11 AM Saturday NHC update:
Hurricane #Dorian stronger again up to 150 mph, nearing Category 5 strength.The track envelope is shifted again to the right or east away from Florida … consistent with recent weather model data.
But, the coast isn't clear quite yet. pic.twitter.com/NLuTliZ4Z4
— Ryan Maue (@RyanMaue) August 31, 2019
He is getting big and strong. Florida looks to be facing better odds of a brush instead of a head on collision compared to Thursday.
Now, does North Carolina need to worry?
Open thread
Litlebritdifrnt
NC always has to worry because it sticks out of the side of the US like Jimmy Durante’s nose.
In other news DH IS HOME! Landed in Manchester this morning. He is currently sleeping off the jet lag and tonight we are going to his favourite place for Dinner the Boot and Shoe Pub.
gene108
As long as it doesn’t turn inland like Fran, in 1996, you should be fine.
We lost power for week after Fran. But so did everybody else, so it was a lot of hanging out and chillin’ and cold showers
Amir Khalid
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Yay you guys!
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Good! Hope you guys have a good dinner!
Yarrow
@Litlebritdifrnt: So excited for you! Wonderful news!
MattF
Considering that the winds in a hurricane are all going in directions different from that of the hurricane itself… one can see why it’s hard to predict. Small, random, residual effects mostly add up to zero except when they don’t.
Major Major Major Major
Villago Delenda Est
It is a damn shame that Mar-A-Lago will be spared. Proof there is no God.
Villago Delenda Est
@Major Major Major Major: Tumbrel ride for Bret, for sure.
The Dangerman
Sorry, Florida. I was hoping More A Larceny would be blown off the map. No one hurt, just a total wipeout of stuff.
And I’m just stunned someone was apparently allowed to take a pic of the apparent Satellite Shot. If I had done that back in the day, they would have cut my wee wee off, grilled it in front of me, and served it up with a nice german mustard. Hell, my balls would have been in a vise just talking to the wrong woman in a bar. Unbelievable.
Major Major Major Major
@Litlebritdifrnt:
How appetizing ?
zhena gogolia
@Major Major Major Major:
They didn’t deliver my Times today. I guess they didn’t want to hear the explosion.
MattF
@Major Major Major Major: I suspect that Stephens (former Jerusalem Post editor) hasn’t adjusted to the concept of a signed opinion.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
He’ll become a guest columnist after Trump loses.
OldDave
Skepticat wrote they had a home in the Bahamas. The Grand Bahama and Great Abaco islands are directly in the storm’s path, and the NHC’s track has the storm stalling a bit over the top of them. Ugly.
MattF
@The Dangerman: I’m happy that, being retired, I no longer have a security clearance.
Bill Arnold
@Villago Delenda Est:
Mar–a-Lago is in Palm Beach county. Palm Beach county voted for H. Clinton, not Trump.
Steeplejack
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Happy reunion!
wasabi gasp
All of us, together, aiming roman candles at the eye…we can do this!
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Major Major Major Major:
I don’t get the joke?
Yarrow
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: The guy who commented on twitter saying Bret was a bedbug, his last name is Karpf.
Mandalay
@The Dangerman:
Not nearly as sorry as our local news channels down here.
All their reporters are wearing black armbands today to mourn the loss of mountains of ad revenue for regurgitating the same five minutes of sensationalist twaddle (“ice, plan, evacuate, water, devastating, torrential, gas, neighbors, dangerous!!!”) for days on end.
CliosFanBoy
@Major Major Major Major: better than the Peach and Frog… ;)
narya
See, I”m glad that Grift-a-Lago will be spared–otherwise Cheetolini would whine incessantly AND try to grift some more, overstating damages, etc.
Wapiti
@Villago Delenda Est: The daily reports of the ICE/CBP concentration camps have convinced me that God either does not exist (or is powerless, same-same) or is fine with people who hate.
debbie
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Congratulations!
DCrefugee
Living on FL’s west coast (Hi, BC!), I’m feeling a lot better today. But if the new forecast proves correct, the east coast beaches and low-lying areas are going to take a beating if a Cat 5 moves north just offshore. Lot of beach erosion and tidal flooding. (Surfing might be epic, though…) And the GA/SC/NC coastal areas aren’t out of the woods unless Dorian starts off to the northeast.
trollhattan
@Wapiti:
The Holocaust happened on his watch and this country is well stocked with “good Germans” i.e., Republicans.
