Unemployment & Housing Numbers Still Bad

The ranks of the unemployed jumped in the last week, much more than those high-paid economists predicted. How, in this crummy economy, economists can miss all the job layoff announcements by companies in every sector is beyond me. Corporations did well in the 2001-2007 time frame. But they didn’t hire like they did in the past, despite their good fortunes. Which means when the economy headed south late last year and all of this year, those same corporations aren’t going to hire now. Unemployment grew by 34,000 people to 406,000. The unemployment rate remained steady at 5.5%, but is expected to hit 6% by early next year.

The way these numbers are counted and calculated is a joke. It’s not indicative of the real employment situation Americans face. I’ve read estimates that the unemployment rate is probably double what the Labor Department reports. Because after all, 5.5% sounds a lot better than 10%+, doesn’t it? More and more people are looking around their communities and realizing the actual numbers are worse that what’s reported. It’s why more Americans surveyed believe the economy is in worse shape than our elected officials do.

The number of existing homes sold in June fell 2.6% from May’s numbers. Once again, the number was larger than economists expected. The housing crisis is far from over. How are people going to buy new houses when they can’t afford the houses they’re already paying on and thousands are losing their mediocre jobs?

These are but a few of the wonderful things conservative economic policies give us!

Atlantic Tropical Weather Update 7/24/08

Dolly made landfall yesterday as a Category 2 hurricane. Since then, she’s produced a good deal of rain, and a few tornadoes. She’s currently nearing the Texas-Mexico border as she continues to move inland.  Her vitals:

27.5N, 99.3W; moving WNW @ 9mph; maximum sustained winds of 45mph; minimum pressure of 992mb.

The models are in agreement with the outlier yesterday: a continued WNW/NW movement, more or less hugging the Texas-Mexico border.  By the time the storm system gets to the TX-NM border, a more NWN movement is likely.  Finally, the system should get caught up in the mid-latitude flow and move northerly, then north-easterly.

***

Tropical Storm Cristobal is no more.  He’s been caught up in the extratropics.

***

Invest-97 hasn’t changed much since yesterday.  Dry air has stalled development of what was a very impressive wave that came off the coast of Africa.  Model solutions from yesterday afternoon don’t look much different than they did the day before.  The system is expected to slowly make its way west across the Atlantic.  At some point, a turn toward the NW could occur.  At some point, intensification could occur.  The mid-Atlantic ridge’s strength and location will determine where the system goes.  The location of dry air around the storm will determine if it gets a chance to strengthen.

Another cluster of convection has emerged off Africa’s coast.  This system is located about 10N, or 5S further than Invest-97.  It hasn’t been classified as an area of interest by the NHC yet.

Atlantic Tropical Weather Update 7/23/08

Hurricane Dolly is the big news of the day again. Hurricane Dolly strengthened since last night to a Category 2 hurricane. Her vitals:

26.0N, 97.0W; maximum sustained winds of 100mph (gusts to 120mph); moving NW @ 6mph (she finally slowed down over-night); minimum pressure of 964mb.

Dolly could strengthen a little more before making landfall, but likely won’t make Category 3 status. We’ll see though. Her eye is currently just off the Texas coast, with massive rain bands having moved over Texas all night dropping a lot of rain. I haven’t seen anything official, but I would guess the eye will make landfall within the next couple of hours, to the north-east of Brownsville (which means her track shifted slightly to the north since yesterday).

Her future movement is likely to take her further inland, across southern Texas and over Mexico. Only one model solution takes her to the NW, tracking close to the Texas-Mexico border before moving over New Mexico. She should keep hurricane-force winds a ways into Texas before weakening to a Tropical Storm tomorrow morning and a Tropical Depression tomorrow night.

One thing that frustrates me is the continued lack of preparedness, despite massive disasters like Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Every time a storm makes US landfall, we hear reports of people rushing to stores to stock up on materials. That shouldn’t be happening still.

[Update 2:00P MDT]:

Dolly has made landfall.  Her winds have decreased slightly to 95mph sustained, weakening her back to Category 1 strength.  A few tornadoes have been reported.  As I talked about above, the main problem will be with rain: 8-12 inches in many places, with as much as 20 inches in more localized regions.  Flash floods are a major concern; a couple flash flood warnings have already been issued.

