The new advisory is out:

At 11 PM EDT…0300z…a Hurricane Watch has been issued for the Florida East Coast from Florida City northward to Flagler Beach…including Lake Okeechobee. Some or all of the Hurricane Watch area will likely be upgraded to a Hurricane Warning Thursday morning. A Hurricane Watch means that hurricane conditions are possible within the watch area…generally within 36 hours.

At 11 PM EDT…a Tropical Storm Watch has been issued for the middle and upper Florida Keys from south of Florida City southward to the Seven Mile Bridge…including Florida Bay.

Here’s a graphical illustration:

It’s still at 140 mph, and according to the discussion, that estimated strength “may be a little conservative.” Also:

Frances is expected to move over warmer water near and within the Bahama Islands chain in 24-48 hours. Given the already impressive outflow pattern…some additional strengthening seems plausible. Also…the very dry mid-level air…30-40 percent humidity…that Frances has been traversing through and ingesting over the past 5 days is forecast to increase to more than 60 percent in 36-60hr… which may also help with the intensification process.

Intensity forecasts for major hurricanes are notoriously unreliable, because the changes in strength are largely governed by internal “eyewall replacement cycles” which are still very poorly understood by scientists. Thus, the hurricane center generally shies away from making bold predictions about intensity in either direction once a hurricane reaches this level of strength, and instead just predicts “fluctuations in intensity.” That’s exactly what they’re doing now. But it sounds like, in their heart of hearts, the NHC forecasters expect Frances to get stronger before landfall.

If it reaches 156 mph, it would be the first Category Five hurricane to hit the U.S. since Andrew, and only the fourth ever.

“Hellstorm,” indeed.

P.S. Jeb Bush has declared a state of emergency for the the entire state of Florida, and nearly a half-million people have already been ordered to evacuate. The Kennedy Space Center is closing down.

According to the AP: “The last time two major hurricanes hit Florida in rapid succession was 1950. Hurricane Easy struck Tampa around Sept. 4 of that year and Hurricane King hit Miami six weeks later on Oct. 17. They were Category 3 storms, smaller than Charley or Frances.”

Here’s what the computer models are saying. Here’s another look. The NHC is expecting some very valuable data out of its next “model run” later tonight, and the forecast may be significantly updated — quite possibly to the “left,” or south, of the current track — when the 5:00 AM advisory comes out.

P.P.S. See above for evidence that Matt Drudge’s head has exploded (again).

More on eyewall replacement cycles further above.

“Too bad for Nader that he’s not fighting to get on the ballot in Ramallah,” New Republic blogger Jason Zengerle quips, after revealing that our beloved Ralph told Al Jazeera yesterday:

“The two parties provide no choices to millions of Americans who believe that the Israeli peace movement and the Palestinian movement should be supported by the U.S. government, not the military regime that thinks there’s a military solution to the Palestinian conflict. People like Giuliani and the Democrats, Kerry and Bush, they’re like puppets, they’re puppets to the Israeli military government.”

Ah yes, we’re all puppets, and our puppetmasters are the Jews, eh, Ralph?

UPDATE: This isn’t the first time he’s used the “puppet” analogy, and he’s been taken to task for it by the ADL and others (”offensive hyperbole” … “feeds into many age-old stereotypes which have no place in legitimate public discourse”), so this was hardly a slip of the tongue by our man Ralph.

Our political discourse could use more of this.

And less of this.

The Kobe Bryant case has been dismissed. The civil suit against him will continue.

I can’t imagine why CNN didn’t send out a breaking-news alert about this, considering they had previously notified us of the charge, Bryant’s denial, a decision to release documents, and an evidentiary ruling.

UPDATE: Aha, here comes the breaking news alert. I didn’t realize how “fresh” this story was; I guess it’s still developing. But an alert will be appearing shortly.

I have an orientation session at 4:00 PM, so really, what’s the point of continuing to try to read CrimLaw now? I’ll buckle down after 5:00, I swear it. :) In the mean time, some Wonkette posts from the Republican National Convention for you:

Naked protesters (possibly NSFW)
Giant-penis hats (SFW, not safe for elephants)
Cringe-inducing Bush daughters
And last but not least, the RNC’s elusive black people!

Not fair, but funny. And entirely on par with Wonkette’s usual standards. :)

UPDATE: Speaking of questionable fashion, here’s an image of the graphic on the t-shirt BoiFromTroy will be wearing tonight during Cheney’s speech:

P.S. Yes, I do now have an image file in my blog/images directory called “boifromtroy-dick.jpg.” And yes, I’m okay with that. :)

P.P.S. Incidentally, Boi, who is in New York, loved Schwarzenegger’s speech last night. He watched it from a bar where there was a Log Cabin Republican event:

The hot item of the night was the “I’m with Arnold” t-shirt, which in the gay bar, received a 80% nonplussed / 15% ‘fantastic!’ / 5% “how can you be gay and republican you spawn of satan” response.

I’m guessing the “I love Dick” shirt would go over a little better, if possibly for the wrong reasons. :)

Dozens of D.C. office workers sickened! It must be bioterrorism! A chemical attack! Obviously the work of Al Qaeda! … Or, maybe it’s just kids with pepper spray.

Thanks be to Photoshop, the techie blog Gizmodo has posted a safe-for-work version of Playboy’s photo of a naked Washingtonienne using an iBook, the same photos that caused me to proclaim yesterday without elaboration, “She’s a Mac user!!”

Gizmodo asks the question that’s on everyone’s mind upon viewing the photo: “Do they have a special iBook with the Apple Logo removed, or are their photoshop people just that good?”