Steve in the ATL
@Litlebritdifrnt: great news! After a totally unnecessary delay.
trollhattan
The kid is trying cross-country this fall while battling senioritis, and had her first meet this a.m. She did pretty well, just out of the top-twenty in a 140-girl race but the winner was a whopping two minutes faster. Also the state champion, so what are you gonna do? What cracked me up was places 8, 9 and 10 are all Hannahs.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Yarrow:
Thanks! I’d heard about the “Bretbug” thing, but didn’t know the name of the guy who said it
Steve in the ATL
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
I’m guessing you’ve never eaten British food!
MomSense
@The Dangerman:
But her emails?
Steve in the ATL
@trollhattan: when my kids were that age we had to declare a moratorium on friends names Lexi and Mackenzie. There were so many we couldn’t keep them straight.
mrmoshpotato
@MattF: But have you enjoy a marathon of The Good Place yet?
Yarrow
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
It’s Dave Karpf. https://twitter.com/davekarpf. He’s kind of amazed at how this whole story just won’t stop.
Amir Khalid
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
I could explain it to you, but you know what they say about explaining a joke.
PaulWartenberg
On the bright side, it’s looking like Central Florida is going to miss the worst of it.
On the downside, GODDAMMIT ZEUS. My library staff and I SPENT THREE HOURS LAST NIGHT COVERING UP EVERY SHELF WE HAVE FOR LEAK PROTECTION. I’m still sore from yesterday, all that work and ON TUESDAY WE’RE PROBABLY TAKING THAT ALL DOWN AGAIN. WHAT THE HELL, DEITIES, WHAT THE HELL. WE WERE PREPARED FOR A PERFECTLY GOOD SINKING OF MAR-A-LAGO AND NOW THIS. I don’t know why I bother with Unitarianism anymore…
mrmoshpotato
@Litlebritdifrnt:
How’s their steak? Leathery?
I’ll see myself out.
mrmoshpotato
@Yarrow: Well, when a grown man has a toddler-style meltdown about being called an insect in print…
The “Come call me a bedbug to my face, tough guy.” retort was weird too.
debbie
Trump is now saying he canned his executive assistant because she said something “hurtful” about his kids. As if.
chopper
@DCrefugee:
yeah, loitering off the coast isn’t a great scenario. people are scared of a landfalling storm and all, but if it hugs the coast there’s just days of storm surge ahead. right around king tide season.
likewise, if it dumps tons of rain, that all gets backed up by the pushing surge, creating another flooding issue.
patrick II
“Big and Slow” is likely to be the new norm. Bigger of course because of the warmer water hurricanes are drawing energy from, but slower too. Due to changes in surrounding atmosphere, the average forward speed of hurricanes is slowing down. There will be bigger storms that are more lingering, as we have seen in some of the last few hurricanes.
But I am sure Florida is happy with the climate-denying voldomortan senator they just elected to congress.
Major Major Major Major
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: it also means ‘carp’ and is a pun in English, ‘my carp’ I.e. my petty complaint
PaulWartenberg
@trollhattan:
we had five Kimberlys in my high school class. Most of them were in the gifted track. You had good odds being in a classroom with any three of them at the same time.
It was more noticeable than the high number of Chris(topher)s we had but only because it was Tarpon Springs FL with a high Greek population (no joke, half the guys was a Chris or a George or a Nick(holas).
MattF
@mrmoshpotato: Yes, I watched it, and it was good— on average. Some of the episodes were great (like the one with multiple Janets), some not so much. It continues to be genuinely thoughtful and wacky, so I’m pleased.
trollhattan
@Steve in the ATL:
Nothing like kid sports to get a focus on the names du jour of your kid’s cohort. One of her peewee soccer teams fielded a triple-Sophie offense. I’ve also learned there are roughly seven ways to spell Michalea.
J R in WV
@Litlebritdifrnt:
So glad to hear your good news. Enjoy yourselves together!!