***

Onto Tropical Storm Cristobal, which continues to churn away in the northern Atlantic. He’s at 44.7N, 55.9W; moving ENE @ 31mph; maximum sustained winds of 45 mph; minimum pressure of 1003mb.

He’s expected to turn toward the SE later today. The models are pretty consistent in forecasting a track between 40N and 45N across the Atlantic on its way to Europe. He should be downgraded to a Tropical Depression sometime tomorrow.

***

Invest-97 hasn’t changed much since yesterday. It’s location is west of the Cape Verde islands now. The environmental conditions aren’t great for development, thus the NHC has given it <20% chance of organizing into a Tropical Depression. Model solutions from today don’t seem to be available. I’ll keep watching it’s progress.

Atlantic Tropical Weather Update 7/22/08

Today, Tropical Storm Dolly remains the top news. Let’s start with her vitals:

24.0N, 94.5W; moving NW @ 11mph; maximum sustained winds of 70mph; minimum pressure of 991mb.

Just a little more sustained wind speed and Dolly will become a Category 1 hurricane. In fact, she is expected to do so by sundown tonight. She is moving over very warm Gulf of Mexico waters and has upper-air support in the form of a 200mb anticyclone, which aids her outflow of rising air.

The biggest change from yesterday is with her forecasted track. The two models indicating a more southerly landfall appear now to have been correct. Thus, the eyewall should come over land very near the Texas-Mexico border, right around Brownsville. I’ll repeat what I wrote yesterday: more importantly, hurricane force and tropical storm force winds will extend for many miles away from the eyewall. Those are the features that folks need to pay attention to as Dolly comes ashore. She should do so as a Category 1, then weaken back to Tropical Storm strength for about a day before degrading to a Tropical Depression again. Her weakening won’t reduce her potential lethality as torrential rains will be the main characteristic of the storm as she moves across Mexico. The extended track is very uncertain: some model solutions show her moving across all of Mexico, while one turns her northwestward and over western Texas and southeastern New Mexico in five plus days.

Aesthetically, Dolly looks good on satellite imagery. A clear eye is forming, and has been measured to be about 20nm across, which is pretty big. Concentric rings of convective clouds are swirling into the middle of the storm.

[Update 3:20P MDT]:

Dolly has strengthened to a Category 1 hurricane. Hurricane hunter aircraft data measured winds at flight level than when extrapolated to the surface, pass the threshold for hurricane strength. Additionally, Dvorak estimates confirm Dolly’s strength. Her updated vitals:

24.6N, 95.3W; maximum surface winds of 75mph; minimum surface pressure of 985.0mb.

Some further strengthening is expected before Dolly makes official landfall, probably as a strong Category 1 storm. That landfall is still expected to occur somewhere near the Texas-Mexico border, near Brownsville, TX sometime Wednesday afternoon. Thereafter, weakening back to Tropical Storm status should occur ~24 hours after landfall and to Tropical Depression statues ~24 hours after that. Heavy rains and strong winds will be the main problems associated with this storm.

More after the fold.

***

Random Pieces 7/22/08

Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn is personally holding 100 bills up in procedural gamesmanship. That’s despite the fact that the bills have no serious opposition and even broad support. That’s despite the fact that Sen. Coburn has been in the Senate as long as Sen. Barack Obama. Do we hear about Sen. Coburn’s inexperience as a reason he shouldn’t be where he is? Of course not. Sen. Coburn is just acting like an ass. He’s playing the Republican playbook of “government can’t work” to an extreme. He and his extremist ideologues want to show the American people just how little work the Congress can do.

In a brilliant and likely unprecedented move, Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid is gathering the bills into what’s called an omnibus and will bring that to the floor. Instead of taking up time with 100 individual bills, the Senate will consider only one.

Sen. Coburn is up for reelection in 2010. I’ll support his opponent enthusiastically.

***

Isn’t it interesting how the price of oil is “plummeting” as Congress looks to pass legislation that would crackdown on unregulated speculation of commodities? Throw this on top of the giant list of examples that demonstrate the market isn’t free, as conservatives have been crowing about for too long. Remember, the price of oil kept going up despite a significant decrease in demand earlier this year.

***

Barack Obama’s campaign is launching Solutions for Colorado, which is a good thing. The first two events, however, are being hosted by the most right-leaning Democrats Colorado has to offer: the Salazar brothers.

