So she will be sticking it out, alone, on an island in the Atlantic, in her mid 80s, and she doesn't even know how to use the grill...  My mother is trying to talk her through getting her cell phone charged and teaching her how to use it so at least we will maybe be able to get in touch.

The worst part is, she's not even on a real island, with real services.  She's on an island off the real island, that you have to take another boat to get to, and has one store that sells used car parts and enough milk and eggs for one person to last 3 days.  Forget about a hospital or police or anything like that.  But she went over to her 90 something friend's house the other day for coctails and they are all sticking it out...

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) is calling on President Obama to stop fixating on the deficit and begin focusing on jobs instead. "I don't think he's exercising the leadership that's necessary right now to move us in the direction that I think we ought to be moving in," Harkin said of Obama.

Harkin, a Democrat, said that the president instead should push to raise revenue to invest in schools, highways, bridges and water and sewer systems -- which the Iowa senator believes is the best way to create jobs.

"We can put people to work, we rebuild the physical infrastructure for the next century, and then when that wheel starts going, the private sector that's sitting on about $2 trillion right now will start investing again because people will be able to buy what they make," Harkin told The Des Moines Register's editorial board. link

h/t Think Progress

Today, Sanders announced that he will introduce legislation that would strengthen Social Security without cutting benefits to any of its beneficiaries. Sanders' legislation would eliminate the income cap that currently exists in the payroll tax that does not tax income above $106,800:

To keep Social Security strong for another 75 years, Sanders' legislation would apply the same payroll tax already paid by more than nine out of 10 Americans to those with incomes over $250,000 a year. [...] Under Sanders' legislation, Social Security benefits would be untouched. The system would be fully funded by making the wealthiest Americans pay the same payroll tax already assessed on those with incomes up to $106,800 a year. Think Progress

It's not the devastation that might happen.  It's the citified knuckleheads who don't have a clue on how to deal, then make a spectacle of themselves when Mother Nature comes knocking.

1. Fill up everything you can with water, including your bathtub.  Then if you loose water you can use that to pour into the back of your toilet, then it will flush normally.

2. Treat your fridge like a cooler.  Get rid of everything that will spoil except the stuff you can eat in a couple days.  It will all go bad before you get electricity.  Fill every Tupperware container with water and freeze it, those blocks will take days to thaw and will keep food so long as you keep the fridge door shut.

3. Make sure you car(s) are full of gas.  They make great sources of AC, AM radio listening, and cell phone chargers.  So make sure you can charge your phone with a cigarette lighter.

4. Get tons of booze because the first day or two after is a party, everyone grilling all their freezer meat, drinking beverages that are cold, and making mixers.  But once those run out, you will need something to help you and your fiends cope with each other.  Warm beer, warm booze, and junk food with 100% humidity and no showers will get real old on around the 3rd day.

5. Make sure you have plenty of grill fuel.  It's the one thing we did find before.  Near the end we were grilling frozen (thawed) pizza's and steaming frozen veggies in tin foil.

6.  Get a gun for protection.  A city with no lights is a damn scary place, especially when 9/11 gets overwhelmed and people are running low on goods and patients.  You feel extremely isolated without communication.  We were told to stay home after dark, but watching the cops drive by in complete darkness with their search lights on is unnerving.  I don't like guns, but in this case, I am really glad I borrowed one.

Our neighborhood was hit lightly, some trees down, so we assumed the rest of the city wasn't too bad. Then we headed out on like day 4 to a friends parents house maybe 20 miles out.  It was insane, tons of damage.  My point is you are cut off with only a handful of AM windbags with agendas giving you their version of events.  So trying to decipher reality is not easy if you aren't familiar with those clowns.

We lost data, but never lost phone service.

LED flashlights lasted the entire event, whereas regular bulbs went out w/i a day.

I live in a concrete building so I turned down the AC as low as it would go, which helped to keep it cool.

A music source is almost a must.  I have a boom box for my iPhone that made it the entire time.  Put the iPhone being a power hungry monster has to be charge in my truck frequently.

After... the first places to open were bars, which was awesome because after being stuck for days with the same people you want to get out and find out what happened.  Good place to find out what stores have gas/water and if your like me, all your friends will be there.

Slowly but surely people started getting water and electricity back.  Cable, which at the time for me meant internet as well took a couple weeks.  Even where I lived in a big condo complex, my friends on the other side had electricity, which on the 6th floor meant water too.  It was a patch work of of friends and stores for the basics.  When work opened, I was glad to go back into great AC, the internet, and a clean bathroom.

Right.

Detroit-- Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the "underwear bomber" accused of trying to blow up an airliner over Metro Detroit on Christmas Day 2009, asked a judge Thursday to free him from prison, arguing he should be judged by the Quran, not U.S. laws.

The handwritten request, in which Abdulmutallab claims he is being "unjustly detained," injected religion into arguably the most high-profile criminal terror case in the United States since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Legal and cultural experts called Abdulmutallab's request fruitless, with one labeling it a "sideshow antic," though it served as the latest curveball by a Nigerian suspect whose own legal adviser questioned the man's ability to stand trial while serving as his own lawyer.

"If he was in the land of Saudi Arabia or Iran and he attempted the same act, I don't think he would be making that request, because his punishment may be more strict," said Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations. "He really needs to be quiet with these sideshow antics. He is going to get his wish by the Quran, by God, when he does. He will be judged by the American court right now."

A$$hole people.

During and after Saturday's [pre-season] game [between the Oakland Raiders and SF 49'ers], more than 50 people needed medical attention, including one man who was beaten unconscious in a restroom and two men who were shot in the parking lot. Police and team officials said they expected a safer environment this Saturday when the 49ers play Houston at Candlestick, but they said a general lack of respect for authority might have contributed to last weekend's mayhem.