Jared, on his way out

Emily Jane Fox, a reporter for the Hive covering Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and the .001 percent everywhere, has a Vanity Fair article about one of the Trumps:

Weeks before Jared Kushner (photo) held a press announcement outside the West Wing to insist that he “did not collude with Russians” during the 2016 presidential campaign, a small group of White House lawyers were privately advocating for Donald Trump’s son-in-law to resign from his senior position within the White House, according to two reports.
On 8 July 2017, The New York Times reported that Donald Trump Jr. had arranged a meeting at Trump Tower last summer with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer, and that Kushner and Paul Manafort had attended. After a series of subsequent revelations, Trump Jr. acknowledged that he had set up the meeting, expecting to receive damaging information about Hillary Clinton as part of a Russian government effort to assist his father’s campaign. The White House spun into action, helping craft a response to the scandal. But, according to The Wall Street Journal, some members of Trump’s legal team were also deeply concerned about Kushner’s involvement, which they were aware of before the news broke, and “had developed talking points to manage the political fallout, including a statement that would explain a potential Kushner resignation.” The talking points, which were never used, reportedly “expressed regret that the political environment had become so toxic that what he viewed as a standard meeting was becoming a weapon for Trump’s critics.” The story was confirmed later on Monday by The Washington Post.
The lawyers brought their recommendation to Trump in June, but the President was not convinced, the Journal reports. Among their concerns was the possibility that Kushner, who is being examined by Federal and Congressional investigators for his multiple interactions with Russian officials throughout the campaign, and his family’s real-estate dealings, could open his colleagues up to inquiries from special counsel Robert Mueller’s team. Another issue was that Kushner initially left off any contacts with foreign officials on his security clearance form, which he has said was an honest error; the form has since been updated to include meetings with more than a hundred officials.
Two members of Trump’s legal team told the Journal that, to their knowledge, the plans were never presented to the President. John Dowd, one of the president’s lawyers, told both papers that the subject was raised, but that he disagreed with the premise. Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer, told the Post that “all clandestine efforts to undermine him never gained traction.”
In an eleven-page statement delivered to Congress in July before he spent two days on Capitol Hill testifying before congressional committees about the campaign’s activities, Kushner disclosed that he had met with four Russian officials throughout, including meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and a Russian banker with ties to the Kremlin.
Trump’s legal team underwent a shake-up around the same time, with Dowd taking over and Marc Kasowitz, among others, leaving. Members of the original Trump legal team had reportedly wanted to wall off Kushner from discussing the Russia investigation with his father-in-law, in order to prevent the senior adviser from circumventing the president’s lawyers and potentially placing him in legal jeopardy.

Rico says that Kushner is what Rico's mother would call a 'lyin' sumbitch'...

Big icecube

Yahoo has an article by Stephanie Pappas about the latest from Antarctica:

A new view from space shows Antarctica's newest bouncing baby iceberg, and this baby's a behemoth: at approximately two thousand square miles, the iceberg represents about ten percent of the Larsen C ice shelf, which it was a part of until it broke off this week. The iceberg is slightly bigger than Delaware in area and similarly proportioned: while the Blue Hen State is a hundred miles long, the Larsen C iceberg measures about 99 miles from end to end, meaning it would take a little over an hour and a half to traverse it by car, assuming you had a car that could do sixty mph on uneven floating sea ice.
An instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite snapped one of the first images of this new iceberg on 12 July 2017, using thermal measurements to distinguish between ice and open water. The image shows the iceberg floating between the rest of the Larsen C ice shelf off the Antarctic Peninsula and the fractured sea ice floating on the Weddell Sea.
The rift that led to the iceberg's calving has existed since the 1960s, according to NASA, but it didn't start growing until 2014. Scientists have been monitoring the crack closely since then. By April of 2017, only ten miles of ice connected the iceberg to the main ice sheet, according to the UK-based research group Project MIDAS. In late June, the same group reported that the speed of the ice was increasing to levels never before measured on Larsen C, indicating an imminent calving event.
The final break occurred sometime between 10 and 12 July 2017. The ice that broke away weighs more than a trillion tons, but it won't substantially affect sea levels on its own, as it was already floating. The Larsen C ice shelf has now retreated farther back than at any time in recorded history, according to Project MIDAS glaciologist Martin O'Leary of Swansea University; the loss of the iceberg could make the shelf vulnerable to collapse. A collapse of the shelf would have an impact on sea levels, as land-based ice on the Antarctic continent would have a clearer route to the sea. However, scientists aren't yet sure what the future holds for Larsen C. "In the ensuing months and years, the ice shelf could either gradually regrow, or may suffer further calving events which may eventually lead to collapse; opinions in the scientific community are divided," Swansea University glaciologist Adrian Luckman said in a statement. "Our models say it will be less stable, but any future collapse remains years or decades away."

Rico says that Trump says it's not happening, so it must not be...

History for the day: 1814: The Star-Spangled Banner

History.com has this for 13 September:

On 13 September 1814, Francis Scott Key pens a poem later set to music and, in 1931, it becomes America’s national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner. The poem, originally titled The Defense of Fort McHenry, was written after Key witnessed the Maryland fort being bombarded by the British during the War of 1812. Key was inspired by the sight of a lone American flag still flying over Fort McHenry at daybreak, as reflected in the now-famous words of the Star-Spangled Banner: 

And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.”

Francis Scott Key was born on 1 August 1779, at Terra Rubra, his family’s estate in Frederick County (now Carroll County), Maryland. He became a successful lawyer in Maryland and Washington, DC, and was later appointed US attorney for the District of Columbia.
On 18 June 1812, America declared war on Great Britain after a series of trade disagreements. In August of 1814, British troops invaded Washington, DC, and burned the White House, the Capitol Building, and the Library of Congress. Their next target was Baltimore.
After one of Key’s friends, Dr. William Beanes, was taken prisoner by the British, Key went to Baltimore, located the ship where Beanes was being held and negotiated his release. However, Key and Beanes weren’t allowed to leave until after the British bombardment of Fort McHenry. Key watched the bombing campaign unfold from aboard a ship located about eight miles away. After a day, the British were unable to destroy the fort and gave up. Key was relieved to see the American flag still flying over Fort McHenry, and quickly penned a few lines in tribute to what he had witnessed.
The poem was printed in newspapers and eventually set to the music of a popular English drinking tune called To Anacreon in Heaven by composer John Stafford Smith. People began referring to the song as The Star-Spangled Banner and, in 1916, President Woodrow Wilson announced that it should be played at all official events. It was adopted as the national anthem on 3 March 1931. 

Francis Scott Key died of pleurisy on 11 January 1843. Today, the flag that flew over Fort McHenry in 1914 is housed at the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of American History in Washington, DC.

Rico says it's still a great song...

Trump on the transgendered

Yahoo has an article by Michael Walsh about the latest from Trump:

President Trump announced on Wednesday that the military would not “accept or allow” any transgender service members. In a series of tweets, the Commander-in-Chief argued that too much is at stake in the military’s current operations for it to be “burdened” by the medical costs of transgender people, or the “disruption” he says transgender service members would cause.
The content of Trump’s statement is at odds with the current Department of Defense policy that was crafted with Armed Services leadership, as well as medical and personnel experts. 

