I’m sorry this is so short. My dear friend llbear just published a diary at Daily Kos that contains very bad news about a veteran he’s trying to help … and about his own health.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/…
If you are a friend of his, if you have any contacts at the VA, or if you know anything about diabetes and short term memory loss, you might want to read and comment.
Thanks, y’all. ♥
UPDATE: I seem to have broken the site – I can’t post comments. Now I haz a sad …
Echoing the history of sterilization of African American, Native American and Puerto Rican women, which included testing toxic birth control dosages on women in PR, the latest reproductive rights outrage is taking place in Israel, where it has been disclosed that Ethiopian Jewish women (members of the Beta Israel) have been given Depo-Provera without informed consent.
Any Meeses from Maine? LoreleiHI over at GOS has a diary up urgently needing help:
From her diary:
Those of you who know me or follow me know that I haven’t been active on Daily Kos for about a month now. That has not been completely voluntary. My spouse decided to give in to self-medicating her PTSD with alcohol… and it has been a bad month.
Two nights ago she was arrested for domestic violence.
She is looking for a place to stay out of an abusive situation that will take her & her service dog. It kills me that I’m too far away to help other than posting her plea over here.
As I write, President Obama is speaking about immigration. His opening to this hot topic was seemingly cold-hearted: he focused on the economic reasons for immigration reform – to keep skilled immigrants, to stop employers from having to compete with ones that hire undocumented workers and exploit them, to get the new jobs and new industries that immigrants may build. It sounded very Republican in focus, in short.
Now President Obama has moved on to the kinds of justifications that we would have expected: re-uniting families, opening opportunities, sparing people the fear and exploitation of the shadow economy. He’s telling the wonderful human stories behind immigration (a young man who was the first to benefit from the Dreamer executive order and is now in college, preparing for the Air Force).
This is a powerful example of something called “consilience,” the property of being the right course of action for multiple reasons. In this speech President Obama laid out the very diverse reasons for immigration reform. In doing so, he is giving Republicans the tools to sell it to their supporters and Democrats a different set of tools for theirs. Is one set of reasons the “real” set? No, there really are multiple, different reasons for reform. It’s lovely to have an adult for President who can see so many of them.
I have a massive headache so I’m just messing around with art programs. The weather is going wonky and that always inflames my sinuses. Looking at some art I’ve been working on recently I thought I’d go ahead and share.
Call of the Wild
Caregiver’s Rainbow (That is Pixie and I.)
Churchyard
Daydreaming
Golden Dragon (In Chinese mythology dragons are good creatures and protectors.)
Io (Why you may not want to vacation on this moon of Jupiter.)
Moon Petal Musk (Inspired by one of my favorite bath product fragrances.)
Peace (Something we all need in our lives. Picture inspired by my late Dad.)
River of Dreams
Stormy Weather
I have been a member of The Daily Kos for many years. I have made a lot of on-line friends there. They came together and made a community quilt for me. The helped me through the death of my Mom, the loss of my job, the sudden death of my brother, and all the stress that Mike’s death brought. Lately I have been involved in numerous conversations as one of the Admins for Courtesy Kos. I am beginning to wonder if it is all worth it.
The latest in fighting regarding gun control has gotten totally out of control. The influx of neo-Nazi trolls and the invasion of IGTNT is horrendous. The following of people around and Hring them and sending threatening Kosmails to them doesn’t seem to bother TPTB over there. Kos publishes a “I’m going to ban people who write TTFN diaries” without bothering to read the diaries and find out what the problem is.
The dilemma I have is that I have committed to writing diaries over there. I regularly publish the Street Prophets Thursday Coffee Hour and Sunday All Day Brunch. Since we lost our own little corner of the world the only place we have in over at Daily Kos. I don’t want to let the people down that I have promised to write for but this constant in fighting is really getting me down.
Any one have any suggestions? I have diaries ready to go for Kosability on February 3rd, The Grieving Rooms for February 4th, Books That Changed My Life on February 8th, and What Are You Working On for February 10th. Those I’ve committed to. Do I just do Street Prophets after that? Should I ask someone else to take over Thursday and Sunday from me? I’m just torn. I don’t want to let people who are counting on me down.
