problem? It’s not stifling freedom of expression. You can buy it somewhere else. It is their right to run their business in whatever way they see fit.

Maybe they’ll learn that this is a poor financial decision. Who knows. It’s not a religious debate here, nor is it about Roland’s wife’s sour grapes.

By the way, the media propoganda machine has turned me against the republican party when it comes to the economy. I don’t even have TV now. Damn republicans, always screwing up the economy. I don’t want CEOs to get $10 million either. Don’t think it’s a statistically significant number when compared to the amount in the bailout plan, but I don’t see why anyone needs $10 million. Of course, like I said, I don’t know what I’m talking about.

The federal government is planning some sort of $700 billion dollar bailout of financial institutions. People have asked me what I thought about it.

I have no opinion.

Why?

Because I don’t understand any of this stuff well enough to have an opinion.

I bet there are less than a million people in this country that have enough wherewithal to understand what the hell is going on here, even in general terms. Sure, we can all regurgitate “big companies are paying CEOs blah blah blah bad loans blah blah.” But we don’t know what any of that means.

And I bet there are something less than 10,000 people who have the requisite knowledge to be able to propose sensible solutions.

I am not one of them. You aren’t either. A couple of people in congress are, but not many. The federal bank probably has a few. Universities have most. The business world contains a bunch. The rest live in cabins in the woods with pet squirrels.

The point: we don’t know what we’re talking about, so I don’t understand why we have to keep talking about it.

24 is back Sunday, November 23rd - a 2-hour bridge event on FOX. Everyone is invited to my place, assuming you can shut up, or at least shut up more than I do. It is apparently meant to fill in the gaps between Seasons 6 and 7, as Jack does something with a coup in South Africa for a couple of hours. As long as Jack improvises a torture device and informs us that, damnit, there’s no TIME, I’ll be happy. A good neck stab/snap would go a long way too.

Yesterday I kept myself sane by visualizing a VISA commercial documenting my plight with a pair of blinds used to prevent peeping toms from looking into my kitchen. It kept me from becoming exceptionally agitated, as it is sometimes troubling to me when I’m a moron.
faux wood blinds, $55
hack saw to attempt to saw through oversized metal bracket, $12
vise grips to bend metal after hack saw takes too long, $15
crescent wrench to whack down paint can top after several ounces spilled on the floor while manipulating blind bracket and painting scrap wood at the same time, $10
duct tape used to concoct makeshift shoes to prevent walking paint through house, $5
getting the damn blinds to fit as though you knew what you were doing…
and so on.

Everything is moved in, half of it has been sorted and I can visualize a system for the rest. My mom has been right about most everything, though, holy crap, good shades are expensive enough to drive me to use curtains. $140 for a shade? A single shade with the requisite bells/whistles? Shoot me in the head.

I’m also trying desperately to avoid pumpkin butter as a paint color for the accent wall downstairs. I hate pumpkins. They are repulsive when they rot. I was going to rename pumpkin butter “peanut butter” to maintain my own sovereignty over the house, but lo and behold peanut butter is its own color. It is very similiar to pumpkin butter. They are both on my scrap wood paint sample now. I refuse to say who is winning.

So the house looks pretty classy, thanks mainly to the cartoonish parade of women who have been consulting me on it. Thank you assorted relatives, friends, and friend’s wives - I’m going to have a reputation in the neighborhood pretty soon if this keeps up.

For whatever it’s worth, they share grills and lawn mowers around here. Everyone looks out for everyone else. It’s pretty awesome. I have been chatting with the neighbors more than I normally would. I might work as a greeter for the church. I was accused of having “good interpersonal skills” by a potential boss at work the other day (I chuckled). Things are a little confusing right now, “I’m not gonna lie.”

Tomorrow morning I’ll be moving from Catonsville to Elkridge. Once that happens, I will not have internet at home until my roommate gets around to buying a TV as they’ll hook that up at the same time. I’ll probably read a book or something. You might do the same.

I’d like to have a moment of silence for my last Q-Tip. Those of you who have been reading for a long time understand the arbitrary metaphorical significance. There are a handful of you that understand the irony involved here as well. It’s just a damn Q-Tip! And 1499 of his friends, but still, just a Q-Tip.

Now I need to buy more, what’s that crap.

There were so many tangents at Bible study tonight that I can’t recall what context brought it about, but I used Schrodinger’s Cat as a metaphor for whatever it was we were talking about. In my explanation, I fused the explanation of it with spooky action at a distance, but the principle is the same. In quantum mechanics, things do not have concrete states until you make a measure of something. Prior, the physics of the very small involves probability distributions - the particle is neither here nor there, it is only in a fuzzy probability location representing both/all locations.

