Wednesday, June 27, 2012


The Waldo Canyon Fire in Colorado Springs
near Garden of the Gods...
Pic by RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post

Sunday, June 24, 2012

NHC advisory #6 issued
will never make it to Texas
Trop Storm warnings lifted in many places...
...Tropical storm conditions continue over portions of the northeast
Gulf Coast... 
 
summary of 100 PM CDT...1800 UTC...information
----------------------------------------------
location...28.3n 85.9w
about 200 mi...325 km ESE of the mouth of the Mississippi River
about 105 mi...170 km SSW of Apalachicola Florida
maximum sustained winds...60 mph...95 km/h
present movement...NE or 40 degrees at 5 mph...7 km/h
minimum central pressure...993 mb...29.32 inches
 
 
watches and warnings
--------------------
changes with this advisory...
None.
 
Summary of watches and warnings in effect...
 
a Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for...
* the coast of Louisiana from the mouth of the Pearl River westward
to Morgan City...not including the city of New Orleans or Lake
Pontchartrain
* the Mississippi-Alabama border eastward to the Suwannee River
river Florida
 
a tropical storm watch is in effect for...
* south of the Suwannee River to Anclote Key Florida
 
a Tropical Storm Warning means that tropical storm conditions are
expected somewhere within the warning area within 36 hours.
 
A tropical storm watch means that tropical storm conditions are
possible within the watch area...in this case within 12 to 24 hours.
 
For storm information specific to your area...including possible
inland watches and warnings...please monitor products issued by
your local National Weather Service forecast office.
 
 
Discussion and 48-hour outlook
------------------------------
at 100 PM CDT...1800 UTC...the center of Tropical Storm Debby was
located near latitude 28.3 north...longitude 85.9 west. Debby is
moving toward the northeast near 6 mph...9 km/h. No significant
motion is expected during the next 12 to 24 hours...and the track
beyond that time is highly uncertain. 
 
Maximum sustained winds remain near 60 mph...95 km/h...with higher
gusts.  Some slight strengthening is possible during the next 48
hours.
 
Tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 200 miles...325 km.
 
The latest minimum central pressure measured by a reconnaissance
aircraft was 993 mb...29.32 inches.
 
 
Hazards affecting land
----------------------
wind...tropical storm conditions are already near or over portions
of the northeast Gulf Coast and are expected to reach the remainder
of the warning area by tonight...making outside preparations
difficult or dangerous.
 
Storm surge...the combination of a storm surge and the tide will
cause normally dry areas near the coast to be flooded by rising
waters. The water could reach the following depths above ground if
the peak surge occurs at the time of high tide...
 
southeastern Louisiana eastward through Apalachee Bay...3 to 5 ft
Florida West Coast south of Apalachee Bay...1 to 3 ft
southwestern Louisiana...1 to 3 ft
 
the deepest water will occur along the immediate coast in areas of
onshore flow.  Surge-related flooding depends on the relative
timing of the surge and the tidal cycle...and can vary greatly over
short distances.  For information specific to your area...please
see products issued by your local National Weather Service office.
 
Rainfall...Debby is expected to produce rain accumulations of 5 to
10 inches along the immediate Gulf Coast from southeast Louisiana
to the central West Coast of Florida...with isolated maximum
amounts of 15 inches possible. Given the recent heavy rainfall and
wet soil conditions...these additional amounts will exacerbate the
threat of flooding across portions of northern Florida and southern
Alabama.
 
Tornadoes...isolated tornadoes are possible over portions of the
west-central and southwestern Florida Peninsula today.
 
 
Next advisory
-------------
next complete advisory...400 PM CDT.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Sneak Peak

"Pool Hall" will be one of my prints showing this weekend at the "Motions and Emotions" show at the Continental Lofts in Deep Ellum...
sponsored by Creative South and benefiting Childrens Medical Center of Dallas...

Monday, June 11, 2012




Come see us Friday night!  It'll be fun...I promise!