Renie
My daughter had another girl in her middle school with the exact same name first and last and spelled the same way. Freaked me out the few times I would get a call asking why she wasn’t in school that day when I knew she went to the bus stop.
RAVEN
@Renie: I coached a 4th-5th grade basketball team and 6 of 10 were Chris.
trollhattan
@Renie:
Oooh, that would not be fun! I’d hope the school office would be a little more cautious, but they’re typically harried and overworked.
MomSense
@PaulWartenberg:
Our committee meetings are longer?
Chyron HR
Its name is Dorian? I’ve been calling it “Dolan”! Why didn’t somebody tell me?
laura
@trollhattan: how many Helens?
https://youtu.be/z0uYgfWNbJE
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@debbie: it’s part of the whole “too many scandals to keep track of” phenomenon, but….
His attempted NDAs with government employees should be a scandal all their own, and from what I’ve gleaned from legal twitter, are not actually “enforceable”
also, since I waded into his twitter feed to find that one, this too is the only president we’ve got, as the late Miss Ivins used to say about the previous worse president in history
Tiffany is one of those I can still manage to feel a bit sorry for, as she hasn’t yet proved herself as awful as her larger siblings, and I’d be willing to bet has been treated to some epic passive aggressive cruelty from them. You write that fucking tell-all, Tiff, it’ll make you richer than whatever The Beast gave your mother.
SRW1
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
@Yarrow:
What Yarrow said. Plus, plus it’s a wordplay on the German title (‘Mein Kampf’) of the ‘autobiography’ Hitler wrote during his internment after his 1923 putsch attempt in Munich had failed.
MattF
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It’s typical that he just had to add that ‘fully enforceable’— a threat and a lie.
mrmoshpotato
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Each a separate scandal, or just one big ‘NDA scandal’?
Answer carefully.
trollhattan
@laura:
Heh :-)
Another name lost to the ages. Mom knew quite a few Helens.
trollhattan
@Chyron HR:
I keep thinking it’s Durian–the hurricane that smells bad.
mrmoshpotato
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Best self-own ever?
“I hired her even though she’s disgusting, foul-mouthed and everyone hates her!”
trollhattan
@RAVEN:
That’s closing in on coaching a team of all George Foreman’s sons. “George, you’re not hustling back!” [chaos ensues]
Aleta
My worries are with the Bahamas area, esp when I look at windy . com showing Dorian slow and seem to stop in the northern parts to chew. Right now that seems like from early Mon. am to early Tues. Perhaps it’s just my limited access, but the internet news doesn’t seem to be focusing much on that area. Or maybe speculation about Fla and NC is the exciting part for those outlets.
Steeplejack
@trollhattan:
I wonder where all the Susans went. I thought that one was evergreen.
Chris Johnson
That’s easy. Trump’s dick is just as broke as the rest of him :)
Michael Cain
@PaulWartenberg:
Michael was one of the three most popular names for baby boys in every year from 1953 to 2010. It was the most popular in well over half those years. I have spent my entire life surrounded by people with the same first name as mine.
Steeplejack
@mrmoshpotato:
‘She was a perfect fit!”
chopper
everybody in the cone needs to worry.
wasabi gasp
Wish i had a platform to call Bret Stephens a bedbug, just to get a double-sauced meatloaf invite with the wife and kids. I’m ghetto hungry, Bret!
trollhattan
@Michael Cain:
I know [counts] four lawyers named Mike. Have always wanted to host a lawyers named Mike party just to see what would happen.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Steve in the ATL:
Hey don’t knock beer battered fish and chips! It may not be good for you but it tastes good, if it’s done well : )
MattF
@Michael Cain: ‘Matthew’ was a rare name when I was a child. My mother would tell the story of my coming home from school in tears one day because I’d encountered a ‘Matthew with a different face’.
Jay
chopper
@Major Major Major Major:
man, that op-ed piece is passive-aggressive as fuck. he’s really doubling down, isn’t he.
trollhattan
@Jay:
Karpf again proves he’s got this.
noncarborundum
@Jay:
Once you’ve made a child President of the U.S., all bets are off.