Those of you who already either know me or know of me know that I am a massive pootie person. We moved into an apartment and now have a pootie, named Princess Ashley; however I grew up with both cats & dogs and I love both. I do not discriminate against any animal & love animal photos of all kinds. Please enjoy the following and add any photos that you think the community would like to see. Now, enjoy the photos & have some fun.
(Also posted to the orange fainting couch.)
A strong cold front that is currently moving through the Central Plains states will act as the proverbial spark in the powder keg this afternoon, firing off severe thunderstorms across parts of the southern United States. Given the upper-level dynamics associated with this system, there is a moderate (several magnitudes higher than normal) risk of significant, long-track, violent tornadoes over a large area of real estate this afternoon and evening.
The main threats today will be significant, long-track, violent tornadoes, as well as violent straight-line winds.
The SPC has issued a moderate risk for severe weather (red) across a large chunk of the south. The yellow area is a slight risk, and the green area indicates a risk for general, non-severe thunderstorms.
Here’s the tornado probability chart. An area with a 15% chance of tornadoes means that there is a 15% chance that at least one tornado will touch down within 15 miles of any point in the shaded area. The black hatched area indicates the risk for significant (EF-2 or higher), long-track tornadoes.
Here’s the severe wind (greater than 60 MPH) map. Percentages work the same as they do with the tornadoes. The black hatched area indicates a risk for severe thunderstorm winds greater than 75 MPH.
A strong cold front is moving across the Central Plains states into a very warm, very soupy airmass being pumped in straight off the Gulf of Mexico:
A cold front ramming into this warm unstable air will wreak havoc for the areas outlined by the Storm Prediction Center above. Winds at 850 millibars (about 5500 feet off the ground) are screaming along in what’s called a low-level jet (LLJ), reaching speeds of almost 80 MPH. Winds at the jet stream level (30-35,000 feet off the ground) are moving along at almost 175 MPH.
This change in speed and direction with height is called wind shear, and along with the massive amounts of instability from the warm air, and the forced lift from the cold front, extremely strong storms are expected to develop this afternoon.
The storms are initially forming as individual supercells, which carry the greatest risk for tornadoes. Over time (probably later tonight) these supercells will start to merge with each other and create an intense squall line along the cold front as it heads into the southeastern and eastern parts of the United States.
CORRECTION: The supercells are forming out ahead of the main squall line along the cold front. The individual, more dangerous storms will come through first with the tornado threat, and be almost immediately followed by the damaging winds of the main squall line.
What we’re most concerned about are the supercells that form before the squall line. The shear I mentioned before creates a horizontal rolling motion in the atmosphere — think of a cardboard tube tilted on its side. This rolling tube of air can be tilted vertically by the strong updrafts in thunderstorms, making the entire storm begin to rotate.
This rotation is what facilitates the development of tornadoes. We measure this with something called “storm relative helicity.” Essentially, the higher the number, the more likely we are to see strong tornadoes. The threshold changes based on a number of factors, but in this type of setup we typically see tornadoes begin to form with SRH values of around 250.
SRH values are expected to climb up beyond 500, especially over Arkansas, this afternoon.
The supercells, by nature, will eventually form into a strong squall line and move east. When this occurs, the tornado threat will die down and the damaging wind threat will ramp up.
National Weather Service Main Page
National Weather Service — Central Oklahoma
National Weather Service — Dallas/Ft Worth TX
National Weather Service — Tulsa OK
National Weather Service — Springfield MO
National Weather Service — Arkansas (whole state)
National Weather Service — Paducah KY
National Weather Service — Shreveport LA
National Weather Service — Memphis TN
National Weather Service — Jackson MS
National Weather Service — Huntsville AL
National Weather Service — Birmingham AL
Storm Prediction Center Main Page
Storm Prediction Center — Current Severe Weather Watches
Storm Prediction Center — Convective (Severe Weather) Outlooks
Storm Prediction Center — Mesoscale Discussions
Storm Prediction Center — Storm Reports
Storm Prediction Center — Mesoscale Analysis Pages
Wunderground’s Detailed Radar (click the + nearest to you to see your local radar)
TwisterData.com’s excellent GFS/NAM/RAP model website.
