Rainy Day

Monday morning and all is fine, as long as you’re inside. Rain is the most common word in the forecast for the week, along with a mention of possible flooding. I was looking at the NOAA website yesterday and found it to be filled with a lot more information than what is provided by Yahoo Weather or the Weather Channel. Everything from wind speeds to river heights is covered. And you can zero in on local weather by clicking on their maps and getting to within a mile or two of your location. Too bad they don’t have an RSS feed so I could receive it automatically. Here’s a sample…

For: 0.6 miles north of Orland. Created: February 27, 2006 04:24:12 PSTRest of the morning: Cloudy. Low 49. Today: Rain. Probability of measurable precipitation 100 percent. Southeast wind 30 mph. High 59. Tonight: Occasional thunderstorms. Southeast wind 31 mph. Low 45.

And here is the link to the river heights.

And what else is new? I received a newsletter from Whiskey and Gunpowder the other day and found some of the writing to be quite credible…and some was simply odd. Here are some excerpts.

“I understand why people are upset that the Bush administration OK'd the sale of operation of six major American ports… to Dubai Ports World. (DPW)

After all, DPW is controlled by the United Arab Emirates, which really means our port operations are now owned by the UAE royal family. The CIA once held off on targeting Osama bin Laden because half the UAE royal family was visiting him in Afghanistan.”

That is certainly enough information to make you wonder, just what is going on? The article goes on to explain why it could be a good idea to continue to let foreign countries operate our ports (as they have for the past 30 years).

“It might actually INCREASE security. Only 5% of the shipments into America's ports are inspected now. Compare that with Hong Kong, which inspects 100% of shipments at ports. Since 24 of the 25 biggest ship terminal operators worldwide are foreign based, most of the containers sent to the United States leave terminals operated by foreign governments or companies. So if terrorists want to send a nuclear bomb via container ship into an American city, they're not waiting for the UAE to control the ports. They'll just do it anyway.
Point is, the UAE taking over control of six American ports might actually shock the do-nothings in Washington into funding a port security system with real teeth.”

The gang from Whiskey and Gunpowder are “Gold bugs” and extreme Libertarians, so you need to take it all in with a grain of salt.