The guy who seems to have gotten the best and most footage of Harvey coming ashore seems to be Jeff Piotrowski, a storm chaser who rode out the storm in his car in Rockport while live-streaming the event.
“Hurricane Harvey barrelled into the Texas coast around 10 p..m. Friday as one of the most powerful hurricane to strike the Texas coast in decades.The Category 4 storm made landfall between Port Aransas and Port O’Connor, according to the National Hurricane Center.”
Remember, by the time Hurricane Ike hit Texas, it was only a Category 2 hurricane. Ike caused over $27 billion in damage and left 37 people dead.
“Forecasters said it has the potential of being the strongest hurricane to hit Texas since Hurricane Carla in 1961, which killed 34 and injured 465 when it made landfall near Port Lavaca. The storm had maximum sustained winds near 130 mph with higher gusts ”
More:
The National Weather Service issued flash flood watches for the following counties: Harris, Fort Bend, Brazoria, Galveston, Montgomery, Waller, Liberty, Grimes, Chambers, Brazos, Colorado, Austin, Washington, Jackson, Burleson and Wharton.
Harvey is expected to produce total rainfall amounts of 15 to 35 inches, with isolated pockets of 40 inches through next Wednesday. The weather service said “rainfall of this magnitude will cause catastrophic and life-threatening flooding.”
Here’s a report from the coast in Corpus Christi at 5 PM, when the storm was still offshore and only a category 3, and it’s still almost blowing the reporter over:
Residents of the rest of the state should get ready for a whole lot of rain over the next few days…
Texas officials announced mandatory evacuations for all seven counties on the coast: Calhoun County, San Patricio County, Refugio County, Brazoria County, Jackson County, Victoria County and Matagorda County. In four of those countries, officials ordered their entire county to evacuate and warned those who chose to stay behind that their rescue could not be guaranteed. Voluntary evacuations have been urged for residents in other areas.
To summarize, the indictment is an exercise in omission. No mention of the Awan group’s theft of information from Congress. Not a hint about the astronomical sums the family was paid, much of it for no-show “work.” Not a word about Wasserman Schultz’s keeping Awan on the payroll for six months during which (a) he was known to be under investigation, (b) his wife was known to have fled to Pakistan, and (c) he was not credentialed to do the IT work for which he had been hired. Nothing about Wasserman Schultz’s energetic efforts to prevent investigators from examining Awan’s laptop. A likely currency-transportation offense against Alvi goes uncharged. And, as for the offenses that are charged, prosecutors plead them in a manner that avoids any reference to what should be their best evidence.
The Democratic National Committee just posted its worst July fundraising numbers in a decade, raising questions about why the party machine cannot capitalize on President Trump’s low approval ratings and whether new Chairman Tom Perez is up to the task.
The DNC raised $3.8 million last month, compared to $10.2 million for the Republican National Committee. The tally fit a pattern for the Democrats, who have posted a string of depressed fundraising numbers month after month this year, even after new party boss Perez took charge in February.
Why, it’s almost like Russian conspiracy theories, LARP Nazis and the the imminent threat of Confederate statues doesn’t motivate Democratic donors to open their wallets. Or that Bernie Sanders supporters realize that the DNC is still the the hands of the same corrupt Clinton cronies who rigged the 2016 primaries…
“Ask yourself a few questions: Does the typical ‘swing’ voter who made the difference for Trump in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin consider monuments to Robert E. Lee a major social problem?”
“Arrest warrants are out for three men who skipped their arraignments yesterday after being cuffed following the ‘Free Speech Rally’ on the Boston Common Saturday and massive counterdemonstration.” So if you spot Antifa dumbasses Adan Daroba, Roberto Bonilla or Chad Cruger, contact the police… (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Update: Joshua Stuart Cobin, AKA “tear gas in the nads guy” has been arrested for assault, evidently for kicking the tear gas canister back toward police. There are a lot of real crimes numerous Antifa protestors should be arrested for, but this one seems a very dubious charge if that’s all it’s for.
Oh yeah, we’ll repeal Obamacare. Oh yeah, we’ll defend the border. Oh yeah, we’ll defund the baby-butchering cartel. Oh yeah, blah blah blah blah blah. All lies, but they didn’t care. They had their power and prestige and the promise of a fat paycheck down the road when they moved from Congress to K Street. Actual conservative ideology? Well, that was for the rubes. And we were the rubes. We in the base, who are suffering from the establishment’s incompetent mismanagement of the society it had been foolish to try to micromanage in the first place, tried to warn them. But the Fredocons wouldn’t listen, because they’re smart, not like everyone says, like dumb…
That warning was called ‘the Tea Party,” and the GOP establishment didn’t like it either. Remember how all those activated Republican voters helped recapture Congress, yet most of the establishment types looked at them like they were something nasty that was smeared on their shoes? See, the base isn’t supposed to be activated. It’s supposed to be obedient. It’s supposed to turn out on election day to do volunteer work and write checks. It’s not supposed to try to have input. That’s for our betters, not for us.
