Montana Floods. AZ Fire To NM. Iraq Payback? Jeeps. Bad Nick. Kitten Shots & Photos.

Mother Nature you're not doing it right!  We have floods and fires all over.

Montana Overwhelmed With Flooding, Supplies Ferried In; Western States To Receive Aid

"A small house is surrounded by the flooded Musselshell River west of Harlowton, Mont., Thursday, May 26, 2011. As flooding washes out roads and swamps more homes in Montana, regional rains are forcing releases from dams that promise to swell the Missouri River past its banks downstream in Iowa and the Dakotas. The central Montana town of Roundup was under an estimated 6 feet of water Thursday as the latest bout of flooding pounded the water-logged state."


BILLINGS, Mont. -- "Emergency workers ferried supplies to more than 300 people cut off Friday by flooding that has overwhelmed Montana towns and caused an estimated $8.6 million in damages to date.
Heavy rain and the runoff from record mountain snowpack have caused rivers over much of the West to spill from their banks. Montana has been hit particularly hard over the past few weeks, with hundreds of homes inundated and scores of roadways swamped.
"As soon as the water comes down it comes back up. We're at the mercy of the river – and it's not so forgiving lately," Degner said.    Gov. Brian Schweitzer estimated the flooding has caused more than $8.6 million in damage across the state since the end of May.
More at:   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/10/montana-flooding-prompts-_n_875196.html
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Arizona Wildfire Expected To Enter New Mexico (VIDEO)

SPRINGERVILLE, Ariz. (AP) -- "A massive wildfire in eastern Arizona that has claimed more than 30 homes and forced nearly than 10,000 people to evacuate is likely to spread into New Mexico soon, threatening more towns and possibly endangering two major power lines that bring electricity from Arizona to West Texas.
The fire has now burned 639 square miles of forest, an increase of 114 square miles from a day earlier, officials said Friday."
(CLICK HERE for photos of Arizona's wildfire.)

"The two Arizona-Texas power lines are still in the path of the fire, although Whittington said he was less concerned about them Friday. El Paso Electric has warned its 372,000 customers that they may face rolling blackouts if the lines are cut.

"I can't even speculate on when we can let people back in, but I can tell you we're not going to let people back in until we can be sure they will be safe and don't have to leave again," Whittington said.
Much of the growth toward New Mexico has actually been from fires started by firefighters trying to burn out fuels ahead of the blaze so it can be stopped, Whittington said. That technique allows the fires to be controlled and less hot. But there is little doubt it will cross the border, he said.
"This fire is eventually going to get there, so we want something to check it when it does," he said."
The fire has rekindling the blame game surrounding ponderosa pine forests that have become dangerously overgrown after a century of fire suppression.  Others blame overzealous firefighters for altering the natural cycle of lightning-sparked fires that once cleared the forest floor."
More at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/10/arizona-wildfire-new-mexico_n_875088.html
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U.S. Congressman, Suggests That Iraq Pay Back U.S. For War Cost
BAGHDAD -- "A U.S. congressman visiting Baghdad Friday suggested that Iraq pay back the United States for the money it has spent in the eight years since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
The idea of repaying the United States for a war that the vast majority of Iraqis had no role in bringing about would likely gain little traction with an Iraqi public that harbors mixed emotions about the U.S. invasion. While many Iraqis are glad to be rid of Saddam Hussein, they blame the United States for the chaos and sectarian violence that followed.
The Baghdad city government earlier this year demanded the U.S. pay $1 billion for damage caused to the city by blast walls erected during the war.
The congressman said the United States can no longer afford to send troops all over the world because the U.S. is in an economic crisis. "We could certainly use some people to care about our situation as we have cared about theirs," he said."
More at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/10/dana-rohrabacher-iraq-war-cost_n_875163.html
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Is the Pre-2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee the New Ford Pinto?

"The new Grand Cherokee is a champ, but the old one is the center of a safety probe over gas tank fires.