Villago Delenda Est
@Yarrow: This is because Stephens is roundly and properly hated by most of those who know his works and name.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Amir Khalid:
You’d have to kill me? ; p
@Major Major Major Major:
Learn something new every day. It fits and is pretty clever. “My Petty Complaint” by Adork Bretler lol
SiubhanDuinne
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Sole food. Nice.
MattF
@Jay: It does raise the question of what, exactly, are the qualifications for having a regular newspaper column. I’ll note that it was thought, for a while, that Bill Kristol had the right stuff for that job— but it turned out that he didn’t.
Yarrow
@Villago Delenda Est: What I meant is that Karpf seems to be amazed that BretBug keeps doubling down, which in turn keeps the story going. BretBug just can’t quit while he’s losing. He wants to lose harder.
Steve in the ATL
@SiubhanDuinne: paging NotMax!
Amir Khalid
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Oh dear. Apparently you don’t know what they say about explaining a joke: once you do that, you’ve killed the joke.
Skepticat
@Aleta:
Mine too, with the path over Abaco not deviating so far. The speed, or lack thereof, is one of my chief concerns, as Floyd stalled over Abaco and did its Mixmaster routine, chewing away for two days; there’s still visible damage twenty years later. Please do note that I’ve found windy.com is totally unreliable. Many times I’d be sitting in bright sunshine with no wind when they told me it was pouring rain and blowing hard (or the opposite) right on the little spot they let me tag. Though it probably won’t be up long, here’s a webcam on Elbow Cay, Abaco, one island south of mine. https://www.rockybay.com/webcam_page.htm?wp=RB
I thoroughly agree with my friend who says that waiting for a hurricane is like being stalked by a turtle, and this one is a damned nasty snapping turtle.
Skepticat
@SiubhanDuinne:
For the win
Michael Allen
I’m really tired of all this concern and endless speculation about exactly what some hurricane is going to do. And all the federal money spent on the aftermath of each one.
Everyone living in some areas of the country decided to live there. Multiple hurricanes happen every year. They chose to not buy housing or pay for infrastructure or land use planning that is designed to withstand the inevitable hurricanes and flooding that happens predictably. You pays your money, and you takes your chances.
It’s a little different when a tornado strikes a particular spot that might go a thousand years with no tornado striking. But on the other hand people choose to live in a trailer in tornado alley that will blow away if a tornado does strike. Or a house with no simple reinforced concrete core room.
I live in Brooklyn. Hurricane Sandy came at an extra high tide and pushed an unusual amount of water, plus oceans being a little higher. By the roll of the dice it might never have happened in hundreds of years, but it did. On the other hand, skinny barrier islands just off the Jersey coast were built up with wall to wall businesses and housing that never should have been there. Same thing with the Rockaways on the bay in Queens. Houses were allowed to be built too near the beach on the mainland in Neew Jersey and Staten Island. Finally housing in some places is now required to be raised or abandoned, protective sand dunes installed, etc., but mostly everything was rebuilt with federal tax dollars. The most expensive beach in the US is on the Rockaways where we restored beaches at the cost of millions and millions more every year into the future, all to maintain beaches near housing that never should have been built in the first place.
MattF
@Yarrow: Stephens wants everyone to know that he’s an asshole.
Aleta
@mrmoshpotato: jeez.
Imaginary:
I gave her every break, despite the fact that she was despised by everyone They advised Don’t do it. Naturally I ordered them to shut up — Blame is on them—Weak! “Sir we apologize for hurting Your Presidency” but I forgave. No Damage! Trump Strong and Very Fair.
“While Madeleine Westerhout has a fully enforceable confidentiality agreement”
I saw report that she refused to sign one when hired.
Wild guess: he was grabbing at her. Or she was transcribing his twitter impulses and posting the Fox ones without oversight.
The problem was not drinking with reporters or Tiffany. Ivanka had to ax her, arrange payoff and new job.
All imaginary.
Jay
@Yarrow:
What’s going to be interesting, is a couple journalists are asking people if BedBugBret wrote to their bosses as well,…….
mrmoshpotato
@Amir Khalid: What? Really? Could you explain that?
Amir Khalid
EPL update: In the day’s last match, Liverpool are leading home side Burnley 0-2 at halftime. Burnley are putting up a fight as they always do, but an unlucky deflection of Trent Alexander’s cross led to one goal and giving the ball away to Bobby Firmino led to him feeding Sadio Mane for the second.