Schrodinger’s Cat is a thought experiment whereby a real thing, a cat, is kept in a chamber with poisonous gas. The gas will be released if a certain atom decays. This decay is another one of those fuzzy things - if we don’t observe it, it hasn’t happened. It hasn’t not happened either. It remains undefined.

So…is the cat then alive or not alive? Has the decay occurred, if so it’s dead. Has it not occurred, then it is alive. The cat’s existence has now been smeared across two states, the cat himself straddling the living and the dead in some paradoxical way. The point of this thought experiment was to show the lunacy of following these esoteric theories to their logical conclusions.

The metaphorical point, however, is that the mere action of measuring/observing/investigating something necessarily reduces the possible states associated with it. I wrote about this last year in what was apparentlyBess’s favorite post. It harkens back to Shakespeare’s Hamlet - It is neither good nor bad, but that thinking makes it so. Until something is classified, it is not one or the other. Vague, nebulous, undefined, at all times all things. And then you say, “fine, I’ll bite,” and whoosh, all the sudden it’s not so complicated, not so interesting. It just is what it is and nothing more.

The point of this thought experiment remains the same as that of Schrodinger’s Cat. The thing recently scrutinized was what it was all along. The cat was dead or it was alive. It’s a property of you, namely your knowledge of the situation, that has changed.

It’s not the cat’s fault that it’s not a infinite smear of all things at all times.

Despite a tactic understanding between the dentist and I that there was nothing really wrong, I allowed for him to jab me with a needle and drill into a molar.

Here I am, my first real opportunity to eat actual food in two weeks, and I can’t control my jaw. I decided that I needed to talk to someone, yes, that would help. So I called the Mortgage people to set up automatic withdrawal for my loan. Needless to say, I sounded like I licked the lead paint off my walls with my tongue. About halfway through, I became so amused with my inability to enunciate basic diphthongs that I began to chuckle in pauses in the conversation. I had so much fun, I’m trying to talk to other people too.

Meanwhile, I just got a google hit for “brown shoes style guide”. If you know me, you don’t want my fashion advice. They went to my uninformed dissertation on trends. They could have gone here to learn about physics boots, my brown shoes.

Do you know how handy I would be if I carried a purse around? I’d have some much awesome stuff in there. Without hygiene products, think of the utility such a thing would have.

My father is right, vise grips are one of the most useful things around. I’d carry a pair in my purse. Scissors. Maybe a flashlight. A screwdriver or two. USB thumb drive. A can of soup. Paper and several writing utensils.

I haven’t been eating enough. I need my mother to make me eggs. Ironically, there are two dozen eggs in the refrigerator of the other house. I can’t access them right now. I’m not sure how eggs would work in my purse.

It all seems like a big, haphazard mess sometimes. Juxtaposition has been the theme of the past few days for me. There’s a big wedding coming up. But then there’s the new husband, maimed for life in a crash, his wife obliterated by how tenuous their life together has become. There’s dinner, but then there’s the hospital. There’s a new baby, but as a salve to the six miscarriages previous.

We don’t learn lessons easily. Perhaps that’s why these lessons don’t involve speeding tickets. They don’t involve detention after school, or a failing semester, or a defaulting on a business pursuit. There are victims - lives shattered - and for what? Had I robbed a man, I would justly go to jail. Whose sin caused the car to crash? Whose actions required the lives of a half-dozen unborn babies for restitution?

The answer is simultaneously all of ours and none of ours. It is because of our condition that there is evil in this word. It is a broken world, full of broken, hurting people. It is a dark world - pierced by a beacon of light, a city on a hill. There are plans at work that defy our ability to understand them.

The girl whose husband has little more than glimmers of brain function has awoken to an entirely new perspective on the sovereignty of God. The family who has lost the babies has been galvanized by prayer. My natural response is “but at what cost?”

The price is temporal but the purchase springs eternal. Our lives are but the passing of a night, an 80 year night. Pinpricks of light shine through an expanse of sorrow, guiding our paths and giving a taste of the brilliance that will one day dawn. A sunrise with no sunset, the things of this world burned away, our troubles evaporated like the morning dew.

In so many ways, it all boils down to one lesson. God is in control. Morning will come, and we are to be refined as silver is refined, tested like gold is tested. “They will call on My name, And I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are My people,’ And they will say, ‘The LORD is my God.’”

