Archive for September 14th, 2008
McCain Gains In Electoral Race
Recent polls showed John McCain pulling ahead in the popular vote but lagging in the Electoral College count.
Now that’s beginning to change.
According to Real Clear Politics, Barack Obama can now count on 207 Electoral College votes. McCain on 227.
According to their analysis, there are 104 toss up states, including the electoral vote rich states of Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
More distressing to the Democrats, Florida, according to Real Clear Politics, is leaning toward McCain. That state represents 27 electoral votes.
Gas Prices Surge
Waiting in line for gas in North Carolina
Gas prices are surging in the south and along the eastern seaboard because of interrupted oil production caused by the visit of Hurricane Ike.
In some places the price is topping $5-a-gallon.
Funny how there’s a special law of supply and demand when it comes to gasoline. The cost of crude dips, but you don’t see it reflected at the pumps immediately because, well, that oil is still in the pipeline and hasn’t reached our local gas stations. But a hurricane hits and the cost of fuel soars immediately.
Is this really the result of costs to the stations? Or is the delivery system so impaired by the hurricane that the stations feel they have right to gouge?
Limiting the amount of gasoline one can purchase is understandable when there’s an immediate and temporary shortage of fuel. But increasing the cost overnight by, in some cases, more than $1-a-gallon?
Homeland Security Response To Hurricane Ike
Cinco Ranch, TX damage
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says, while Hurricane Ike has truck the coast of Texas and the west coast of Louisiana, an “exceptionally broad storm surge” has affected eastern Louisiana, Mississippi and down the Texas coast.
Chertoff says, as example, there have been “very, very significant surges” in Beaumont and in Cameron Parrish and Lake Charles. However, the impact in Galveston and in the Houston ship channel was not as great as had been anticipated.
Storm surges, he says, reached 16-feet in some areas.
Now that the hurricane has made landfall, Chertoff says sustained winds are down to tropical storm levels. But he says rain will cause flooding in Texas and further into the United States.
“This is still,” Chertoff warns, “a dangerous storm.”
The primary search and rescue focus, he says, is concentrated in Orange County and Cameron Parrish, Louisiana, Galveston and the eastern part of Harris County.
He says Coast Guard and National Guard assets are being pressed into service.
Other areas that aren’t experiencing flooding problems still have their problems, he says, with downed trees and power lines. He is urging people in those areas to be cautious when they venture outside.
“There is a systematic plan to conduct search and rescue ground, water, and air,” he says.
Chertoff says more than 2 million people have been evacuated in Texas. About 130,000 more in Louisiana. It’s still too early, he says, for them to return home.