Villago Delenda Est
@Yarrow: Stephens is lobbying for a tumbrel ride at this point.
Aleta
@Skepticat: OK, good to know. And model calculations change, sometimes dramatically, with the new initial conditions for each time period.
Thinking of you. Wish I could make the wait less stressful.
mrmoshpotato
@Aleta: Jeez? Didn’t think I went overboard.
My Side of Town
Well, glad my town is out of the cone, per the latest path revision and I’ve learned not to panic until the wind crosses the county line. As my GF says, they are generally accurate in the end. Haha. Of course they are, but so far Dorian has maintained it’s original path, except they keep revising the ending, every update. I wonder if the cyclone is obligated to follow the prediction? I bet we still get a lot of rain in Central Florida.
Jay
Jay
Jay
wasabi gasp
@Jay:
Kissing my fingers at the turning of Santa Claus into the new Pepe the Frog.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@SiubhanDuinne: Well played.
@Steve in the ATL: NotMax enjoys wordplay as much as anybody. So he’s likely to thank you. Also, too, you have mail.
mrmoshpotato
@Jay: Giving young Jacob a run for his money, I see.
Why isn’t one of these guys’ flys unzipped?
Skepticat
@Aleta: As we know, the only truly accurate weather report is available only by looking out the window.
Amir Khalid
@Amir Khalid:
It ends Burnley 0-3 Liverpool. The visitors have their first clean sheet of the season, and remain atop the EPL table with 12 points out of 12, two points clear of Manchester City.
Anonymous At Work
2 PM EDT forecast shows it veering even farther away from Florida. So much so that, Merde-a-Lago being out of immediate danger, Donnie left Camp David to go golfing for the weekend.
Uncle Cosmo
@Amir Khalid: Something more than 60 years ago, MAD Magazine did a story on different types of humor, one being “The Local Joke” in 2 panels: In the first a standup comic (recognizably Bob Hope) is delivering the punch line of a joke, which is “…the LA BREA TAR PITS!”, as his audience laughs. In the second panel he launches into several paragraphs of small-print explanation of the La Brea tar pits for the benefit of anyone unfamiliar with them…
It was well done & I wish I could find it on line to link.
Suzanne
@trollhattan:
Spawn the Elder has had classmates Aidan (and various spellings), Braydon (same), Hayden, Jayden, and Caden.
Spawn the Younger has in her Scout troop: Isabella, Bella, Zabella, and Isabelle.
chopper
@Suzanne:
this is why i named my son Jahooswey. nobody else’ll use that one in a million years.
Steve in the ATL
@Suzanne: Zabella? DFACS needs it step in on that one.
trollhattan
@Suzanne:
“Big Little Lies” includes a little girl named Amabella, which I’m unable to hear uttered without laughing. Laura Dern (Amabella’s mom in the show) has a Twitter A game and invited the USWNT all to Amabella’s birthday party after they won the World Cup, which the team happily retweeted.
trollhattan
@Amir Khalid:
I’ve seen Man City twice this young season and must openly ask “Who is going to beat THAT?”
Scary, scary good.
Speaking of, UCLA women just smacked Florida State around, FSU being the reining NCAA champion and consensus preseason #1 pick to repeat. That was satisfying. It’s worth adding UCLA happens to have a starter who started for the Canadian national team in the WWC, which doesn’t hurt. Pac 12 will be brutal this year.
Suzanne
@chopper: The new one is all the -ason variants being used now that “Jason” is passé. I know multiple Masons and Graysons. Even a Dason.
trollhattan
@trollhattan:
“reigning”
sheesh
?BillinGlendaleCA
@trollhattan: Go Bruins!
trollhattan
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Crosstown rivalry with SC should be epic this year.
Villago Delenda Est
@Yarrow: Ah, OK, in THAT case, it’s because Stephens, like Donald, can never let go of a slight and will double down indefinitely. Donald is still fuming about being labeled a “short-fingered vulgarian” a quarter of a century ago. I understand why Karpf is amazed by this; most of us shrug our shoulders and move on. Not Stephens, not Donald. It’s central to their assholishness to hold a trivial grudge forever.