Again tonight, for the third night in a row, central Florida is bracing for freezing temperatures. Temperatures have been so low that one farmer describes his fruit, still on the trees and frozen solid as “hard as a golf ball”. The extent of the damage to the fruit and vegetable crops is not known yet, but it could be rather severe.
The state supplies 70% of domestically grown fruits and vegetables during the winter months, and many of them are still in the field, including oranges, strawberries, blueberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers, squash, zucchini and green beans, McElroy said. He said the impact on consumers will depend on the extent of the damage, which is not known.
“Generally speaking, when supply goes down, prices go up, so it certainly wouldn’t be a surprise if we saw a rise in prices for fruits and vegetables,” McElroy said.
McElroy said growers and assessment teams for the counties, state and U.S. Department of Agriculture will measure the damage to 14 million acres, but the full extent won’t be known until sometime next week.
Here in the Midwest we had a couple of days where it actually got rather nice – into the 40s. But that ends tonight. We are going right back into the deep freeze with more bitter cold. Plus snow over the weekend. But if you don’t live in the Midwest, don’t think you’re getting off lightly. A coast-to-coast storm pattern is setting up and it may get a bit frisky just about everywhere in the coming week.
Victor Davis Hanson has an uneasy feeling over the recent “patriotic” pronouncements from the left.
The point? I distilled from the press coverage and the crowds and the punditry Tuesday that for all too many suddenly a vote for Obama redeems America. Now, to paraphrase Michelle Obama, for the first time in their lives they are apparently proud of the United States. (Had we not had the financial meltdown in mid-September, and had Obama stayed three points back in the polls, would millions have stayed soured on America and now in sullen silence licked their wounds?).
So I am surprised that suddenly the election of a single individual means that we are united, patriotic, proud of America? Suddenly Okinawa or Antietam, or all those who died at the Argonne, are ours to claim again? (This reminds of elementary school, when our third-grade split up into two sides, as the teacher quizzed us on geography-and the losers of the contest cried and said unfair and how they didn’t like school or Mrs. Wilson, and then when they won the next day, how suddenly third grade became glorious, and Mrs. Wilson and her games were once again wonderful).
The reasoning of these sudden patriots is very much at the maturity level of the third grade. To be charitable. This childish, sudden “love” for this country only because their candidate won election isn’t really new, of course. It is much the same thing that Thomas Paine warned about: the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot.
Do read the whole thing. Hanson is, as always, worth reading in full.
Via Real Clear Politics.
The first Camelot never really existed of course. Neither did the second one. And the third is all over before it began. King Aurthur’s never-was and the myths of the Kennedy presidency aside, the third iteration – where Princess Caroline of Camelot Valley was supposed to glide effortlessly into the Senate appears to have hit the ugly reality of a housekeeper and the matter of non-payment of taxes for said employee.
What is it with rich liberals?
ALBANY — Problems involving taxes and a household employee surfaced during the vetting of Caroline Kennedy and derailed her candidacy for the Senate, a person close to Gov. David A. Paterson said on Thursday, in an account at odds with Ms. Kennedy’s own description of her reasons for withdrawing.
The account emerged 14 hours after Ms. Kennedy announced that she was taking her name out of contention for the Senate seat vacated by Hillary Rodham Clinton, and as Mr. Paterson, according to two well-placed Democrats told of his thinking, was leaning toward selecting Representative Kirsten E. Gillibrand, an upstate lawmaker in her second term in Congress.
I’m losing count of how many times this has happened. Just a guess, but I’m thinking that the problem has to be a rather bad one that couldn’t be whitewashed enough, even with the Kennedy clan wielding the brushes.
Via Memeorandum
Environment | Gaius January 22, 2009 | 
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