Cloacal Finance


     With the kind of aplomb characteristic of a waiter lifting the silver serving dome to expose a roasted goose, Europe has looked deep into its organs of finance and produced 100 billion E-bucks for the ailing banks of sad-sack nephew Spain.  Where did all that money come from? Out of Europe's ass. That is where all new money comes from these days: an international diarrhea of money. Maybe that is why the great nations of the West feel like shit.
     They are not likely to feel better if they keep shitting money all over themselves. Rather, they will end up sitting in the gutter in Chinatown being laughed at by Chinese businessmen passing by on the sidewalk. The Chinese businessmen will glance down and say, "Look, here are the clowns we used to see at Davos, Switzerland, every year eating foie gras. Now they are pathetic crack-heads beshitting themselves. And, hark, the lice crawling all over them are shouting and banging on pots!"
     We are those lice.
     This is what comes of pulling money out of your ass. Sorry to be so graphic but it is not a pretty story.
     The Spanish government now turns around and lends money to Spanish banks choking on bad debt. The Spanish banks will instantly vomit up bonds in return. The bonds will be of an unsecured subordinated kind as to be perceived as functionally worthless, and (according to financial flaneur Bruce Krasting) will inspire a subordinating of bond-holders all over Europe and hence either a massive dumping of bank bonds or an orgy of credit default swap bets between counterparties absolutely unable to cover their side of the wager.
      We're at the point where money has been asked to perform like a trained monkey in the street, doing all kinds of tricks to distract the public from the sad spectacle of the monkey's owner dying in the gutter. When the owner expires, the talented monkey will not know what to do with the coins that passersby tossed to it.
     These street scenes of late spring, 2012, represent what they call "unhealthy life choices" in the rehab business. All the once-great western economic powers have decided to become crack-heads, winos, and beggars with amusing monkeys. They are all dying of their addictions. They are all dark stories with unhappy endings. They all ended that way because the addicts refused to make different decisions that would have drawn them through a frightful passage out of their addiction into a new place with a different psychology.
     The frightful passage at issue is the reality-mandated economic contraction that the planet and its very various inhabitants require for a necessary re-set to health. The human race can either get with the program or expire in the gutter of its septic industrial slum. To fully understand the meaning of contraction, you have to at least first entertain the possibility of no further expansion. The doctors in charge of the case can't stretch their minds to imagine that possibility, so their ministrations are at odds with the requirements of reality. Rehab is not going so well.
     Of course, we lice on this body politic will not be so happy when the body slumps against the curb and exhales its final rattle of breath. So, bang those pots and yell as loud as you can as we move into a summer of criticality. Crawl down to Charlotte, NC, or Tampa, Fla, to the political conventions, and be heard. Fellow lice: America was once a great body to live on, six-foot-three, mounted on a white steed, a sword on the hip, resolute and brave. Look at us now! See how we are!
 

Friday, June 08, 2012

Monday, June 04, 2012

from the trip to Caddo Lake...great fun, great company!

Laura Moore
Habitant de Paris
Opening Night
Saturday, June 9th 7-10pm
It is with great pleasure to announce that Laura Moore has been awarded an Artist in Residence in Paris, France, at the American Church in Paris. Moore will create a large-scale oil painting as a continuation of her labyrinth series during the three-week residency. The painting will be displayed in the sanctuary of the American Church in Paris for one year. As an additional requirement of the residency Moore will design and orchestrate a charity street labyrinth made of goods that will benefit the American Church in Paris' Friday Mission Lunch for the homeless. Moore has also been asked to prepare a prospectus that will be used to launch an ongoing Artist in Residence program for the American Church in Paris.
As Moore prepares for the residency she has been reminiscing about wandering around the streets of Paris and those thoughts have influenced her latest series. The exhibition "Habitant de Paris" featuring realistic watercolor paintings that dissolve into abstract works will debut on opening night, Saturday, June 9th from 7-10pm. Moore revisits in watercolor the places in Paris that are most clearly etched in her mind. She tends to be drawn to the grittier aspects of Paris and enjoys the juxtaposition of modern elements (like graffiti) between centuries old architecture. The show features watercolors that incorporate text, realism, architectural details and abstract elements to form memories of Moore's favorite Parisian scenes.
"Habitant de Paris" will open on Saturday, June 9th from 7-10pm at Laura Moore Fine Art Studios, 107 S Tennessee in historic downtown McKinney. The gallery will be closed during the residency June 14 through July 9 and will open again on July 12th in time for July's Second Saturday Art Walk.
You can follow the progress of Moore's residency on Facebook at www.facebook.com/LauraMooreArt.