Job would say “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” More than that, it is the trouble that sets our minds toward the good. There is no reason for hope where there is no hardship. This is why we learn this lesson over and over again throughout our temporal lives; hope is powerful, especially when that hope involves a faith that God is in control.

So there’s the place. Now quit your whining!

While we’re at it, there are my men. Jake’s giving the jazz hands while Tommy is emulating his hero George W Bush - “Mission Accomplished.” Johny looks too cool for the room - thinks he’s big man on campus now that he can walk several steps in a row without tumbling straight onto his forehead.

Ike’s central pressure of 946 mb indicates a strong category 3 storm, yet it is currently only showing winds of 100 mph. There is something amiss. The folk at the national hurricane center attribute this anomaly to Ike’s astounding size, and the presence of concentric eye walls, the second of which will spin hurricane force winds 100 miles out from the center.

There is no doubt in my mind that this storm is going to show the winds indicative of it’s underlying strength. Pressure means more than wind speed when it comes to the physics behind the destructive force of barocyclonic events. The wind speed will catch up. Forecaster Pasch, the guy who released the 5 AM advisory from the NHC, sees the outer eyewall pulling in presently. Once this finalizes, the storm will realize it’s potential. It’s going to happen. If you’re on the Texas coast from Corpus Christi to Galveston, you want this hurricane to peak pronto. It’s gonna peak. The question is just whether it peaks now and does an eyewall replacement cycle right before it whacks you (which is good, though the surge will be worse), or stays as this amorphous eye blob for another day then ramps up right before it’s midnight Friday night landfall as a strengthening cat4. I really believe this thing is bringing a 15 foot surge with it, 10+ for 100 miles of coastline. This is a big, bad storm. I’ll be staying up Friday night to watch it. Last time I did that? Katrina.

Addendum
Climate Change Wag (and former hurricane hunter pilot) Jeff Masters is often very informative in his hurricane analysis. Whereas Joe Bastardi predicts doom on a monthly basis, Masters is normally fairly calm. It is, then, worth noting when he claims that Ike will be worse than Katrina. Because of the hurricane’s tremendous size, and equally huge wind shield, he expexts the storm to displace every bit as much water as Katrina did in storm surge. Anywhere from Port Lavaca to Houston can expect a storm surge in excess of 12 feet high, topping out near to 20 feet. Don’t let those winds fool you, this is going to be a nasty punch to Texas. The insured losses will be similar to those of Hurricane Andrew - this could literally be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for a national recession.

Addendum 2
Ike is taking dead aim at Houston. The good news here is that the strongest winds are in the northern eyewall. This is bad news for the northern coast of the bay, but good news for Galveston and Houston proper…I’m really pinpointing position now, which isn’t reasonable. Currently Freeport to Port Arthur are firmly in play. Yikes. Ike is a giant, amorphous blob of destruction.

Addendum 3
Well well. The 8 AM model runs came back with two different solutions. Three models take the storm 50 miles south of Galveston, while three still champion the doomsday scenario of a direct hit on Galveston/Houston. You can see them here (at least until the next run comes out). Don’t know what to tell you here. Either way, it’s going to be ugly in Houston - but they should be praying for that southerly track. Those 50+ miles will help.

Addendum 4
Land can’t get there soon enough. Ike is reorganizing. It has cleared the dry air from its center and is spinning together. Unlike Katrina, where I identified its weakening right before landfall, I think Ike is strengthening. Right now.

Addendum 5
They just upped the intensity. The eye has just gained structure - this will make landfall at 125 mph. It’s as bad as it gets. It’s basically worst case scenario.

This morning I thought that the main impediment to Ike would be dry air to his west.  He seems to be saturating himself an area of protection on the last few satellite frames, however.  959 mb is not the pressure of a Cat1 hurricane - it is more indicative of a Cat3 storm.  I believe Ike will reach category 3 strength by the 11 PM advisory, if not the 5 PM.  Expect winds over 130 mph by sometime tomorrow.

I see Ike as getting to be a solid Cat4 storm by day 2. At that point, the main driver for strength will be eyewall replacement cycles. Landfall between Corpus Christi and Galveston seems most likely right now - the current model consensus is pointing just south of Port Lavaca. I see this making landfall Friday night as a strong Cat3 storm. Somebody on the Texas coast is going to take a whooping, and we’ll know who by tomorrow AM’s model runs. This is a serious storm - rapid deepening, the like of which we saw with Katrina and Rita a few years ago, is possible.

Addendum
Ike has struggled with the dry air some today, but has fortified its west flank. This storm is ENORMOUS. One of the biggest hurricanes I can remember. Batten down the hatches folks, and hope that the north trend in the models doesn’t continue.