Our first event is in Pueblo, where we’ll share our ideas on the economy and be joined by Rep. John Salazar. At our second event in Windsor, we’ll be joined by Sen. Ken Salazar to discuss our energy solutions for Colorado.

What about Reps. DeGette or Udall, both of whom have been in office longer and both of whom are more progressive than the Salazars? This is an interesting way to begin these meetings and points toward a likely mode of behavior if Obama is elected President: tacking right in search of the mythical center.

***

Colorado Daily Asking CO-02 Candidates Questions: Health Care

Up until today, I was unaware the Colorado Daily was engaging the candidates in CO-02 (to replace Rep. Mark Udall) leading questions of our time. There have been a few already and another today. I’m going to take a look at today’s article and then cover the others in posts in the near future. Today’s question dealt with health care:

What do you think the federal government should do about health care in the near term, and why?

Jared Polis’s answer was good overall, though a little wonky. Perhaps that will work in the high-tech area of CO-02. He identifies the problem as:

The problem is we don’t get a bang for our buck – we pay more and get less.

Then talks about his solution:

This is why I support Healthcare for all, a publicly funded, privately delivered health-care system that extends similar coverage as the Medicare program to all Americans of all ages, regardless of their employment, income, health status, pre-existing condition, or any other factor.

This is a very good solution. Medicare is the most successful public program in the history of our country. It delivers care (gasp!) to those it covers and has the lowest level of administrative cost than any other health care program, public or private. He points out that citizens will pay less for their care, and that businesses will also encounter significant savings too. The only losers? Bloated insurance corporations and their overpaid executives. After all, health care is a right, not a privilege.

Renewable Energy in 10 Years

Climate Progress has a transcript of Gore’s speech last week.  Gore mentions that perhaps the biggest obstacle is our dysfunctional political system.  I agree and will point out again that a large reason for that is the millions upon millions of dollars that Exxon and other Big Energy corporations have donated to extreme-right think-tanks to produce papers calling real scientific work into question.  This allows extremist politicians like Sen. Inhofe to deny and delay practical, needed solutions.

Jerome posted this Thursday. There has been plenty going on since then, so I’m slowly catching up and accumulating resources about it. Jerome’s bottom line: Gore’s plan can be enacted. Challenges certainly exist, but the time-frame is right and the energy crisis and climate crisis we face at this moment in time call for action of this level.

desmoinesdem had some additional commentary.  The transportation sector cannot be divorced from the energy sector while discussing these issues.

I want to bring up a contrast: where would we be today if instead of spending $10B dollars every month to occupy Iraq, any substantial portion of that sum were directed toward a goal like the one outlined by Gore?  What if, instead of borrowing money from the Chinese to give away to the Middle East, the U.S. had gone into a smaller debt in order to rebuild our aging power infrastructure?  That debt could have been paid off because investing it here would create thousands and thousands of new, good paying jobs.  That would have helped support our economy through the conservative-policy created recession we’re now in.

That work will still need to be done.  Only now it will cost more up front and we have a smaller window of opportunity to accomplish the goals presented by Gore.  That’s not a reason to wring our hands and whine about how hard it might be.  It’s a reason to stop allowing extremists like Sen. Inhofe and Dr. Gray to dominate the discussion in the corporate media.  They’re not offering solutions – they’re throwing tantrums like children.

I for one fully support standing up and doing the hard work to produce all of our electricity from renewable sources within 10 years.  It’s doable and it’s necessary.

Atlantic Tropical Weather Update 7/21/08

There have been some important developments since yesterday. First, Bertha is no longer a tropical system. She had a lifetime of 17 days. She was the first hurricane and first major hurricane of the season, reaching Category 3 strength on July 7th. I’ve heard she set some significant marks during her life, so I’ll try to collect those.

Second, Tropical Storm Cristobal has moved away from the U.S. coast. After making South and North Carolina windy and sending heavy rains over the states over the weekend, he has moved out over more open waters. His vitals as of this morning:

36.6N, 72.6W; maximum sustained winds of 65mph, 9 below Hurricane strength; moving NE @ 12mph; minimum pressure of 1000mb, which isn’t all that strong, quite frankly. The models continue to do a good job of depicting Cristobal’s future movement toward Newfoundland, then moving due east at about 45N. Some south-easterly movement is possible after he reaches 47W. His impacts to land should continue to decrease.

