Remember when I blogged about the “absurd” GDFL model run that showed Tropical Storm Alberto strengthening over Georgia? Well, don’t look now, but it sure looks on radar like Alberto is trying to wrap some heavy rain around his center of circulation… which is looking a bit more like an eye!

Don’t get me wrong… Alberto isn’t going to become a hurricane over land. If anything, the storm’s healthy appearance on radar even as it moves well inland — it is, at this very moment, crossing the border from Georgia into South Carolina — probably means its transition to an extratropical storm (i.e., not dependant on warm ocean waters) is already underway. This thing is going to become a strong extratropical gale over the Atlantic once it moves back out to sea. Here’s what the NHC said at 11:00 PM EDT:

STRENGTHENING INTO A SIGNIFICANT EXTRATROPICAL GALE AREA OFF THE NORTH CAROLINA OUTER BANKS SEEMS QUITE PLAUSIBLE AT THIS TIME. IT IS ALSO POSSIBLE THAT ALBERTO MAY NOT DROP BELOW TROPICAL STORM STATUS BEFORE EXTRATROPICAL TRANSITION OCCURS… WHICH WOULD REQUIRE A NORTHWARD EXTENSION OF THE TROPICAL STORM WARNING AREA IN THE NEXT ADVISORY.

P.S. Here’s the satellite loop. Definitely some convection firing up near the center!

UPDATE, 5:55 AM MST: Alberto has been downgraded to a Tropical Depression. According to FLhurricane, “It’s held on so long because of the transformation into an extratropical system going on now.” The NHC says:

DOPPLER VELOCITIES AND OBSERVATIONS FROM BUOYS AND CMAN STATIONS OFF THE GEORGIA AND SOUTH CAROLINA COASTS INDICATE THAT WINDS HAVE DROPPED BELOW TROPICAL STORM FORCE. HENCE…THE TROPICAL CYCLONE HAS BEEN DOWNGRADED TO A DEPRESSION AND ALL TROPICAL STORM WARNINGS HAVE BEEN DISCONTINUED. HOWEVER…GALE WARNINGS ARE IN EFFECT ALONG PORTIONS OF THE CAROLINAS IN ANTICIPATION OF ALBERTO’S RE-STRENGTHENING AS AN EXTRATROPICAL CYCLONE. … ALBERTO IS QUICKLY LOSING TROPICAL CHARACTERISTICS AND EXTRATROPICAL TRANSITION SHOULD OCCUR IN THE NEXT 6-12 HOURS WITH ADDITIONAL INTENSIFICATION FORECAST ONCE THE SYSTEM RE-EMERGES OVER WATER.

I bet PETA loves this shirt. Wonder if they’d like this one too?

Stephen Hawking says space is our destiny — and we need to get going on colonizing it, lest we blow up the Earth first!

I predict the vanguard of space colonizers will be liberals upset about the next Republican presidential victory and deciding to move to Canada Mars in protest. Oh wait, I take that back… those folks are all talk, aren’t they? Nevermind. (And besides, do we really want a bunch of Godless hippies as the sole survivors of the human race after Chimpy W. Hitler’s Evil Hegemonic Halliburtonization of Mother Earth finally succeeds in destroying the planet? I think not.) We’d better find some other, better colonizers… :)

Last night, Becky and I caught a re-run of last Tuesday’s Daily Show, which — in addition to Jon Stewart’s dramatic rhetorical question “6/6/06: Day of the Devil, or REGULAR NUMERICAL SEQUENCE?!?” — also featured an interview with archconservative pundit Bill Bennett about Bennett’s new book and the issue of gay marriage. (You can buy the show from iTunes here.)

First of all, whatever you think of Bennett, give the guy credit: he had to know he was going to be facing a skeptical interviewer and a very hostile crowd, yet he came on the show anyway. More power to him. As for Stewart, I thought he was respectful, yet forceful. He certainly had no pretensions of remaining neutral, and basically engaged in a full-on debate with Bennett on the merits of the issue. Needless to say, I felt Stewart got the better of Bennett. His best line was:

Bennett: Look, it’s a debate about whether you think marriage is between a man and a woman.