Well, it question was on my mind, anyway. :)

Less raunchy, but with the Apple logos intact:

:)

Okay, back to work, again. Man, I just opened up my computer to check the time, and I ended up online for 20 minutes… dammit…

Okay, okay, I’m done blogging for now, I swear! Yes, CrimLaw, I hear you calling me! :)

But first, this. Heh.

The latest National Hurricane Center discussion on Category 4 Hurricane Frances suggests that Hurricane Watches will definitely be up in advance of Bush’s acceptance speech tomorrow night. In fact, they may be posted around the time Cheney is speaking tonight:

The official forecast brings the core of the hurricane near the Florida East Coast within 3 days. However…the hurricane is expected to have a large area of tropical storm force winds which are forecast to approach the coast much earlier. This may require a Hurricane Watch for portions of the Florida East Coast this evening or early Thursday.

Bush is definitely going to be competing with Frances for news-cycle primacy tomorrow and Friday. Frances will dominate the weekend. I wonder how this will affect the convention bounce?

In other news, forget the Saffir-Simpson scale; Matt Drudge has come up with a new designation for Frances: “Hellstorm.”

Incidentally, if the current forecast track holds, the storm surge and wind damage could be very severe at Cape Canaveral. As if NASA needed any more problems.

UPDATE: The Florida delegation at the RNC is, understandably, worried about Frances. “Saturday is D-Day,” one said.

If it hits Florida at its current strength, scarcely three weeks after Charley, “it would be the worst double hurricane strike on one state in at least a century,” according to the AP.

Matt Leinart on Saturday’s game:

I was happy with the game overall. We have had a lot of distractions over the summer and it was nice to get it over with and to come away with a win against a good team in a hostile environment. We won, but we still have a ways to go to improve and I am confident we’ll keep improving. That’s how it has been the last two years with Norm Chow’s offense and Coach Carroll’s defense–we get better as the season goes on. I think in many ways we are ahead of where we were last year at this same point. …

After watching film, it definitely seems like a good win. The Hokies are a good team with a lot of good athletes. We’ll take this win anytime. I was happy with our performance on offense. We completed 66% of our passes and had a good third down conversion percentage. We ran well when we wanted to. Maybe it didn’t seem like we were as effective at the time, but film doesn’t lie.

Everyone thinks that we have to beat everyone by 30 points. But we don’t care what anyone thinks.

That’s more optimistic that my first impression of the game, but hey, he knows more about football than I do!

Incidentally, here is The Sporting News’s current cover story on Leinart.

On a funny side note, Leinart’s blog is called “First and 11″ (11 being his uniform number), leading Fox Sports to joke:

Coming soon is an online journal written by UCLA’s offensive players, tentatively called, “Second and 16.”

HAHAHA.

Philadelphia, birthplace of freedom, may soon be the home of liberty, justice, and high-speed wireless Internet for all. :)

Indians 22, Yankees 0.

At Yankee Stadium.

The worst loss in Yankees history.

Sweet.

(And I thought 11-0 was great!)

Meanwhile, the Red Sox have won seven in a row, and are now within 3 1/2 games of the Yankees in the AL East (and 2 1/2 games ahead of the Angels for the wild card).

Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution currently reads as follows:

No Person except a natural born Citizen…shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

Why not simplify it to read like this:

No Person except one who has been a Citizen of the United States for thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States, shall be eligible to the Office of President.

That way, natural-born citizens would become eligible at age 35, and non-natural-born citizens would become eligible once they’ve been Americans for 35 years, the same as natural-born citizens. Seems perfectly fair and elegantly simple, doesn’t it?

I would vote for such an amendment not because I support Arnold (indeed, Arnold would not be able to run for president until 2020, having become a citizen in 1983), but because I think it’s the right thing to do. If someone who wants to be president has been a U.S. citizen for as long as a natural-born citizen is required to have been alive, I think any asterisk next to his or her name should be removed. The presumption should be that such long-time Americans are fit to lead the country; beyond that, let the voters decide. The alternative presumption is, to my mind, xenophobic in this day and age.

I believe such decisions should always be made on principle, not based on personalities. But, that said, Jennifer Granholm would be eligible to run for president in 2016, four years before Ah-nold. Nyah, nyah, nyah nyah nyah! :) If he wants to prove he’s not a “girlie-man,” Gov. Schwarzenegger can challenge President Granholm in 2020. Bring it on!

P.S. An alternative, at least somewhat logical (but less beautifully elegant) version of the amendment, for those who really want Arnold (and/or Jennifer!) to be able to run in 2008, would maintain the age requirement of 35, and would additionally require seventeen years of citizenship for non-natural-born citizens, the same number of years that natural-born citizens are required to have been adults (35 minus 18 equals 17).

In what would be a rather ironic development, the Miami Hurricanes may be forced to postpone their season opening football game because of… a Miami Hurricane. The Sun-Sentinel reports:

Officials from Florida State, Miami and the Atlantic Coast Conference are discussing contingency plans for Monday’s Seminoles-Hurricanes game in case Hurricane Frances makes landfall in South Florida. …

“It’s Miami’s home game, so ultimately the decision will fall probably to Miami, and/or the governor of the state will certainly play a role in the final analysis of what to do,” Hart said. “Our primary concern is for people’s safety. So the conversation will be very short if indeed the hurricane is bearing down on the site of the game or on our state in a manner that would adversely affect lives and, as we’ve seen [with Hurricane Charley], cause devastation.”

The Seminoles are scheduled to fly to South Florida on Sunday via a Delta charter.

The present forecast track calls for the eye to make landfall in south-central Florida — well north of Miami — on Saturday morning. But Frances is a geographically large storm as well as an intense one, and it is also expected to be a slow-moving one. The forecast has it spending nearly 48 hours trudging upstate, with the center finally crossing over into Georgia early Monday morning.

P.S. As Andrew points out, if the game is cancelled, it wouldn’t be the first time such a thing has happened.