But the thing is, now we’re woke, and we’ve realized that our establishment sucks, and that we’re tired of being the suckees. They didn’t listen to us when we gave them the Tea Party, so now we gave them Trump. And they’re very, very upset with us. That’s a key reason they want to undercut Trump. Some people are just always going to want to trash the guy getting the attention and wielding the influence they think rightfully belongs to them. That’s true whether they are some donkey–looking senator from Arizona or Nebraska pimping a book about his agonizing moral struggles, or some tiresome op-ed scribbler serving as the domesticated house conservative on a failing liberal rag, or the invasion-happy beneficiary of his parents’ success who finds he can’t fill the cabins on his brochure’s cruises anymore.
“Chief Obamacare Architect Fired, Forced To Settle Fraudulent Billing Investigation In Vermont.” I know we were all hoping he’d be pushed off the Nakatomi Tower…
You say that White Nationalists believe that everyone who goes to college is an “academic elite.” You then say that Republicans promote “anti-intellectualism.” You offer no proof to support either claim, but it really doesn’t matter – your statements successfully connect two radically different organizations by alleging a shared belief. Thus, White Nationalists and The Republican Party suddenly have something in common – a contempt for higher education. Then, you make it personal. You say that Republicans “love” me because they believe that my initiative and “their” initiative are one and the same. But of course, “their” initiative is now the same initiative as White Nationalists.
Very clever. Without offering a shred of evidence, you’ve implied that Republicans who support mikeroweWORKS do so because they believe I share their disdain for all things “intellectual.” And poof – just like that, Republicans, White Nationalists, and mikeroweWORKS are suddenly conflated, and the next thing you know, I’m off on a press tour to disavow rumors of my troubling association with the Nazis!
Far-fetched? Far from it. That’s how logical fallacies work. A flaw in reasoning or a mistaken belief undermines the logic of a conclusion, often leading to real-world consequences. And right now, logical fallacies are not limited to the warped beliefs of morons with tiki torches, and other morons calling for “more dead cops.” Logical fallacies are everywhere.
“One Statistics Professor Was Just Banned By Google.” Statistics professor Salil Mehta, adjunct professor at Columbia and Georgetown who teaches probability and data science, was banned by Google last Friday. “On Friday afternoon East Coast Time by surprise, I was completely shut down in all my Google accounts (all of my gmail accounts, blog, all of my university pages that were on google sites, etc.) for no reason and no warning.” His blog isn’t political and his Twitter account follows several prominent Democrats. (Update: restored.)
“For many Republicans, what matters most about Donald Trump is that he’s demonstrated resolve against the enemy — not the Islamic State or the Taliban, but the media.”
The Village Voice to end print publication. “Under its current ownership, the paper eliminated sex advertising.” Given that’s the only way “alternative” weeklies make money, I bet that was the final nail in the coffin. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Harvey is expected to be a Class III Hurricane by the time it makes landfall on the Texas coast late Friday or early Saturday. Predictions are for as much as 30 inches of rain in some places, as well as up to a 12 foot storm surge in coastal areas.
Mandatory evacuations have been issued for Aransas Pass and Calhoun County, as well as parts of Brazoria and Matagorda Counties.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has preemptively declared 30 counties disaster areas, which automatically makes a lot of state resources available to local officials.
If you live on or near the Texas coast between Brownsville and Port Lavaca, now would be a darn good to to load up your car, tape your windows, lock your doors and evacuate.
Even in central Texas, be prepared for flooding in low-lying areas, avoid low water crossings, and have adequate food and water supplies in the event of a loss of power.
CNN convened a focus group of Trump supporters on Charlottesville, evidently expecting that President Trump’s statement that “both sides were to blame” would cause them to abandon him and repent of their apostasy from the MSM Narrative.
Despite leading, badgering questions from Alisyn Camerota, CNN got a face full of exactly what they weren’t expecting: Continued articulate support for Trump and pushback against the “Saintly Antifa takes on Devilish Neo-Nazis” narrative they’ve been peddling.
A few choice quotes:
“I think it’s ridiculous to have me choose between Hitler and Stalin which is what I consider both groups are.”
“I don’t trust anything the news media says anymore.”
“I think it was a setup. There were busses coming in, with lots of young people. Protestors coming of the same bus, some wearing Black Lives Matter, some wearing KKK shirts.”
CNN: “And you trust Facebook more than news organizations?” Panelist: “Oh yeah! Live video from people who shot it? Yeah.”
You might want to watch this before CNN realizes just how bad it makes them look and takes it down…
Now that Democrats are out of power, we should expect them to hallucinate like crazy (literally) because the election results of 2016 shattered their expectations. Do we see signs of their hallucinations? I’ll walk you through a few examples.
Hallucination:
Based on President Trump’s tweets and speeches, I can see into his soul, and it is all darkness and racism in there.
Real:
If the President of the United States tries anything racist in the real world, the Supreme Court, Congress, and the voters would shut him down in a heartbeat. For example, the Courts modified President Trump’s immigration ban to remove even the perception of racism. That’s a sensitive filter for racism, and I think we like it that way.