Stewart: I disagree, I think it’s a debate about whether you think gay people are part of the human condition, or just a random fetish.

He’s absolutely right about that, and he expanded that aspect of his argument beautifully when Bennett busted out the old “slippery slope to polygamy” canard:

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Exhibit A … Exhibit B.

My international fame grows. ;) I’m big in Denmark, too, you know. Heh.

While my TWC buddy Mark Newman explains why he sat Alberto out, Mark Sudduth at HurricaneTrack writes, “With the exception of the immediate coast, the effects from Alberto have been more beneficial than anything else.” Dr. Jeff Masters agrees, saying the season’s first storm produced “modest damage” and “beneficial rains.” But the big story from Masters’s wrap-up of Alberto is his tantalizing preview of his next blog post:

Tomorrow, I’ll analyze Alberto’s sudden burst of intensification Monday morning, and report on what the rest of June may hold for us. It could be an exceptionally active June.

I’m definitely curious now!

Meanwhile, on the Weather Channel Blog, Stu Ostro says that “just because there’s a tropical storm or hurricane this early doesn’t necessarily mean anything for the remainder of the season.” That absolutely true — but so is this:

But yikes, look at the deep tropical Atlantic in this colorized infrared satellite image below from this morning! One has to remind oneself that this is mid-June, not July or August …

Here’s the satellite image he’s talking about:

Yikes is right! And so is “exceptionally active”! But according to the NHC, development is not expected:

A VIGOROUS TROPICAL WAVE IS PRODUCING NUMEROUS SHOWERS AND A FEW THUNDERSTORMS OVER THE EASTERN CARIBBEAN SEA… MUCH OF THE LESSER ANTILLES… AND ADJACENT ATLANTIC WATERS. ALTHOUGH ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS ARE UNFAVORABLE FOR DEVELOPMENT OF A TROPICAL CYCLONE… AN INCREASE IN THUNDERSTORM ACTIVITY IS EXPECTED TONIGHT AND WEDNESDAY THAT COULD BRING BRIEF PERIODS OF HEAVY RAINFALL AND STRONG GUSTY WINDS TO THE LEEWARD ISLANDS… PUERTO RICO… AND HISPANIOLA AS THE WAVE MOVES WEST-NORTHWESTWARD AT 20 TO 25 MPH.

ANOTHER TROPICAL WAVE LOCATED ABOUT 1350 MILES EAST OF THE SOUTHERN WINDWARD ISLANDS IS MOVING WESTWARD AT 15 TO 20 MPH. THIS SYSTEM REMAINS BROAD AND DISORGANIZED… AND FURTHER DEVELOPMENT IS NOT EXPECTED AT THIS TIME.

The NHC doesn’t address the most noticable feature on the above satellite map, the massive blob of red and orange just off the African coast. The wave “1350 miles east of the Southern Windward Islands” is the middle wave of the three pictured above (I think). So I’m not sure what’s up with the wave on the right. Maybe it just developed, and they’ll talk about it in the next Tropical Weather Outlook.

Okay, so it's not 6/6/06, but Becky's car just hit mile #77,777. :)

Australia produced one of the great comebacks from a goal down to score three times in the final eight minutes to record a famous 3-1 victory that kick-started its first World Cup campaign in 32 years.

It would appear the Japan goal should never have been allowed anyway. Egyptian referee Essam Abd El Fatah has admitted to Australia goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer that he erred in awarding Japan a controversial goal. Schwarzer appeared to be fouled by Naohiro Takahara as he leapt for a high ball from Japan playmaker Shunsuke Nakamura in the 26th minute, allowing the ball to bounce into the net, but Abdullah let the goal stand despite furious Australian protests.

The Aussies never gave up and the magic began when Tim Cahill, midfield player for Everton, joined the game in the 52nd minute, scoring twice (84, 89). This was followed by a goal by Spain-based striker John Aloisi (90).