Laura Moore Fine Art Studios
107 S Tennessee
McKinney, Texas 75069
214.914.3630

Welcome to the Wormhole


     Now we get to the really fun part of the global unwind where even money flowing into supposedly safe havens turns, presto change-o, into an evaporation of wealth, and all of the lawyer-lobbyists who ever double-parked on K Street in the sorry history of this frantic era will not avail to contain the demons of their own design. 
     The world is waiting to re-learn an old lesson: that untruth and reality exist in an adversarial relationship. Sad to say, there isn't enough legal infrastructure in the world, nor enough time, to pass judgment on all the lies and misrepresentations that burden the current edition of what passes for civilization. This goes especially for money matters, where currencies, certificates, and contracts actually have to represent what they purport to stand for. When those relationships fail, as they have been doing for some years now, everything falls apart.
     This is what comes of evading the enforcement of norms and standards and of running exchanges without clearing operations. The response to this mischief in deeds such as the Dodd-Frank so-called financial reform act only heaps more hyper-complex untruth on the smoldering compost of prior intentional falsities. It all seems so hopelessly abstract that even thoughtful citizens can't muster the means to object until that magic moment when, say, the supermarket shelves go empty or nobody will accept the green paper cluttering up your billfold.
    For all the epic volume of blather on the Internet and elsewhere, few have even remarked on extraordinary passivity of the vulgar masses in the face of having their future looted out from under them. The ethos of the penitentiary must have saturated the zeitgeist wherein you are expected to just bend over and take it good and hard where the sun don't shine and then you are rewarded with a baloney sandwich. At least that's been the theme since 2008. 
     The way things are lining up, though, it might be a whole different story when the two political parties convene this summer for their nominating rigmarole. I remain convinced that these fatuous rites will meet with disruption. Of course, both parties deserve an equal dose of citizen-generated shock and awe. Both parties need to be rebuked, humiliated, and probably dismantled so that this country can get on with the business of trying to become civilized. Charlotte, NC, (the Democrats) and Tampa, FLA, (Republicans) are the venues for these dumbshows. I hope to be there running a pitchfork concession.
      Meanwhile, as what many observers call a "global slowdown" reveals itself to be a compressive collapse of faith in a system plagued by deception and pranged by massive cross-defaults, political uproar will rage through Europe and set the stage for emulation in the USA. Angela Merkel made a funny over the weekend: something about constructing a European fiscal union. That has about the same chance of happening as Mrs. Merkel becoming a pole dancer when her party gets tossed out of leadership not many months down the line. All the nations where people wear clothing are in desperate trouble. Their debt problems are insoluble and they're out of accounting tricks. Events are running way ahead of institutions and personalities. 
     Speaking of which, what dogs me more and more every day is how come Jon Corzine is still at large six months after mugging MF Global's customers, and what is the status of JP Morgan's "London Whale" fiasco now that the news media have conveniently stopped following the story. Have the losses blown past $5 billion? Or is that just one little tuft of yarn which, when yanked, will unravel the entire skein of world banking? Well, it's party season in the Hamptons now and the gentlemen responsible for these misdeeds are busy nibbling the sea urchin roe and cucumber tidbits, I suppose, and it would be unkind to ask them to testify before a congressional subcommittee or, jeepers, a grand jury.
     Ever wonder what it might be like to live in a world without consequences? Well, you've had a good look at it for more than a couple of years. How did it work out? What did you get away with? And how do you plan to hang onto it?
 

Saturday, June 02, 2012

Bike the Bricks 2012...