From the Defense Department website:

“Transgender service members may serve openly. They may not be discharged or separated from the military solely on the basis of their gender identity.

As with other major presidential announcements from Trump on Twitter, there will likely be extraordinary backlash to this statement from liberal and moderate circles.
When contacted by Yahoo News, a Pentagon spokesperson said that “right now we are referring all questions on the tweets to the White House.”
At the Wednesday afternoon press briefing, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked about how Trump’s policies would affect current transgender service members. “That’s something that the Department of Defense and the White House will have to work together on as implementation takes place and is done so lawfully,” Sanders said. She did not provide any additional information when asked whether troops currently serving overseas in the Middle East would be immediately discharged and sent home.
Though Trump’s announcement may feel sudden, there have been rumblings that some officers in the military were not comfortable with the current policy.
Earlier this month, for instance, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis announced that there would be a six-month delay in implementing recruitment policies for transgender Americans so that military chiefs could determine how they would affect the force’s “readiness or lethality”.
Estimates vary concerning the transgender community’s presence in the military. The National Center for Transgender Equality estimates that more than fifteen thousand transgender individuals are currently serving in the military. But the RAND Corporation, a global policy think tank, puts the figure between thirteen hundred and six thousand.
According to a RAND study from June of 2016, only a subset (between 29 and 129) would pursue treatment related to gender transition each year. The researchers concluded that these treatments would increase health care costs for active-duty service members by $2.4 million and $8.4 million annually, a 0.04- to 0.13-percent increase.
On the campaign trail, Trump reached out to the LGBT community and repeatedly promised to protect them from terrorism:

Thank you to the LGBT community! I will fight for you while Hillary brings in more people that will threaten your freedoms and beliefs.

Trump’s daughter and top adviser Ivanka Trump also expressed support for the LGBT community in the past: I am proud to support my LGBTQ friends and the LGBTQ Americans who have made immense contributions to our society and economy. 

As expected, backlash to Trump’s announcement was swift. GLAAD, a prominent LGBTQ advocacy organization, condemned the ban on transgender soldiers as part of “the full-scale attack on LGBTQ Americans by the Trump administration.”
“President Trump today issued a direct attack on transgender Americans, and his administration will stop at nothing to implement its anti-LGBTQ ideology within our government, even if it means denying some of our bravest Americans the right to serve and protect our nation,” Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and CEO of GLAAD, said in a statement. “Today further exposed President Trump’s overall goal to erase LGBTQ Americans from this nation. Trump has never been a friend to LGBTQ Americans, and this action couldn’t make that any more clear.”

Rico says that anyone shot by a transgender soldier is just as dead as one shot by anyone else...

Bad selfie, bad politics

WHAT has an article by WHO about Merkel's bad selfie:

Anas Modamani’s 2015 selfie (above) with Chancellor Angela Merkel came to symbolize her decision to allow hundreds of thousands of unscreened migrants into Germany. But Modamani, a refugee from Syria, sought on Monday to prevent Facebook from allowing users to repost the image, or any altered version of it, after it repeatedly showed up in fake news reports linking him to terrorism.
The trial, one of several notable cases against Facebook in Germany, highlights several basic legal questions, such as who is responsible for content posted by anonymous sources and whether people who repost text they did not write, or an image that someone else altered, can be held responsible for defamation. Concern over nationalist and populist propaganda, as well as fake news, is growing in the country ahead of a general election scheduled for September.
The German justice minister, Heiko Maas, has suggested holding Facebook accountable for hate speech posted to its site, and a government-initiated task force that includes representatives from Facebook, Google, and Twitter is examining how long it takes the companies to take down posts flagged as hateful. The panel is expected to report its findings in the coming months.
Modamani, now nineteen, fled Syria for Germany in 2015 and was living in a Berlin shelter when Merkel came to visit in September of that year.
The selfie that he took with the chancellor and posted to his Facebook page was widely shared on social media, and became an emblem of her immigration policy. But Merkel’s stance on refugees has shaken her support and has helped propel the rise of the populist, far-right Alternative for Germany party. 

Why is he taking Facebook to court?
Modamani has filed for an injunction in a court in Würzburg, in the southern German state of Bavaria, that would require Facebook to remove any content linking him to terrorism.
His lawyer, Chan-jo Jun, says that, even though his client deleted the photograph and requested that it be taken down in some postings, it still appears on other people’s social media pages and in fake news reports accusing him of having links to terrorism. The image has been used with posts about the attacks in Brussels, Belgium last year and on a Christmas market in Berlin, Germany. Recently, someone posted Modamani’s photograph on Facebook and said that he had been involved in a December attack in which a homeless man in Berlin, Germany was set on fire.
Modamani’s lawyer argued that his client would continue to be a victim of libel until Facebook used its algorithms to prevent the image from being reproduced.
“I want peace in my life,” the teenager told reporters after the hearing. “Not everyone believes that. Many people hate me, but all I did was take a selfie with Merkel.”
All the talk about data privacy can get caught up in political wrangling. But the different approaches have practical consequences for people, too.

What is Facebook’s defense?
The social media giant says it is committed “to meeting our obligations under German law in relation to content which is shared by people on our platform,” and has removed images reported to the company by Modamani’s lawyer.
But Facebook says that the case involves defamation, not its community standards. That would mean the individuals who posted the images of Modamani would be held responsible, not Facebook. 

What happened in court on Monday?
In opening remarks to the court, Jun argued that Facebook had the technical ability to delete the image and prevent any copies from being posted. Lawyers for the social network insisted that it had removed any images flagged as defamatory, and that it was up to users to inform them of such material.
After nearly two hours of arguments, during which Jun called Facebook’s argument that it could not find and remove every copy of the image “ridiculous”, both sides rejected a suggestion by the judge that they settle the matter with Facebook paying damages without any further proceedings.
Judge Volkmar Seipel said that the case raised questions about personal rights in the digital sphere that the law has not kept up with, and that the court may not be in a position to answer. A ruling is expected on 7 March 2017. 

How is Facebook fighting hate speech and fake news?
At first, the social network dismissed accusations that it had influenced the United States election by spreading misinformation. But Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, has since taken steps to bolster how the company handles such complaints.
Last month, Facebook updated its Trending Topics feature, which offers links to popular subjects, to better promote links to reliable news outlets. It also teamed with news organizations, including The Washington Post, El País of Spain and the German nonprofit news organization Correctiv, to offer curated news reports to some of its two billion users. In France, Facebook and Google are working with domestic news outlets to ensure that fake news reports are not published on its platform. Critics say those efforts do not go far enough.

What other legal battles is Facebook fighting in Europe?
This is far from the only legal challenge the social network faces in Europe.
On Tuesday, an Irish court is set to decide whether Facebook misused Europeans’ digital data by transferring it to the United States.
That case against Facebook, which has its international headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, follows a European Court of Justice ruling in 2015 that invalidated a previous data-sharing agreement between Europe and the United States.
Privacy advocates say Facebook broke European data protection rules by moving users’ information across the Atlantic. The company denies the allegation. Legal experts say the case will eventually be sent to the European Court of Justice.

Rico says this is yet more Internet stupidity...

Give to those in need

Rico says they need all the help they can get.