Cross Posted at The Progressive Zionist
Over at the Maddow Blog we have reports from the newest Village Idiot (even by Congressional Standards) Ted Cruz (R-Secessionist Republic of Texas).
Here let’s let the idiocy speak for itself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
In this clip, at around the 0:44 mark, Cruz notes that the Senate has “two pending nominations, John Kerry and Chuck Hagel.” Describing the nominees, Cruz added, “Both of whom are very prominently…”
After pausing for a few moments, the event’s moderator said, “Anti-us?” Cruz responded that Kerry and Hagel are “less than ardent fans of the U.S. military.”
Perhaps Ted Cruz would benefit from a reminder about the men he’s attacking. John Kerry is a decorated war hero who was awarded combat medals including the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts. Chuck Hagel is a decorated war hero who was awarded combat medals including the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry, two Purple Hearts, Army Commendation Medal, and the Combat Infantryman Badge.
Cruz, meanwhile, who apparently considers himself an “ardent fan of the U.S. military,” has never worn a uniform, except maybe on Halloween.
But then watch some more… Cruz goes on to solidify his claims to the title by saying that Ronald Reagan should have won the Nobel Peace Prize because he “caused the downfall of the Soviet Union and won the Cold War”.
Anyway, the sheer stupidity / ignorance of saying that two decorated War Heroes (no matter what else one may feel about either man), don’t love “us” (he did not say “the U.S.” he said “us”) are “anti-the U.S. military” is mind boggling in it’s wrongness. To say that both men only favor judicious use of the military or are anti-militarism would be far more accurate. BUT for someone who has never served in any military role to accuse two decorated war heroes, in leadership positions in the U.S. Government as being anti-U.S. military is mindblowingly dumb.
OH yeah, AND in the case of Chuck Hagel. These morons at the National Review Institute Summit should remember that not too long ago their guy Hagel was racking up scores from the American Conservative Union of over 95 on his voting record.
Oh well just another day in wingnuttia.
Having recently arrived on your welcoming purple shores, I’ve been thinking about immigration. It’s a subject that amazes and perplexes me, and one that our witless politicians are finally beginning to grapple with, but for all the wrong reasons. They see what all the rest of us have seen for years: the US is no country for old [white] men. While our politicians were busy re-fighting the battles of the past, millions of folks in search of opportunity have quietly entered the country and begun living, working, and studying along with the rest of us.
It’s an enormously complex and interesting challenge. As usual, the politicians approach it primarily from the perspective of near-term personal advancement. They can’t win without the Hispanic vote, gosh darn it all to heck. Guess it’s time to do something, they sigh. Just have to be careful not to scare away the old white guys, so we’ll be sure to include a big fence with concertina wire and armed guards. Plus our contractor friends will get some good work out of it.
Me? I’m not a politician, thank [insert name of deity here]. I’m just the daughter of an immigrant mom, trying to connect the dots in hopes that I can figure out what’s happened so far, and what might come next. So please pull up a chair, and let’s try to sort this out together. Maybe we can make some sense of all this.
A World War I veteran in the medical corps and prominent neurosurgeon in Berlin, my grandfather left Nazi Germany in 1938, arriving in the US. He learned English, and obtained a position as a university lecturer (for a salary of $500 per year) while studying to re-take all of his medical boards in every field of medicine, not just his specialties of neurology and psychiatry (in English, of course), before being allowed to practice medicine. Then, in order to become a naturalized citizen, he had to leave the US and re-enter. He took a bus from Boston to Miami, traveled to Cuba by boat, then back into the US. Only then could he send for my mother and grandmother to join him.
Back in Germany, my mother and grandmother packed up their belongings under the watchful eye of the Gestapo, who required that every item taken out of the country be inventoried. Under ordinary circumstances, this would be an irritating and time-consuming hassle.
Heightening the danger in this case was the fact that my grandmother was smuggling out hundreds of black-listed books by authors that had been critical of the Third Reich.
Picture: The Conte di Savoia – Gateway to America for My Mother and Grandmother