Society’s standard is that you are judged for what you do, not what you privately think. That’s good because humans are terrible at knowing what other people think, while at the same time we think we are good at it. I know this first-hand because dozens of people misinterpret what I write on social media every day. If you don’t have my type of experience – of being routinely misinterpreted – you might think humans are good at reading minds based on subtle clues. We are not good at that. We might be slightly better than random chance, at best. The problem is that we are dead-certain we are champions of evidence-based mindreading. That is a hallucination.
Hallucination:
I can spot a racist by how long it takes them to properly disavow other racists.
Real:
That isn’t a thing. The first rule of communicating is that people only hear what they think you intend to say. They don’t hear what you actually say. If you think someone is a racist, you will perceive their disavowals of racism as too late and too inadequate. If you think someone is not a racist, you might see their statements as politically incorrect and nothing worse. This phenomenon is most pronounced when strong emotions are involved. The topic of racism stirs our strongest emotions. So according to everything we know about brains, we should expect the highest level of hallucinations when racism is the topic. And that is exactly what we observe.
To be clear, racism itself is very real. The hallucination is limited to seeing it under every bed and behind every couch.
Hallucination:
The president has accomplished nothing!
Real:
The president has accomplished a long list of things.
That said, we are 13% into President Trump’s first term, and Congress has created no major bills worthy of signing. Congress is tasked with working out the details of bills. The president can’t do his job until they do theirs.
We observe that the president has not shown leadership on any major legislation. But keep in mind that Congress produced nothing worthy of leadership. Would any leader be able to fix that? Yes, but I assume it takes longer than simply signing bills that come to your desk. Especially in this hyper-polarized environment.
Hallucination:
President Trump is performing poorly!
Real:
Compared to what? The imaginary president in your head? There is no base case with which to compare any president’s performance. Would Hillary Clinton have passed major legislation with a Republican Congress in less than six months? It seems unlikely. But we can’t know because she isn’t president.
We are terrible at judging how well a stranger performs compared to the imaginary person in our minds. We just think we are good at it.
Hallucination:
If you thought some “fine people” were marching with Nazis and KKK in Charlottesville, you are a racist.
Real:
I condemn all racists and anyone who marches with them. But It turns out that some non-racists were at the event to support the absolute right of free speech, including the worst kinds of speech. In this one case, President Trump passed the fact-checking but failed miserably on the “saying the right thing” dimension.
He wisely left the facts alone after failing on the empathy.
Read the whole thing. But if you can’t, here are the tl;dr takeaway quotes:
“The topic of racism stirs our strongest emotions. So according to everything we know about brains, we should expect the highest level of hallucinations when racism is the topic. And that is exactly what we observe.”
“We are terrible at judging how well a stranger performs compared to the imaginary person in our minds.”
“We are dead-certain we are champions of evidence-based mindreading. That is a hallucination.” This is a fallacy that can befall left or right…
In wake of an attack by George Soros-funded hard-Left website ProPublica (based, in turn, on the laughable list put together by the equally far-left Southern Poverty Law Center), PayPal suspended the account of Jihad Watch for promoting “hate, violence, or racial intolerance.” Which, of course, is absurd, since it is jihadists who spread hate, violence and intolerance, not JihadWatch.
This brings up the question, yet again, why the supposedly pro-gay, pro-feminist left is so soft on jihad they’ll label anyone fighting it part of a “hate group.”
Oh, and JihadWatch head Robert Spencer (who, we must stress yet again, is not Richard Spencer) has put up a non-Paypal donation form.
A Houston man has been charged with trying to plant explosives at the statue of Confederate officer Richard Dowling in Hermann Park, federal officials said Monday.
Andrew Schneck, 25, who was released from probation early last year after being convicted in 2015 of storing explosives, was charged in a criminal complaint filed in federal court, Acting U.S. Attorney Abe Martinez said in a statement Monday.
Schneck was arrested Saturday night after a Houston park ranger spotted him kneeling in bushes in front of the Dowling monument in the park, Martinez said.
Schneck was holding two small boxes that included duct tape and wires.
When confronted Saturday night in the park, he tried to drink some of the liquid explosives but spit it out, officials said.
Federal authorities said one of the tubes contained nitgroglycerin and hexamethylene triperoxide diamine, HMTD, a “highly explosive compound” used as a primary explosive. Nitroclycerin, in its purest form, is a contact explosive.
“ln its undiluted form, [nitroglycerin] is one of the world’s most powerful explosives,” according to the statement.
Schneck was arrested about 11 p.m. Saturday in the park, a source said, following a day of protests that drew hundreds of people to Sam Houston Park protesting a Spirit of the Confederacy statue.
Update: Via Popehat comes Mr. Schneck’s unopposed motion for early termination of supervised release. I bet the Hon. Judge Nancy K. Johnson would really like that one back. It does mean Mr. Schneck was technically no longer on parole when he (allegedly) committed his new offense, but his prior history will compel the feds to come down on him like a ton of bricks none the less…
Fake news, annoying news, depressing news. Take your pick. For Reasons I’m not inclined to write about any of it today, including the Antifa clown show.
Laurie: I’m sorry Dan, I invite you out for a few laughs… but there don’t seem to be many laughs around these days.