Rico's not saying all Italians are dumb...

...but Tia Ghose has a Live Science article about some who were, and paid the price:

Three members of a family have died after falling into a volcanic crater in Italy, according to news reports.
The family of four from northeastern Italy was on vacation in Pozzuoli, viewing the sulfurous Solfatara crater. Their eleven-year-old son ran through a safety barrier and went onto an unstable portion of the crater that is made of crumbling quicksand.
The boy's mother and father rushed to save him and caused the crater to collapse, forming a small hole. All three dropped into the hole, fell unconscious and died, likely by inhaling the noxious fumes, the BBC reported. The couple's other son, who is seven years old, stayed put and survived. Rescue workers did manage to retrieve the bodies and reported that the pit was filled with boiling mud.
The Solfatara crater is one of many now-dormant volcanoes in a field of volcanic activity west of Naples. It formed about four thousand years ago but last erupted in 1198, the BBC reported. Despite being dormant, Solfatara still emits sulfur and steam, and is a popular tourist attraction.

Rico says it's not nice to make fun of the dead, but sometimes you gotta...

Keys hit hard

Jason Dearen and Martha Mendoza  have an Associated Press article about the Keys, post-Irma:

Search-and-rescue teams made their way into the Florida Keys' farthest reaches on Tuesday, while authorities rushed to repair the lone highway connecting the islands and deliver aid to Hurricane Irma's victims. Federal officials estimated one-quarter of all homes in the Keys were destroyed.
Two days after Irma roared into the island chain with hundred-plus mph winds, residents were allowed to return to the parts of the Keys closest to Florida's mainland. But the full extent of the death and destruction there remained in question because communications and access were cut off in places.
"It's going to be pretty hard for those coming home," said Petrona Hernandez, whose concrete home on Plantation Key with 35-foot walls was unscathed, unlike others a few blocks away. "It's going to be devastating to them."
Elsewhere in Florida, life inched closer to normal, with some flights again taking off, many curfews lifted and major theme parks reopening. Cruise ships that extended their voyages and rode out the storm at sea began returning to port with thousands of passengers.
The number of people without electricity in the late-summer heat dropped to around ten million; half of Florida's population. Officials warned it could take ten days or more for power to be fully restored. About a hundred thousand people remained in shelters across Florida.
Seven deaths in Florida have been blamed on Irma, along with four in South Carolina and two in Georgia. At least thirty-five were killed in the Caribbean.
"We've got a lot of work to do, but everybody's going to come together," Florida Governor Rick Scott said. "We're going to get this state rebuilt."
Irma's rainy remnants, meanwhile, pushed through Alabama and Mississippi after drenching Georgia. Flash-flood watches and warnings were issued around the Southeast.
While nearly all of Florida was engulfed by the four-hundred-mile-wide storm, the Keys, home to about seventy thousand people, appeared to be the hardest hit. Drinking water was cut off, all three of the islands' hospitals were closed, and the supply of gas was extremely limited.
Officials said it was not known how many people ignored evacuation orders to stay behind in the Keys.
Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Brock Long said that preliminary estimates suggested that a quarter of the homes in the Keys were destroyed and over fifty percent sustained major damage. "Basically every house in the Keys was impacted," he said.
In Islamorada, a trailer park was devastated, the homes ripped apart as if by a giant claw, and a sewage-like stench hung over the place.
Debris was scattered everywhere, including refrigerators, washers and dryers, a fishing boat, and a Jacuzzi. Homes were torn open to give a glimpse of their contents, including a bedroom with a small Christmas tree decorated with starfish.
One man and his family came to check on a weekend home and found it destroyed. The sight was too much to bear. The man told his family to get back in the car, and they drove off toward Miami.
In Key Largo, Lisa Storey and her husband said they had yet to be contacted by the power company or by city, county, or state officials. As she spoke to a reporter, a helicopter passed overhead. "That's a beautiful sound, a rescue sound," she said.
An aircraft carrier was positioned off Key West to help in the search-and-rescue effort. Crews worked to repair two washed-out, three-hundred-foot sections of US 1, the only highway from the mainland, and check the safety of the forty bridges linking the islands.
Authorities stopped people and checked for documentation such as proof of residency or business ownership before allowing them back into the Upper Keys, including Key Largo, Tavernier, and Islamorada.
The Lower Keys, including the chain's most distant and most populous island, Key West, with thirty thousand people, were still off-limits, with a roadblock in place where the road was washed out.
While the Keys are studded with mansions and beachfront resorts, about thirteen percent of the people live in poverty and could face big obstacles as the cleanup begins.
"People who bag your groceries when you're on vacation, the bus drivers, hotel cleaners, cooks and dishwashers, they're already living beyond paycheck to paycheck," said Stephanie Kaple, who runs an organization that helps the homeless in the Keys.
Corey Smith, a UPS driver who rode out the hurricane in Key Largo, said it was a relief that many buildings on the island escaped major damage, but he said conditions were still not good, with branches blocking roads and supermarkets closed. "They're shoving people back to a place with no resources," he said by telephone. "It's just going to get crazy pretty quick."
Lower Keys resident Leyla Nedin said she doesn't plan to return any time soon to her home near where Irma came ashore on Cudjoe Key. "We are still without water, power, sewer, gas and cell service," she said. "My concern is that even if we get to go in to the Lower Keys, our fragile infrastructure could be even more compromised."

Rico says he fortunately did not move there before Irma, and may not now...

Apple for the day

Daniel Roberts has a Yahoo article about the latest iPhone:

At its September 2017 keynote event, Apple revealed the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus and, separately, the much-anticipated iPhone X (ten).
The prices are $699 for the 8, $799 for the Plus, and $999 for the X. The 8 and 8 Plus ship on 22 September, and the X ships on 3 November. 

What’s new with iPhone X?Arguably the most exciting new feature of all three new phones is the “wireless charging” now available when the phone sits on a charging pad, called AirPower. (The pad must be plugged into an outlet, but the phone charges wirelessly.) The new Apple Watch Series 3, and the AirPod case, can also charge on the wireless charging pad, all at once. “You’re going to want to use this by your bedside and in your car,” said Apple VP Phil Schiller as he rattled off the list of cases.
The iPhone X has edge-to-edge display a la the Samsung Galaxy and Galaxy Note; an OLED screen (more vibrant colors than LCD); full HD video support; and a feature called Animoji that lets you record a message and choose an emoji to speak your message.
The iPhone X has no tactile home button. You unlock the phone simply by looking at it and swiping up. Apple calls the feature FaceID.
Apple CEO Tim Cook called iPhone X (called “ten” not because it’s the tenth iPhone but to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the iPhone), “the biggest leap forward since the original iPhone.” 

What about the iPhone 8? The 8 has edge-to-edge glass on front and back; comes in three colors: silver, space gray, and gold; and the encasement is “microscopically sealed for water resistance”. The phone also has a new chip inside, called the A11 Bionic, that is 25% faster than the previous A10 chip.
iPhone 8 also has a far better camera: it boasts the “highest-quality video capture ever in a smartphone,” Apple VP Phil Schiller said on stage; and, as many expected, it has augmented-reality capability using Apple’s ARKit. Apple used a game demonstration to show off the AR possibilities in mobile gaming. 