I wrote a few weeks ago about Obama’s former pastor. It’s only fair that I cover Sarah Palin’s as well. I have some familiarity with the Assembly of God (AOG). I respect a few people that go to or used to go to that variety of church. The summer after I went to a black baptist church in Pittsburgh, I went to a pentecostal church in Flagstaff. I have experience in both types of venues, though the leadership of Ebenezer in Pittsburgh was much better than Obama’s church in Chicago.

I disagree with the AOG on several theological points. I believe that they have grossly misunderstood the concept of “tongues”. I am coming to believe that they have an inaccurate understanding of the so called “end times”. My new favorite charge to levy against modern churches is that they are anachronistic, namely, they are applying concepts of our present day to a book from 2000 years ago indiscrimenantly. Jesus meant something specific to his context when he said things, and we have put a layer of our own, uninformed, views into the readings. Paul spoke in a specific cultural climate, and we need to interpret what he says starting from that background, and not from our background. In the end, however, AOG churches are interpreting the Bible, which is a lot better than interpretting nothing in particular. I approve of using the Bible as your source of doctrine, though think they’re reading it through the wrong goggles.

Meanwhile, this specific pastor makes a few claims that I believe are his own views, loosely connected to the Bible for moral support:
1) He states that Palin wouldn’t drill because she’s a Christian. This is an overextension of Genesis, and ignores other parts of Genesis where we’re told to subjugate the natural world (not quite in those terms). My conclusion: The Bible doesn’t offer a clear opinion on pipelines in the Alaskan tundra. And to make a policy statement on her behalf, starting from such shaky biblical foundations, is manipulative and a little unsavory.
2) He underlines God’s sovereignty in dealing with the end times. This is a deft handling of that situation, and is accurate across most denominations. Whatever he really believes about specifics, he nailed that answer.
3) He gave an excellent answer for a summary of the worldview of a typical Christian in his congregation, namely “says God loves people, people can access him and he’s given us wisdom for living”. You can’t argue with that; it will resonate with most Christians.

The Jew-for-Jesus that spoke at her new church is a borderline heretic. Attributing specific disasters to God’s judgment involves divining God’s plan in dangerous ways. The same guy that would say that his grandfather died for God’s touchy-feely glorification somehow can’t willy-nilly decide that people dying when a bulldozer rams a car is judgment. Who winnows such events into those categories? Not this Brickner guy, I know that much.

Palin, meanwhile, is well versed in what I would call “Christian speak”. To “have a heart for XXXXX” is a very common modern Christianism. As someone who does not support legislative morality, I approve of Palin’s view on the difference between private views and public regulations.

Obama’s church background was a big black eye to his campaign. Palin’s shouldn’t be the same.

Ike presents himself awfully well despite his journey across Cuba. It’s looking like Texas should be keeping its wary eye on him.

If I may personify.

Addendum
Ike is off Cuba. Gustav looks raggedy coming off Cuba, but Ike looks angry. I’m guessing there’s going to be another bout of rapid strengthening in store for this guy. The entire Texas coast needs to be wary of this. Take a look at Figure 3 here. I think it’s going to have a northerly deviation over the official forecast. That should bring it through some really high heat content water. Houston, we have a problem.

Joe Bastardi, who I think is rightly forecasting doom this time, has pointed to this as an analog to Ike. I love historical hurricanes, neat stuff.

I can’t get a straight answer on when to prime when repainting walls. If you search online, you’ll find that the “experts” are almost unanimous in saying that it’s not necessary for clean, repainted walls. They’ll say that you should prime if the walls are stained, striped, or bare, but that it’s not necessary unless you’re doing a really dark with a really light. My old man is adamant about not priming either, citing the 18 houses he’s painted. My mother is for it, but apparently didn’t do it in our own, meticulously maintained house after a repaint.

The man on the street, however, almost always says that you should. Several people at work are of the opinion that you need to prime. Of course, some of these are people who haven’t painted in two decades, so maybe paints have changed.

As for us, we’re not going to prime. I think that most people in my generation don’t have first hand experience in both directions - they have advice passed down from yesteryear, when paints were made out of berries and mud. I have three different colors that I’m going to do my downstairs, which is currently coated with one color. I’m going to find some chunk of wall that isn’t particularly noticable and prime it, but then not prime the lions share of the room. We’ll see how it looks. Maybe I’ll do that for each color. Yes, that is the plan. This is another thing that everyone feels very strongly about.

Speaking of subprime, does anyone else think that it’s funny that I closed on a loan a week and a half ago, and now rates are expected to drop 20%?