Friday Morning News and Views

Projected path of Hurricane Earl as of 8AM Friday (Weather Channel)

Good Morning Conflucians!!! TGIF!!!!

Hurricane Earl has weakened to Category 2 Hurricane and isn’t expected to do as much damage on the East Coast as was originally predicted. From the Houston Chronicle:

A weakened Hurricane Earl howled past North Carolina’s Outer Banks before daybreak Friday on its way up the East Coast, flooding parts of the narrow vacation islands and knocking out power but staying farther offshore than feared. There were no immediate reports of any injuries.

At first light, 1 to 2 feet of water covered roads in the community of Buxton on Cape Hatteras, pushing around plywood, a convenience store ice cooler, a garbage bin and other debris. A Jeep driving down the road had water up to its headlights.

North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue said there was no serious damage and urged people to get back out for the Labor Day weekend to “have a little fun and spend some money.”

The Boston Globe is reporting that Earl will have weakened to a Category 1 hurricane by the time it approaches the Cape Cod and Nantucket later today. It will reportedly miss Martha’s Vineyard.

A Category 1 hurricane carries winds of 74 to 95 miles per hour. As recently as Thursday, Earl had been a Category 4 storm, with winds of 145 miles per hour. And experts from the National Hurricane Center had predicted the center would pass “very close” to Nantucket, while local National Weather Service forecasters suggested it could pass as close as 15 miles.

While the hurricane may not be as strong and close as was originally predicted, its winds, hitting trees full of foliage, will still be able to down or uproot them, causing scattered power outages, particularly on the Cape and islands, forecasters said.

I’ve been through nor’easters with winds of 90 mph, so it doesn’t sound too bad to me. I just hope none of the big trees in my yard fall on my house–and of course I hope I don’t lose my power!

Despite signs the Earl is going to poop out before getting here, people in New England are still making a pretty big deal about it. President Obama has already signed a disaster declaration for Massachusetts in anticipation of possible storm damage.

Earlier, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick declared a state of emergency ahead of the storm after officials extended a hurricane warning to the state’s southern coast.

Rhode Island Gov. Donald Carcieri made a similar emergency declaration, The Associated Press reported. [....]

In neighboring Connecticut, Gov. M. Jodi Rell asked President Obama to issue a pre-landfall declaration of emergency to ensure federal funding help with the storm response.

The President had already signed a disaster declaration for North Carolina on Wednesday night.

Areas between North Carolina to Canada are under either a tropical storm or hurricane watch.

Rhode Island, Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts and North Carolina are all under a state of emergency. Authorities in Long Island, NY are also watching the storm closely.

A tropical storm warning is still in effect for New Jersey.

Although Hurricane Earl isn’t the monster it once was, a tropical storm warning is still in effect for the entire New Jersey coastline, according to the National Weather Service.

The Category 2 storm is expected to deliver the Jersey Shore up to a half-inch of rain and wind gusts that could reach more than 40 miles per hour.

Of course this isn’t really about the “lesser people” in all the states affected by Earl. No, it’s about Wall Street profits. According to the Wall Street Journal,

Oil futures softened ahead of the key U.S. jobs report and a weakening Hurricane Earl.

Prices had rallied Thursday afternoon after Hurricane Earl swirled toward the U.S. eastern seaboard, prompting concerns that refineries will shut, and crude and gasoline imports will be hindered. Tropical storms Fiona and Gaston aren’t far behind.

With the storm now weakening, some analysts expect it instead will result in higher gasoline stockpiles as consumers shun driving over the Labor Day weekend.

A poll of analysts shows they expect to see losses of 110,000 U.S. jobs in August from July, and the unemployment rate to tick up to 9.6%, making it the highest level since May.

About that jobs report, from Bloomberg:

Index futures jumped after a report showed private payrolls that exclude government agencies climbed 67,000, after a revised 107,000 increase in July that was more than initially estimated. The median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News called for a gain of 40,000. Overall employment fell 54,000 for a second month and the unemployment rate rose to 9.6 percent as more people entered the labor force.

That’s what Wall Street considers to be a good jobs report?