The 8 and 8 Plus do not have FaceID.
The new iPhones are the first new iPhones since September of 2016, when Apple debuted the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. The 7th generation iPhones, in addition to being without a jack, came with: a better camera; better speakers; retina HD display; and a smoother, stronger enclosure. “No other device in our lifetimes has had the impact on the world that the iPhone has,” CEO Tim Cook said on stage.
At the keynote event, Apple also rolled out a new Apple Watch Series 3 and new 4K Apple TV.

Rico says it's expensive, but worth it.

The latest from North Korea

Yahoo has an article about UN actions on North Korea:

North Korean state media released photos of Tuesday’s launch of a missile that flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific Ocean, almost eighteen hundred miles away. The photos show the missile launch (photo, top), as well as leader Kim Jong Un (photo, bottom) watching it.
After the missile was launched, President Donald Trump issued a statement, calling it a “loud and clear” message from Pyongyang that showed it has “contempt for its neighbors, for members of the United Nations, and for minimum standards of acceptable international behavior.” Trump added that “threatening and destabilizing actions only increase the North Korean regimes isolation in the region and among all nations of the world. All options are on the table.”
Trump also spoke with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who called the missile launch “an unprecedented serious and grave threat to Japan”, according to CNN. Abe added that “I would like to make the utmost effort to protect the lives and assets of the Japanese people under a strong alliance between Japan and US.”
The statement released by KCNA that accompanied the photos released late Tuesday confirms that Un “guided an intermediate-range strategic ballistic rocket launching drill”, with other government members and KPA Strategic Force leaders standing by. “Involved in the drill were Hwasong artillery units of the KPA Strategic Force tasked with striking the bases of the US imperialist aggressor forces located in the Pacific operational theater in contingency and intermediate-range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-12,” the statement reads.
The statement notes that the rocket launch was part of the muscle-flexing meant to counter recent joint-military exercises between the US, South Korea, and Japan. “Kim Jong Un expressed great satisfaction over the successful launching,” the statement reads.
It concluded that "Officers and men of the KPA Strategic Force extended the warmest thanks to Kim Jong Un, peerless patriot and hero of the nation, who gave vent to the long-pent grudge of the Korean people by mapping out a bold plan to make the cruel Japanese islanders insensible on 29 August when the disgraceful Korea-Japan Annexation Treaty was proclaimed a hundred and seven years ago and approving ballistic rocket launching in the capital region, and pledged that once the Party Central Committee issues an order, they will fulfill their sacred mission and duty as the reliable nuclear force of the WPK in the van of the final sacred war which will win victory in the standoff with imperialism and the US.
It’s believed that the missile was a Hwasong-12, which could carry a nuclear warhead. The Times reports that it was sent without warning, but the Japanese government noticed it in time to give a warning to citizens. As The Guardian notes, the missiles have an estimated three to six thousand kilometer range and stand sixteen meters tall. Its trajectory took it over the Japanese island of Hokkaido and it landed just eight hundred miles off the island’s coast.
According to The New York Times, this was the first realistic test of the kind of missile North Korea threatened to launch toward Guam earlier this month. Previous missile tests during Kim’s reign have hit water without going as far as Japan.

Rico says we gotta take this fat-faced fuck out...

Why no attack on 9/11...

Maybe they were operating off the Islamic calendar? Nah, it was Monday there, too...

Falling man

Time has an article about the most chilling video from 9/11:

The most widely seen images from 9/11 are of planes and towers, not people. Falling Man is different. The photo, taken by Richard Drew in the moments after the 11 September 2001, attacks, is one man’s desperate escape from the collapsing buildings, a symbol of individuality against the backdrop of faceless skyscrapers. On a day of mass tragedy, Falling Man is one of the only widely seen pictures that shows someone dying.
The photo was published in newspapers around the US in the days after the attacks, but backlash from readers forced it into temporary obscurity. It can be a difficult image to process, the man perfectly bisecting the iconic towers as he darts toward the earth like an arrow.
Falling Man’s identity is still unknown, but he is believed to have been an employee at the Windows on the World restaurant, which sat atop the North Tower. The true power of Falling Man, however, is less about who its subject was and more about what he became: a makeshift Unknown Soldier in an often unknown and uncertain war, suspended forever in history.

Rico says that, sixteen years later, it's still hard to watch.

Irma hits St. Augustine

Yahoo has an article about the hurricane's impact on St. Augustine:

The first Hurricane Irma-related death happened on Monday as the storm tore through the county, causing record flooding and vast power outages.
St. Johns County Sheriff David Shoar said an elderly couple in the Palm Valley area were trapped by high water, and one suffered what is believed to be a heart attack. Shoar said Irma brought a “worst-case scenario” on the county. He added that there is damage all over, saying that “no one was spared.”
County manager Michel Wanchick said the damage is as bad, if not worse, than what the county experienced with Hurricane Matthew.
Officials announced that St. Johns County public schools will be closed through Wednesday.
Shoar said he witnessed heroic efforts by first responders on Sunday night, including in St. Augustine South, where they were chest-deep in water making rescues.
Bridges in the county are going to remain closed until engineers say they’re safe to reopen. There is currently no set time.
Just before 2000 on Sunday, most of the major bridges in St. Johns County were closed due to high winds. The Vilano Bridge, Bridge of Lions, 312 Bridge, State Road 206 Bridge, Shands Bridge. and Palm Valley Bridge are all closed and will remain closed until the barrier islands have been assessed.
Shoar urges residents to be patient while power is restored. Residents of the islands will not be allowed re-entry anytime soon, and Shoar said there’s no need to get in their cars and line up on the roads leading to the bridges.
The Matanzas Bridge and Julington Creek Bridges remain open.
A curfew will be in effect on Monday from 2000 to 0600 on Tuesday morning.
There are currently nearly ninety thousand power outages across the county.
Shoar said deputies will maintain a maximum presence for as long as they can.
The county's Emergency Operations Center, located off Interstate 95 near State Road 16, is open, monitoring the National Hurricane Center's updates and having firefighters man phones. The EOC was activated to  full activation on Friday. 

The county opened emergency shelters at 0600 on Saturday:

Pacetti Bay Middle School, 245 Meadowlark Lane (for special needs victims)
Timberlin Creek Elementary, 555 Pine Tree Lane (pet-friendly)
Southwoods Elementary School, 4750 State Road 206, Elkton (pet-friendly)
Pedro Menendez High School, 600 State Road 206 WestBartram Trail High School, 7399 Longleaf Pine Parkway

