Not Enough Horns in the World

Horns go well with speakers (h/t Karen):

Teen Girls Acting Shady in Target

Pushing a shopping cart fast as if fearing pursuit. But what pursuit? By whom? The Big Red Ball? Rover from “The Prisoner”? The world of teen girls is a mystery.

Florida Outlook

Currently it looks like rains will start increasing in the Tampa area from the Caribbean storm about mid-afternoon Saturday - about 2 p.m.

There are indications the tropical low in the Caribbean is strengthening. The models split on how much strengthening will occur. The NVG model suggests the system will become a tropical storm by Sunday evening, and hover for awhile off the Alabama coast before either coming onshore near Pensacola on Monday evening, or sliding west towards Houston, TX. The GFS model suggests the system will remain too broad to be anything but a tropical depression, so no tropical storm. Either way, the tropical moisture superhighway will span Florida the entire time.

The Walter White of Wichita

He never went to college, but he became the evil genius behind fentanyl:

Fentanyl is so deadly that it’s nearly impossible to cut or create safely in a clandestine setting. But someone was doing just that: It appeared to investigators that an enterprising individual had cracked the prescription’s recipe in an illegal lab and was now selling his secret to drug dealers and other “cooks.”

They were right. Their man was a onetime science-fair champion and self-taught chemist in Wichita, Kansas, named George Marquardt.

...“I am not a pharmacist,” he said. “I am not an M.D. I'm a fellow that will manufacture a chemical compound if you have a sufficiently large quantity of money.”

More Birds, Less Evaporation

One a.m., and I was watering plants out front. A car approached and dodged around several parking barriers placed in the street for the inscrutable daily street construction. The car finally parked. A couple emerged, and the woman immediately began interrogating me with crisp directness. “Sir, why are you out here watering plants at one a.m.?” I was at a loss for words. “Why?” she persisted. I finally stuttered, “Because it seems like a good time to water plants.” She replied, “Is this when you also feed the birds?” Dun-dun-dun, she knows my daily habits! “No, that’s for the daytime,” I exclaimed, hoping to appear less daft than I act, without also explaining the embarrassing number of pigeons clogging the neighborhood telephone wires these days or the drawbacks of the nightly feeding habits of the local skunks. Her mate came to the rescue and said, “Less evaporation at night.” Yeah, like he said!

Basta!

Just love this!

Commemoration Coin

I like the Korean Summit Commemoration Coin the trump administration had struck, for a summit that may not happen because the North Koreans already got pretty much all they wanted.

Oklahoma Woman Killed by Pack of Seven Small Dogs

I'm not surprised something like this can happen. I remember an unsettling incident in Tucson in 2012. My friend was showing me her 5 dogs in her back yard, when the phone rang. She went inside to take the call and closed her sliding glass door, leaving me alone outside with the 5 unfamiliar, moderately-sized dogs.

The dogs began circling me and muscling me all around, probing for weakness. I moved slowly, and tried to avoid getting pushed over, potentially setting off a pack attack. Locked in the dogs' embrace, I couldn't manage to get over to the sliding glass door.

The phone call took forever. Eventually my host came back outside, and unaware there was any issue at all, distracted the dogs from their 'play.'

ARDMORE, Okla. -- Authorities are investigating whether criminal charges should be filed after an Oklahoma woman was mauled to death by seven small dogs, most of them possibly a dachshund-terrier mix.

Carter County Sheriff Chris Bryant says 52-year-old Tracy Garcia was killed last week near her home outside Ardmore, about 90 miles south of Oklahoma City.

Money Talked, And They Listened

Skyler needed to bank with these guys out of the Netherlands. I wonder if they’re a subsidiary of Madrigal?:

A Roseville subsidiary of a Dutch banking company was sentenced Friday for concealing flaws in its anti-money-laundering program and later providing misleading information about the program when investigated by federal regulators, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

As a result, the bank blocked or delayed investigations into roughly $370 million worth of suspicious transactions near the U.S.-Mexico border believed to be tied to narcotics trafficking and organized crime, the press release said.

The company, Rabobank National Association, is known as a leader in agricultural lending throughout California and employed more than 200 workers in Roseville in 2014, a Sacramento Bee story said. Its parent company, Rabobank Group, operates out of the Netherlands.

...Rabobank admitted to making the changes to its anti-money laundering polices in 2009. Over the next three years, those policies allowed transactions that were previously considered high-risk, such as high quantity cash deposits and withdrawals, check transactions, and electronic transfers, to go unreported or face delayed reporting to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

Meanwhile, the bank's branches in California's Imperial County depended on cash coming from Mexico that, according to the press release, the bank likely knew was tied to drug trafficking and organized crime. The bank continued to work with the cash-heavy customers from Mexico while ignoring proper procedures that address high-risk transactions until about 2013.

Who They Callin' Shorty?

Laure Will Be Here This Weekend!

These days, she's choreographing wonderful dances, like this one for SYTYCD - Next Gen:



Get registered for SACRAMENTO OR OAKLAND HERE!

Friday May 25 Sacramento

Sunday May 27 Oakland

Yes, I DO Need Curtains!

Weekend Wetness in Florida

First indication that the hypothetical system exists. Currently called Disturbance #1. National Hurricane Center (NHC) says:

Special Tropical Weather Outlook
NWS National Hurricane Center Miami FL
830 AM EDT Mon May 21 2018

For the North Atlantic...Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico:

1. Widespread cloudiness and showers extending from the northwestern Caribbean Sea across Cuba and the Florida peninsula are associated with the interaction of a large upper-level low with a weak surface trough. While environmental conditions are expected to be unfavorable for development during the next couple of days, some gradual development is possible later this week while the system moves into the central or eastern Gulf of Mexico. Regardless of development, locally heavy rainfall is possible across western Cuba and Florida over the next several days. For more information on the heavy rain threat, please see products issued by your local weather office. The next Special Tropical Weather Outlook on this system will be issued by 800 PM EDT tonight.
* Formation chance through 48 hours...low...near 0 percent.
* Formation chance through 5 days...low...20 percent.

Even though NHC believes chances of development are low, the system is a rainmaker, and there is a reasonable chance development might occur anyway. The forecasts continue to be scattershot regarding a path. Currently the GFS model brings the system directly over Tampa on the weekend, but the NVG model brings the system farther west, missing Tampa with the worst rain, and revving up to a tropical storm before crashing into the Biloxi, MS coast. So, it looks like this week will be wet in Florida, with the coming weekend particularly wet.

Rats!

"RBG"

Ruth Bader Ginsburg went about her work very methodically, laying down markers in the law as she went. Showing now at the Tower.

Oh, Beautiful Person, Wherefore Art Thou?

Spin-Dry That Cash!

Skyler needed to bank with these guys out of the Netherlands. I wonder if they’re a subsidiary of Madrigal?:

A Roseville subsidiary of a Dutch banking company was sentenced Friday for concealing flaws in its anti-money-laundering program and later providing misleading information about the program when investigated by federal regulators, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

As a result, the bank blocked or delayed investigations into roughly $370 million worth of suspicious transactions near the U.S.-Mexico border believed to be tied to narcotics trafficking and organized crime, the press release said.

The company, Rabobank National Association, is known as a leader in agricultural lending throughout California and employed more than 200 workers in Roseville in 2014, a Sacramento Bee story said. Its parent company, Rabobank Group, operates out of the Netherlands.