According to CNN, President Obama is “mull[ing] new measures to spark economy,” but those won’t include any new economic stimulus from the government. Instead, he will try to stimulate the economy by making speeches.

After a week mostly focused on Iraq and Mideast diplomacy, it’s back to the economy for President Obama, who will deliver remarks Friday on the August unemployment numbers.

Then, Obama is scheduled to give two big speeches next week to try to frame his administration’s response to the recession, less than two months ahead of a midterm election where Democratic majorities in the House and Senate are on the ropes.

Senior aides confirm the president recently asked his economic team to come up with various proposals he could roll out to show that amid high anxiety across the nation, he’s still working hard to jump-start the economy, including more federal spending on infrastructure projects and tax cuts popular with the business community such as a permanent extension of the research and development tax credit.

“Framing” the administration’s non-action on jobs is soooo much more important than actually doing something about jobs, don’cha know. From the Washington Post:

With just two months until the November elections, the White House is seriously weighing a package of business tax breaks – potentially worth hundreds of billions of dollars – to spur hiring and combat Republican charges that Democratic tax policies hurt small businesses, according to people with knowledge of the deliberations.

Among the options under consideration are a temporary payroll-tax holiday and a permanent extension of the now-expired research-and-development tax credit, which rewards companies that conduct research into new technologies within the United States.

Administration officials have struggled to develop new economic policies and an effective message to blunt expected Republican gains in Congress and defuse complaints from Democrats that President Obama is fumbling the issue most important to voters. Following Obama’s vacation and focus on foreign policy in recent weeks, White House advisers have arranged a series of economic events for the president next week, including two trips to swing states and a news conference.

A news conference?! Wow, they must be getting desperate. Obama hasn’t had a news conference for months!

I’ll just share a couple more interesting stories I came across this morning, and then leave it to you to post the stories you found most important in your morning surfing.

From CNN: Actress who played Bonnie Blue Butler in ‘GWTW’ dies at 76

Former child actress Cammie King Conlon used to joke “that I peaked at age 5.”

But what a peak.

Conlon was four years old when she portrayed the ill-fated Bonnie Blue Butler in the 1939 blockbuster film “Gone With the Wind.” Three years later, she voiced the part of the doe Faline in “Bambi.” [....]

Conlon, credited in the movie cast as Cammie King, was picked to play the daughter of Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) and Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) in the 1939 adaptation of the classic novel by Margaret Mitchell.

“I’m a very lucky person,” Conlon told the Press Democrat in Santa Rosa, California, last year. “[The film] has added dimension to my life. Of all the little girls, they picked me.”

According to CNN, Conlon “recalled little from the movie but had a recollection of Clark Gable.”

The textbook I used to teach Developmental Psychology last semester reported statistics on cause of deaths for children at various ages, and the author emphasized that we have a serious problem in the U.S.–African American children here tend not to learn how to swim, and they also much higher rates of accidental drowning deaths. At the time, I asked my mom why that would be. She immediately responded that municipal swimming pools were traditionally segregated. I had never thought of that.

Today the BBC news has a lengthy story on this problem.

When 15-year-old DeKendrix Warner accidentally stepped into deeper water while wading in the Red River in Shreveport, he panicked.

JaTavious Warner, 17, Takeitha Warner, 13, JaMarcus Warner, 14, Litrelle Stewart, 18, Latevin Stewart, 15, and LaDarius Stewart, 17, rushed to help him and each other.

None of them could swim. All six drowned. DeKendrix was rescued by a passer-by.

None of the adults who were there could swim either.

…according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the fatal drowning rate of African-American children aged five-14 is three times that of white children.

A recent study sponsored by USA Swimming uncovered equally stark statistics.

Just under 70% of African-American children surveyed said they had no or low ability to swim. Low ability merely meant they were able to splash around in the shallow end. A further 12% said they could swim but had “taught themselves”.

The article provides a number of explanations for this situation, including the problems of segregated swimming pools and country clubs. This is just another problems that has developed because of institutional racism in this country. How many other issues like this are there?

So what are you reading this morning? Please share your links, and have a fabulous Friday!!!