St. Johns County opened a general population shelter at Mill Creek Elementary, 3750 International Golf Pkwy in St. Augustine, at 1900 Friday to accommodate those who have been evacuated from South Florida and are traveling north on major thoroughfares.
The Pedro Menendez High School shelter is nearing capacity. Evacuees without special needs or pets are encouraged to seek shelter at the remaining general population shelters. Residents can verify their evacuation zones by entering their address in a map on the county's website.
"It's going to take a lot of patience, it's going to take a lot of collaboration," Sheriff David Shoar said. "After the evacuation order goes into effect and people leave these flood areas, they will not be allowed back in until we collectively make that decision.”
On Friday, many St. Johns County residents were finishing up prepping for the storm before Saturday's mandatory evacuation. People were finding places to park their cars and filling up sandbags before they make their way out of town.
A resident said that, after the devastation they had last year, they're double checking their homes are safe. Jeff Koebrick told News4Jax he's filling up as many sandbags as he can to protect his home from Hurricane Irma, saying it's a lesson he learned after not preparing enough for Hurricane Matthew. "Last year, we got flooded. We live on on the island," Koebrick said. "Keep your fingers crossed. Everybody here in the community is great. Everybody helped out a bunch of people today, so it's good."
St. Johns County Emergency Management Director Linda Stoughton said having Governor Rick Scott declare a state of emergency across Florida creates access to emergency responders on a more comprehensive scale. "It does open up different departments that we can utilize to help prepare on the local level," she said. "It gives us the opportunity to have those discussions with the state of Florida and make those preparations should we need assistance."
Even while victims of Hurricane Matthew are still waiting on Federal money in their recovery, experts are trying to anticipate every circumstance ahead of Irma's arrival.
"Certainly, it is historic," Stoughton said. "In my career, I've never seen a hurricane, I don't think anybody has, with this type of intensity."
The EOC continues to look at the possible impacts, which could include storm surge, flooding, tornadoes, and tropical storm-force and hurricane-force winds.
Officials are asking St. Johns County residents to take time to make sure that your NOAA weather radio is operational. The  programming numbers for the NOAA weather radios are as follows:

Northern St. Johns County -- Jacksonville Transmitter 162.550
Southern St. Johns County -- Palatka Transmitter 162.425
S.A.M.E number for specific County programming 012109

In anticipation of Hurricane Irma, St. Johns County law enforcement agencies have announced a curfew that will be in effect from 2000 to 0600 nightly beginning on Sunday, 10 September for the City of St. Augustine Beach, the City of St. Augustine, and portions of St. Johns County east of the Intracoastal Waterway on the barrier islands. The curfew will remain in effect nightly until further notice. A curfew order mandates that anyone on the street may be required to produce identification to law enforcement officers to verify their address and their purpose for being in the area, in an effort to reduce incidents of potential looting and to protect those in areas which may not yet be deemed safe. Law enforcement agencies of the City of St. Augustine, City of St. Augustine Beach, and St. Johns County worked in conjunction to develop an executive order signed by St. Johns County Administrator Michael Wanchick.
For more information, please call the St. Johns County Emergency Management hotline at 904-824-5550 or visit www.sjcfl.us/hurricane.

The City of St. Augustine opened all floors of the Historic Downtown Parking Facility at 1700 to allow for residential emergency parking in anticipation of Hurricane Irma. The public is asked to not park in spaces designated for first responders and to park only in marked, legal parking spaces.
There will be limited spaces available to the public so, once the garage reaches capacity, it will be closed.
St. Johns County is opening parking spaces at two county lots for residents wishing to move their personal vehicles out of a hurricane evacuation zone, or any other area at risk of flooding. Due to limited space, parking is restricted to personal or general use cars and pickup trucks. All  parking is at the risk of the vehicle owner. Spaces are available on a first-come-first-serve basis.

A hundred spaces are available at the St. Johns Golf Club, 4900 Cypress Lakes Blvd. in Elkton.
A hundred and fifty spaces are available at Treaty Park, 1585 Wildwood Dr. in St. Augustine.

All public schools and district offices in St. Johns County will be closed on Friday through Tuesday due to Hurricane Irma. Schools will operate as normal on Thursday and scheduled evening activities will take place.
District administration is working with the Emergency Operations Center and will provide additional updates as necessary via its communication system and on its website at www.stjohns.k12.fl.us.
The Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind has canceled classes for Thursday and Friday.
In response to Hurricane Irma, the St. Johns County Emergency Operations Center has opened a hotline for residents to call regarding county services, storm response, and events. People are asked to call the St. Johns County Emergency Management hotline at 904-824-5550 for non-emergency storm-related information.
The hotline will be available from 0800 to 1900. If you have a life-threatening emergency, call 911. For additional Hurricane Irma-related information, visit www.sjcfl.us/hurricane.
St. Johns County has activated a hotline for residents and business owners with concerns regarding property and structural damage due to Hurricane Irma. If you have storm-related structural damage or permitting questions, please call the St. Johns County Building Services Structural Hotline at 904-827-6836.

The St. Johns County Sheriff's Office said Hurricane Matthew gave community leaders an opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of emergency preparedness response and recovery plans. As a result of that evaluation, deputies said, the evacuation re-entry tag program has been discontinued. In the past, re-entry tags were issued to residents and business owners east of the Intracoastal Waterway. Green tags were issued for residents, and business owners were issued two orange tags per business. While the tags were not mandatory, the goal was that they would contribute to a smoother and quicker re-entry process as residents returned home after a storm. Evacuation re-entry will now be done through proof of residence in evacuated areas. Examples of proof of residence can be a driver’s license, state identification card, utility bill, or lease agreement. Anyone with questions or concerns can call St. Johns County Emergency Management at 904-824-5550.
The city of St. Augustine began its storm preparations on Tuesday.
The city’s emergency operations are coordinated from the main fire station by Fire Chief Carlos Aviles who, as the city’s emergency operations coordinator, maintains close contact with the St. Johns County Emergency Operations Center, which coordinates efforts countywide and works hand-in-hand with the state of Florida.
Each department within the city has a preparedness plan designed to meet that department’s needs in close coordination with all others. Aviles met Tuesday with departmental directors to review their emergency preparations and, even though it is too early to determine what impact the storm may have on St. Augustine, there is one consistent message: get prepared, follow procedures, and do not be complacent.
The nation's oldest city was one of the heartbreaking scenes less than a year ago when Hurricane Matthew swept up Florida's east coast. If the impact of Irma comes up the coast again, business owners in the ancient city said they're prepared, but praying they don't have to go through the destruction again. "We had to rip everything out," said Reggie Maggs, one of the owners of Meehan's Irish Pub in St. Augustine. "The walls, the floors, the equipment, it was all gone and rebuilt from scratch again."
Hurricane Matthew flooded Meehan's and neighbors along Old St. Augustine's bayfront, but the storm also left an emotional scar. "Last year, the water is what killed us the most," Maggs told News4Jax on Tuesday. Maggs said that has him preparing for the worst, and hoping for the best, from Hurricane Irma.
"The city just came back strong. We came back stronger than ever. The silver lining: we got all new equipment, all new floors and walls. I mean, you got to take to something out of it," he said. "But I do not want to do it again. I don't mind a wee bit of wind or something, but I do not want to deal with all that water again and ripping out walls."
Maggs added that "the storm's going to come. We can't stop that. Wish I could." For now, he said, the entire restaurant staff knows the plan for how to hunker down if it comes to that.
City officials urged residents and business owners to review their own emergency plans as they continue to monitor the storm. More information can be found at www.SJCEmergencyManagement.org or by calling the St. Johns County EOC at 904-824-5550.
St. Johns County began distributing sandbags from six locations at noon Wednesday and ran out of sandbags on Thursday morning.
The city of St. Augustine began providing sandbags starting at 0800 Thursday at Francis Field on West Castillo Drive and was out by 1130.
News4Jax is working to learn if the county or city will be getting more sandbags. 