Australia next plays World Cup champion Brazil in Munich on June 19 (AEST), before lining up against Croatia in Stuttgart on June 23 (AEST). Australia may feel confident it can beat Brazil, let alone earn a draw, after the world champion laboured to a 1-0 victory against Croatia.

So the moment was here, I was able to sit down with a proper German beer in my hand and watch the American boys show the world that we know a thing or two about the game we call soccer. Well, I thought that until about the fifth minute of the game when our hopes of getting out of this group were pretty much crushed.

What was worse than the 3-0 defeat was that every person in the bar was cheering for the Czechs, and no, there was not a tour group from Prague there. I could hear things like, “take that Bush� when the Czechs scored, and no matter what your personal politics are, something tells me Bush had little to do with our boys’ performance on Monday. It is sad that all anyone seems to know about America here is Bush and Jerry Springer (it is up to Brendan’s readers to decide which of the two they trust more). At least we weren’t the ones to deify David Hasselhof, right? Here’s hoping we can take it to the Italians on Saturday and salvage this thing. Although, I can say that the first thing FIFA did right in this whole world cup was to issue me a ticket to the game on the provisional waiting list.

I have the tickets in hand now, and the fun begins on Thursday with Costa Rica/Ecuador.

Animation here.

UPDATE: Here’s the official word.

The first second red card issued in this year’s World Cup (at least to my knowledge) was issued today in the 53rd minute of the 2-1 Korean win over Togo. The unfortunate recipient of this was Yaovi Abalo, a Defenseman from Togo. I have yet to see an article about it, but you can find out that the red card was issued by visiting this site.

Also interesting is that SI.com tells us how a goal was celebrated, be it by lifting one’s shirt over one’s head or by a dog pile … Riiiiiight.

PS: The first red card was given to Avrey John in Trinidad and Tobago’s first match, a tie for T&T to Sweden 0-0. Thanks to YanksFan for setting me straight. Yankees still suck.

Am I crazy, or does it appear on the radar loop that Tropical Storm Alberto has slowed down and taken a last-minute eastward — or even east-southeastward — jog?

Not that it really matters much at this point. Although Alberto’s center remains just offshore, most of the heavy weather — such as it was — has already occurred, in squalls well ahead of the center. And, as noted earlier, the winds have not lived up even to the modest expectations of a strong tropical storm; for whatever reason, the flight-level winds detected by hurricane-hunter aircraft haven’t translated down to the surface at the normal 90% ratio. Dr. Jeff Masters reported at 9:10 AM EDT (6:10 MST) that surface stations were generally reporting sustained winds in the 30-40 mph range (just under tropical storm strength) with gusts to 45 mph or so. Not exactly a fierce wind-maker. (Apropos of which, Glenn Reynolds offers a photo of Alberto’s devastation: “one of several chairs blown over on our deck.” Heh.)

Alberto roars ashore. Well, okay, maybe “roars” is a bit strong. Would you believe “Alberto tiptoes ashore”?

Even the much-ballyhooed storm surge doesn’t appear to be too bad, if the tidal gauges at Cedar Key (tide 4 feet above normal) and Apalachicola (tide 5 inches above normal…heh) are any indication. Masters says areas north of Cedar Key can expect storm surges of up to 7 feet, but… well… if your house can’t withstand a 7-foot storm surge along the Florida coast, I’m sorry but it’s time to move somewhere else. Anyway, “since this is a relatively unpopulated stretch of coast, damage should be relatively low.”

So, Mother Nature’s opening pitch was a slow curve down the middle. Good. Now let’s not get all uppity and start thinking that’s all she’s got in the tank for this year, because I’m pretty sure she’s got some knuckleballs, split-fingered fastballs, and Rob Dibble*-type heaters in her arsenal.

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President Bush arrives in Baghdad on surprise visit to Iraq. Visit CNN for the latest.

Karl Rove won’t be indicted.

70,000 coalition forces, most of them Iraqi, to begin crackdown on insurgents in Baghdad on Wednesday, Iraqi PM's office says. Visit CNN for the latest.