The big news of the day is Tropical Storm Dolly. As expected, she passed of the Yucatan Peninsula last night and has reemerged over the Gulf of Mexico, which is quite warm this time of year. Let’s look at her vitals first:

22.1N, 89.5W; moving WNW @ 18mph; maximum sustained winds of 50mph; minimum pressure of 1005mb.

That location is particularly important for fossil fuel extraction operations in the Gulf over the next couple of days. It shouldn’t amount to anything major, but shutting down drilling for even a couple of days in the current oil price environment should cause a minor uprise to prices.

Dolly is expected to strengthen until the time she makes her second landfall. The exact location of landfall (defined as the point over which the eye passes) remains uncertain and it will until just a handful of hours before landfall. More importantly, this storm will likely make landfall as a Category 1 hurricane. That means a wide area on both sides of the eye will be experiencing hurricane force winds and an even larger area will be experiencing tropical storm force winds. The models are in better agreement this morning that that landfall will occur on Texas’ coast sometime Wednesday. Thus, our first direct hit of the season. It’s a good thing Dolly waited so long to form as she made her way across the Atlantic. This storm could have formed well before yesterday, in which case we would be talking about all the destruction in Mexico.

I’ll update this as the day goes on.

***

[Update 1:55P MDT]:

Taking a closer look at Dolly’s projected path, three solutions indicate that Dolly could come ashore south-west of Corpus Christi.  Two other models predict landfall south of Texas, in Mexico.  The official track forecast is a compromise between these solutions and estimates landfall to be just north-east of Brownsville.

Also, I neglected to mention that the tropical wave coming off of Africa is pretty strong.  Development of this system is expected to occur in the next few days.  If this happens, another Cape Verde storm will be born.  Stay tuned

Atlantic Tropical Weather Update 7/20/08

Well, systems are starting to come together after a long stretch of non-genesis.  Yesterday, Tropical Storm Cristobal formed off the South Carolina coast.  Today, Tropical Storm Dolly formed in the western Caribbean.  Meanwhile, Betsy has been downgraded to a Tropical Storm again as she continues to move across the Atlantic.  Let’s take a look at all the vitals:

Betsy: 51.3N, 35.7W; maximum sustained winds of 70mph; moving NE @ 35mph; minimum pressure of 987mb.  Betsy has been caught up in the westerlies.  She has about one day left in her before she interacts with Iceland.  She has had quite the history.

Cristobal: 34.5N, 76.4W; maximum sustained winds of 50mph; moving NE @ 6mph; minimum pressure of 1007mb.  Cristobal is having slight impacts on South and North Carolina’s coasts.  Some rains have been heavy at times as well as convective cells move inland due to Cristobal.  Cristobal’s movement should remain toward the north-east.  His speed will increase as a mid-level trough accelerates him in front of it.  I still expect, as does the NHC, Cristobal to impact Newfoundland sometime Tuesday.

Dolly: 18.4N, 84.2W; maximum sustained winds of 45mph; moving NW @ 17mph; minimum pressure of 1011mb.  Dolly is forecasted to move across the Yucatan Peninsula (not Belize, as I had misidentified earlier) probably later tonight.  She is expected to re-emerge over the Gulf of Mexico Monday during the day.  Thereafter, the track becomes important but highly variable.  There is a small chance Dolly could track a little more north thanf west and impact southern Texas.  Most model solutions keep Dolly further to the south and give Dolly a second landfall over Mexico.

The National Hurricane Center is also keeping an eye on a small area of low pressure 325 south-east of Bermuda.  Development is not expected to take place due to inhibatory environmental factors.  Another tropical wave is emerging form over Africa.  It is broad and disorganized, but will keep an eye on it as it makes its way across the Atlantic.

Terrorism Funds Doing What?!

A good example of how oversight is sorely needed:

The Air Force’s top leadership sought for three years to spend counterterrorism funds on “comfort capsules” to be installed on military planes that ferry senior officers and civilian leaders around the world, with at least four top generals involved in design details such as the color of the capsules’ carpet and leather chairs, according to internal e-mails and budget documents.

Would anybody like to tell me how this is making me safer?