Beaches closed to vehicles
All St. Johns County beaches are closed to vehicular traffic and will remain closed throughout the duration of Hurricane Irma. All trash receptacles, portalets, cones, and other beach infrastructure will be removed. Coastal flooding could warrant multiple day closures of certain beach access ramps. Beach Services will inspect the beach during and after the event to reinstate vehicular access as soon as conditions allow.
As Hurricane Irma approaches the coast, surf conditions are expected to increase significantly, as well as dangerous rip current activity. Residents are encouraged to avoid the beach and ocean swimming until conditions improve.
In addition, the St. Johns County Ocean and Fishing Pier will close on Friday and will remain closed throughout the duration of the storm. Pier staff will continue to monitor wind and weather conditions and will reopen the pier when safe and appropriate. 

Closures, cancellations
In preparation for Hurricane Irma and the impacts it could have on the community, all administrative offices for St. Johns County, the City of St. Augustine, and the City of St. Augustine Beach will be closed Friday through Monday. The town of Hastings offices will be closed Friday through Monday, and will reopen on Tuesday.
All courthouses and court operations in St. Johns County will be closed Friday through Tuesday.  Conditions permitting courts will re-open Wednesday.
St. Johns County Libraries will be closed Friday through Monday.
The city of St. Augustine Solid Waste residential and commercial services will be canceled on Monday and Tuesday.
The Bridge of Lions has ceased operations for the drawbridge as of 1600 on Saturday.
The Solomon Calhoun Pool will close on Friday and remain closed until further notice.
Castillo de San Marcos & Fort Matanzas National Monuments will be closed beginning on Thursday. All scheduled events are canceled until the parks reopen.  
For updates, please check park websites at www.nps.gov/casa and www.nps.gov/foma. Due to the impending effects of Hurricane Irma, and upon the advice of the City of St. Augustine, this weekend's Grand Tasting and Spanish Wine Festival events have been canceled. After the storm has passed, every effort will be made to re-schedule each of the Wine Festival events.
The St. Johns County Chamber of Commerce has announced that, because of the possibility of adverse weather conditions due to Hurricane Irma, it is in all parties’ best interest to reschedule the Ponte Vedra Auto Show event scheduled for Sunday. The 2017 Ponte Vedra Auto Show, presented by Fields Automotive, will take place at the Nocatee Town Center on Sunday, 24 September. The event will begin at 0900 and end after the awards ceremony concludes at 1500. To find out more about the Ponte Vedra Auto Show visit www.PVAutoshow.com. Auto Show participants can contact the Ponte Vedra Beach Division of the St. Johns County Chamber for more information at 904-285-2004.
St. Johns County Pier and all related facilities is closed due to potential impacts from Hurricane Irma. SJC Beach Services has removed the infrastructure (trash cans, cones, signs, and porta-potties) from the beach on Thursday and beach driving is temporarily suspended until conditions improve.
The Ponte Vedra Zoning and Adjustment Board meeting scheduled for Monday has been canceled. Notice will be given when a rescheduled date is determined.
The City of St. Augustine’s budget hearings scheduled for Thursday have been canceled and will be rescheduled as soon as possible. The meetings were related to the city’s two Community Development Areas (CRA), the Historic Area CRA, and the Lincolnville CRA, and adoption of a tentative millage rate. The cancellation was made possible by Scott's executive order, waiving statutory timing requirements regarding millage and budget hearings because of Hurricane Irma. For more information, call 904-825-1006.
Due to Hurricane Irma and its effects on Florida, Thursday's Modest Mouse concert has been canceled, Friday’s Blackberry Smoke concert has been postponed and this weekend’s Sing Out Loud events have been canceled.
The Sing Out Loud Festival events scheduled for Friday through Sunday have been canceled. The remainder of the Sing Out Loud events (September 15 through 17 and September 22 through 24) are currently scheduled to take place. For updates regarding the Sing Out Loud Festival, please visit www.singoutloudfestival.com.
Ponte Vedra Concert Hall has canceled the Florida Chamber Music Event on Sunday.
The Council on Aging is suspending the operation of the Sunshine Bus system beginning Saturday.
The Friends of the Ponte Vedra Beach Branch Library Book Sale scheduled for Tuesday through Saturday has been canceled.
St. Augustine's annual Ceremony of Remembrance for 9/11 and the regular St. Augustine City Commission meeting scheduled for Monday have been canceled. The regular meeting of the Code Enforcement, Adjustments and Appeals Board (CEAAB) scheduled for Tuesday has also been canceled.

Rico says he's glad he didn't move there, but hopes his cousin Dickie's place is okay.

Irma finally got one

Yahoo has an Associated Press article by Jonathan Landrum Jr.  and Russ Bynum about Irma's first victim:

Hurricane Irma killed one person in Georgia, as storm surge and rain flooded coastal communities Monday, winds sent trees crashing onto homes, and the world's busiest airport in Atlanta, Georgia canceled hundreds of flights as the storm's punch was felt statewide despite its weakened status as a tropical storm.
The city of Savannah, on Georgia's coast, was evacuated for the second time in less than a year because of the storm, and the National Weather Service in Peachtree City confirmed that Atlanta, Georgia, more than 250 miles inland from either the Atlantic or Gulf coasts, was under a tropical storm warning for the first time.
One storm-related death had been confirmed in rural Worth County, Georgia Emergency Management Agency spokeswoman Catherine Howden said Monday afternoon. She had no further details. The storm fatality occurred in southwest Georgia, where Irma's center crossed over from Florida on Monday afternoon. Tropical storm winds reached more than four hundred miles from its center, giving its powerful gusts and drenching rains a far reach.
Storm surge and rainfall arriving at high tide Monday afternoon swamped communities along Georgia's hundred-mile coast. On Tybee Island, east of Savannah, Holland Zellers was heading home to grab a kayak so he could reach a home where his mother had taken shelter near the beach. "In the street right now, the water is knee-to-waist deep," Zeller said.
Shawn Gillen, Tybee Island's city manager, said waters appeared to be receding quickly but the flooding was extensive on the island of more than three thousand residents. "There's a lot of homes that have water in the them right now," Gillen said.
The tidal surge also sent water and damaged boats rushing ashore for more than three blocks into downtown St. Marys, just north of the Georgia-Florida state line, said St. Marys police Lieutenant Shannon Brock, who said no injuries had been reported.
Almost all of Georgia was under a tropical storm warning.
A similar warning covered parts of South Carolina and most of eastern Alabama, where schools and businesses were closed Monday. Alabama Emergency Management Agency meteorologist Jim Stefcovich said strong winds could linger in the state until 0200 on Tuesday.
About eight hundred flights had been canceled at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, which remained operational on Monday as its staff monitored storm conditions with help from the Federal Aviation Administration, airport spokesman Andrew Gobeil said.
By Monday afternoon, more than eight hundred thousand Georgia Power and EMC customers mostly in coastal and south Georgia were without power. Alabama Power said there were twelve thousand outages, mostly in the southeastern area of the state.
In Atlanta, falling trees and limbs may pose the most significant threat to life and property. Amy Phuong, parks and recreation commissioner for the city, says six crews already were handling calls for felled trees around the city Monday afternoon, as winds and rain began to intensify. Phuong says the crews expect to stay busy as Irma passes over the area and in the storm's aftermath. About half the city's land area is covered by trees, a larger share than most urban centers
Georgia's coast was largely empty after evacuations were ordered for the second time in less than year. The coast's over half-a-million residents fled last October ahead of Hurricane Matthew, which caused an estimated half-billion dollars in damage and killed three people.
The National Weather Service said flooding rains were a major concern on Monday, with eight to fifteen inches of rainfall predicted in southeast Georgia. Downtown Savannah saw winds Monday strong enough to make palm trees bend and sway.
Further inland, in Lowndes County near the Georgia-Florida line, firefighters rescued occupants of a few homes struck by falling trees, said county spokeswoman Paige Dukes. No serious injuries were reported. With wind gusts reaching seventy mph , officials ordered a daytime curfew for the hundred thousand residents of Lowndes County, which includes Valdosta.
The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority suspended all bus and rail services on Monday and would decide later whether to resume operations Tuesday, spokesman Erik Burton said.
Georgia Power spokeswoman Holly Crawford said Monday the areas with the most power outages were coastal Glynn and I counties. She says the utility company had about three thousand employees on standby to respond, but cautioned repairs could take several days.