The Center for Auto Safety, an advocacy group, is calling for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to recall up to 2.2 million Jeep Grand Cherokees sold between 1993 through 2004 because of what it claims is a gas tank design that makes the SUV much more prone to lethal fires in rear-end collisions.
The call for recall does not include Grand Cherokees made after 2004 because of a redesign that addressed the gas-tank issue. Specifically, when the popular SUV was overhauled, the gas tank was moved from the position between the rear axle and the rear bumper to a spot in front of the rear axle and shielded it.
From an engineering standpoint, all modern cars and SUVs place the gas tank in front of the rear axle. In the event of a rear collision, the heavy steel axle serves as an important buffer to keep the gas tank from rupturing and potentially causing a fire. In many accidents involving a ruptured gas tank pieces of metal drag on pavement as the vehicle is pushed across the road, causing sparks, which tend to ignite leaking gasoline"
More at: http://autos.aol.com/article/jeep-grand-cherokee-gas-tank-recall/?icid=main%7Chtmlws-main-n%7Cdl7%7Csec1_lnk1%7C215561
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I wonder what Bad Nick, http://badnickblog.com/ , would make of this:

Chicago State's Attorney Lets Bad Cops Slide, Prosecutes Citizens Who Record Them

"When Chicago police answered a domestic disturbance call at the home of Tiawanda Moore and her boyfriend in July 2010, the officers separated the couple to question them individually. Moore was interviewed privately in her bedroom. According to Moore, the officer who questioned her then came on to her, groped her breast and slipped her his home phone number.
Robert Johnson, Moore's attorney, says that when Moore and her boyfriend attempted to report the incident to internal affairs officials at the Chicago Police Department, the couple wasn't greeted warmly. "They discouraged her from filing a report," Johnson says. "They gave her the runaround, scared her, and tried to intimidate her from reporting this officer -- from making sure he couldn't go on to do this to other women."
Ten months later, Chicago PD is still investigating the incident. Moore, on the other hand, was arrested the very same afternoon.
Her crime? At some point in her conversations with internal affairs investigators, Moore grew frustrated with their attempts to intimidate her. So she began to surreptitiously record the interactions on her Blackberry. In Illinois, it is illegal to record people without their consent, even (and as it turns out, especially) on-duty police officers.
"This is someone who is already scared from being harassed by an officer in uniform," said Johnson. "If the police won't even take her complaint, how else is a victim of police abuse supposed to protect herself?"
Moore's case has inspired outrage from anti-domestic abuse groups. "We just had two Chicago police officers indicted for sexual assault, there have been several other cases of misconduct against women," says Melissa Spatz of the Chicago Task Force on Violence Against Girls & Young Women. "And now you have Moore, who was trying to report this guy, and she gets arrested. The message here is that victims of unwanted sexual advances by police officers have no recourse -- that the police can act with impunity."
If the Chicago cops recently indicted for sexual assault are convicted, they'll face four to 15 years in prison. That's the same sentence Tiawanda Moore is facing for trying to document her frustrations while reporting her own alleged sexual assault: "Recording an on-duty police officer in Illinois is a Class 1 felony, the same class of crimes as rape." "
More at:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/08/chicago-district-attorney-recording-bad-cops_n_872921.html?icid=main%7Chtmlws-main-n%7Cdl10%7Csec1_lnk3%7C215562
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Yesterday:

As Ray wasn't going to be here, Jay and I went shopping for a few articles that we needed.  We bought a few items at a couple of thrift shops, but our main purpose was to exchange the deep cycle battery that we had bought at the Interstate Battery distributor, for one an inch shorter. They were very understanding, and I even got a refund as it was cheaper.
Also we needed to get Bobbiecat some more of her special cat treats with the Bone and Joint ingredients for her arthritis.   But they don't sell them at Petsmart, and it was too late to double back to Petco.


In the evening, one of the SPCA foster moms arrived with shots for my orphan kittens.  We weighed each one, and they have put on more weight since I changed their diet.  Precious, the tiny one, that we didn't think would make it, is now 2 pounds 14 oz , she was 5 oz when I got her. 
That is Precious, in the foreground on March 28th, still a bottle fed baby.
We vaccinated them with Feline Rhinotracheitis-Calici-Panleukopenia-Chlamydia Psittaci Vaccine, and took new pictures for their web page: http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/19183115     Their new pictures should be on there in a few days. 

Now that they are vaccinated, they can go Petco on Saturday, 18th., for SPCA of MC Adoption Day.