Rico says it wasn't for lack of trying that Irma didn't kill more...

Trump does 9/11

Yahoo has an article by Jennifer Peltz and Karen Matthews via The Associated Press about a solemn moment:

Holding photos and reading names of loved ones lost sixteen years ago, 9/11 victims' relatives marked the anniversary of the attacks at Ground Zero on Monday with a solemn and personal ceremony.
About a thousand 9/11 family members, survivors, rescuers, and officials gathered as the ceremony at the World Trade Center began with a moment of silence and tolling bells. Then, relatives began reading out the names of the nearly three thousand people killed in the deadliest terror attack on American soil. As they read, some said they couldn't believe sixteen years had passed since a tragedy that still seemed, on the anniversary, so present. Some had never even had a chance to meet the relatives they lost.
"I wish more than anything that I could have met you," Ruth Daly said, her voice breaking, after she read names in remembrance of her slain grandmother, Ruth Sheila Lapin. "I'm very proud to be your namesake. I hope you're watching down on me from heaven."
Others hoped for a return to the unity they sensed after the attacks.
Magaly Lemagne, who lost her brother, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Officer David Prudencio Lemagne, wept silently before collecting herself to speak. "Our country came together that day. It did not matter what color you were, or where you were from," she said. "I hope as we commemorate the sixteenth anniversary of 9/11, everyone will stop for a moment and remember all the people who gave their lives that day. "Maybe then we can put away our disagreements and become one country again."
Expressing similar hopes, Nicholas Haros Jr. said the country's response to catastrophic recent hurricanes Harvey and Irma reminded him of the days after 11 September, when he lost his mother, Frances.
Sixteen years later, the quiet rhythms of commemoration have become customs: a recitation of the names of the dead, moments of silence and tolling bells, and two powerful light beams that shine through the night.
Yet each ceremony also takes on personal touches. Over the years, some name-readers have added messages ranging from the universal ("the things we think separate us really don't; we're all part of this one Earth") to the personal ("I love you and miss you. Go Packers!").
The victims died when hijacked planes slammed into the then-World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on 11 September 2001, hurling America into a new consciousness of the threat of global terrorism.
President Donald Trump, a native New Yorker observing the anniversary for the first time as the nation's leader, observed a moment of silence at the White House with first lady Melania Trump (photo).
The Trumps also planned to participate in a 9/11 observance at the Pentagon. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are hosting a private observance for victims' relatives there at 0911 on Monday. After the names are read at that ceremony, there will be a public observance, with a wreath-laying and remarks.
Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke are scheduled to deliver remarks at the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. It's on the rural field where one of the airliners crashed after passengers and crew fought to wrest control away from the terrorists who'd hijacked it and were heading for Washington. Construction continues at the Shanksville memorial, where ground was broken Sunday for a ninety-foot tall Tower of Voices to honor the 33 passengers and seven crew members who died.
The ceremony amid the waterfall pools and lines of trees on the National 11 September Memorial plaza strives to be apolitical. Politicians can attend, but, since 2011, they have not been allowed to read names or deliver remarks.
Yet last year's fifteenth-anniversary ceremony became entangled in the narrative of a fractious presidential campaign when Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton left abruptly, stumbled into a van and ultimately revealed she'd been diagnosed days earlier with pneumonia.
The episode fed into questions that then-Republican-nominee Trump had repeatedly raised about Clinton's stamina and transparency. She took three days off to recover, and Trump used footage of her staggering in a campaign ad.
Trump has often invoked his memories of 9/11 to highlight his hometown's resilience and responders' bravery. Some of his recollections have raised eyebrows, particularly remarks while talking about Muslims that "thousands of people were cheering" in Jersey City, New Jersey, as the towers fell. There is no evidence in news archives of mass celebrations by Muslims there.
Meanwhile, rebuilding and reimagining continues at Ground Zero. The third of four planned office towers is set to open next year; so is a Greek Orthodox church, next to the trade center site, that was crushed by the South Tower's collapse. Work toward a $250 million dollar performing arts center continues after a design was unveiled last fall.
Most recently, plans were announced this spring to transform a grassy clearing on the memorial plaza into a walkway and area dedicated to 9/11 rescue and recovery workers, including those who died of illnesses years after being exposed to smoke, dust, and ash at Ground Zero.

Rico says really: Go Packers? That's not very solemn...

History for the day: 1918: Hemingway wounded

History.com has this for 8 July:

On 8 July 1918, Ernest Hemingway, then an eighteen-year-old ambulance driver for the American Red Cross (photo), is struck by a mortar shell while serving on the Italian front along the Piave delta, during World War One.
A native of Oak Park, Illinois, Hemingway was working as a reporter for the Kansas City Star when war broke out in Europe in 1914. He volunteered for the Red Cross in France before the Americans entered the war in April of 1917 and was later transferred to the Italian front, where he was on hand for a string of Italian successes along the Piave delta in the first days of July 1918, during which three thousand Austrians were taken prisoner.
On the night of 8 July 1918, Hemingway was struck by an Austrian mortar shell while handing out chocolate to Italian soldiers in a dugout. The blow knocked him unconscious and buried him in the earth of the dugout; fragments of shell entered his right foot and his knee and struck his thighs, scalp, and hand. Two Italian soldiers standing between Hemingway and the shell’s point of impact were not so lucky, however; one was killed instantly, and another had both his legs blown off and died soon afterwards. Hemingway’s friend Ted Brumbach, who visited him in the hospital, wrote to Hem’s parents that a third Italian was badly wounded and this man Ernest, after he had regained consciousness, picked up on his back and carried to the first aid dugout. Hemingway says he did not remember how he got there, nor that he carried the man, until the next day, when an Italian officer told him all about it and said that it had been voted to give him a valor medal for the act. As Brumbach reported, Hemingway was awarded an Italian medal of valor, the Croce de Guerra, for his service. As he wrote in his own letter home after the incident: everything is fine and I am very comfortable and one of the best surgeons in Milan is looking after my wounds.
Hemingway’s experiences in Italy during World War One would become an integral part of his larger-than-life persona, as well as the material for one of his best-loved novels, A Farewell to Arms, which chronicles the love of a young American ambulance driver for a beautiful English nurse on the Italian front during the Great War.

Rico says that was the last time anyone referred to a war as great, but he's happy Hemingway survived to write his great novels, even if his life ended badly...

Hurricane update

Yahoo has an article via The Associated Press by Tamara Lush and Jay Reeves about Irma:

Announcing itself with roaring 130 mph winds, Hurricane Irma plowed into the mostly emptied-out Florida Keys early Sunday for the start of what could be a slow, ruinous march up the state's west coast toward the heavily populated Tampa-St. Petersburg area.
"Pray, pray for everybody in Florida," Florida Governor Rick Scott said on Fox News Sunday.
With more than estimated a hundred thousand people huddling in shelters statewide, the storm lashed the low-lying string of islands with drenching rain and knocked out power to over a million customers, many of them hundreds of miles from Irma's center.
In downtown Miami, one of two dozen construction cranes looming over the skyline collapsed atop a high-rise in Irma's winds. There were no immediate reports of any damage or injuries.
About thirty thousand people heeded orders to evacuate the Keys as the storm closed in, but an untold number refused to leave, in part because, to many storm-hardened residents, staying behind in the face of danger is a point of pride. (Idiots, Rico says.)
While the projected track showed Irma raking the state's Gulf Coast, forecasters warned that the entire Florida peninsula, including the Miami metropolitan area of six million people, was in extreme peril from the monstrous storm, now almost four hundred miles wide. Nearly seven million people in the Southeast were warned to get out of the storm's path, including over six million in Florida alone.
The Republican governor, Rick Scott, said on NBC that he spoke to President Donald Trump, and "everything I've asked out of the Federal government, he's made sure he gave us." Once the storm passes, "we're going to need a lot of help," Scott warned. But he also described Florida as "a tough state. We are going to come through this."
Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Brock Long said on Fox News Sunday that: "Once this system passes through, it's going to be a race to save lives and sustain lives." With FEMA still dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Houston, Texas, Irma could test the agency's ability to handle two disasters at the same time.
Irma made landfall just after 0900 at Cudjoe Key, about twenty miles outside Key West, forecasters said. By late morning, it was advancing toward Florida's southwestern corner, moving at just nine mph.
As the hurricane's eye approached the Keys, sixty-year-old Carol Walterson Stroud and her family were huddled in a third-floor apartment in Key West.
"We are good so far," she said in a text message just before 0530. "It's blowing hard."
Key West Police urged anyone riding out the storm in that city to "resist the urge" to go outside during the eye, the deceptively calm interlude in the middle of a hurricane. "Dangerous winds will follow quickly," police said in a Facebook post.
John Huston, who was riding out the storm at his Key Largo home, was already seeing flooding in his yard before the arrival of high tide. "Small boats floating down the street next to furniture and refrigerators. Very noisy," he said by text message. "Shingles are coming off."
Irma was at one time the most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the open Atlantic, with a peak wind speed of 185 mph last week. It left more than twenty people dead across the Caribbean and, as it moved north over the Gulf of Mexico's bathtub-warm water of nearly ninety degrees, regained strength.
Forecasters said Irma could hit the Tampa-St. Petersburg areas early Monday. The Tampa Bay area has not taken a direct hit from a major hurricane since 1921, when its population was only about ten thousand, National Hurricane Center spokesman Dennis Feltgen said. Now around three million people live there.
Some four hundred miles north of the Keys, the wind was picking up in St. Petersburg and people began bracing for the storm's wrath. "I've been here with other storms, other hurricanes. But this one scares me," Sally Carlson said she snapped photos of the waves crashing against boats. "Let's just say a prayer we hope we make it through."
John Leuders, another St. Petersburg resident, said he felt confident of his preparations: "We tore down part of our fence because we couldn't get any plywood from Home Depot or Lowe's, and we boarded up with the fence."
The governor activated all seven thousand members of the Florida National Guard, and thirty thousand Guardsmen from elsewhere were on standby.
Even before the extent of its potential devastation was clear, the storm made a huge swath of the peninsula's bottom half unrecognizable. Normally bustling streets were ghost towns. Famed party stretches, including Duval Street in Key West and Ocean Drive on Miami's South Beach, were shuttered. Sunday church services were called off, and theme parks were closed.
The effects spilled far beyond Florida. Hotels were sold out as far north as Atlanta, Georgia. Forecasters warned that, after churning up Florida's west coast, a weakened Irma could push into Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and beyond. A tropical storm warning was issued for the first time ever in Atlanta, some two hundred miles from the sea. Given its mammoth size and strength and its projected course, Irma could prove one of the most devastating hurricanes ever to hit Florida, and inflict damage on a scale not seen here in 25 years.
Hurricane Andrew smashed into suburban Miami, Florida in 1992, with winds topping 165 mph  damaging or blowing apart over a hundred thousand homes. The damage in Florida totaled twenty-six billion dollars, and at least 40 people died.

Rico says it's getting ugly, but he's still happy he didn't move to the Keys...

Not Rico's vice president

The Washington Post has an article by Jenna Johnson about a dumb move by a dumb guy:

It was the sort of photo just begging to be hilariously captioned, mocked on Twitter, and photoshopped. During a visit to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Vice President Pence solemnly reached out and touched the Orion spacecraft's titanium forward bay cover, placing his full palm just below a sign that read: Critical Space Flight Hardware 'DO NOT TOUCH.'
Mike Brown, a photographer for Reuters, captured the moment and his photo was soon devoured by the Internet, eventually forcing NASA to release a statement saying that it was okay for Pence to touch the space hardware, and prompting the vice president to post a self-deprecating response on Friday afternoon.
The tweets and photoshopped pictures started slowly Thursday night, and became a full-blown meme by midday Friday. Several people compared the photo to one of Trump touching a glowing orb during his visit to Saudi Arabia:

 

An iOS developer noted that the three bolts below Pence's hand formed “an appalled face”. Thanks to Photoshop, Pence was suddenly spotted in an Indiana Jones scene, stroking the belly of a reptile, and next to a sunbathing New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie and touching MC Hammer as the Hammer song U Can't Touch This:

Several people tied the photo to reports that Pence calls his wife “Mother” and that he never dines alone with women. Early Friday morning, writer and Twitter personality Shauna Wright tweeted the photo with this thought: “Suddenly I understand why he won't have dinner with a woman who isn't his wife”. Hours later, author Jason Miller of Nashville tweeted this caption: “Pence looked left, then right. Mother wasn't anywhere around. He smiled to himself. He would touch.” The popular Twitter personality @nycsouthpaw jumped in to note that “in Pence's defense, 'DO NOT TOUCH' is in quotes.”
Friday afternoon, Pence got in on the joke and joined the mocking. He tweeted a blurred version of the photo that highlighted Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio and circled the senator's face, along with this message: “Sorry @NASA …@MarcoRubio dared me to do it!” He then followed up with a photoshopped picture showing him petting a porcupine with the caption: “Okay, so this isn't exactly the first time this has happened.”

Rico says maybe we should not have Trump whacked, if this is what we get afterwards... (And what idiot pets a porcupine, anyway?)