I’ve been live-blogging the storm from my blog all weekend and I have to say that Irene has been behaving pretty much the way I thought it would go for us here in Upstate New York: lots of rain and wind starting last night once the eye of the storm got to the Delmarva Peninsula.

It is now believed that a meltdown in at least one of the reactors started before the tsunami that followed Japan’s March 11 earthquake. In other words, as I reported previously, the earthquake damaged the containment vessel or, more likely, the cooling system before the massive wave knocked out the backup generators and, thus, power to the cooling system. So, the loss of power did not lead to at least some of the meltdown—earthquake damage did.

The story is basically this. Oil production is static, if not falling, and emerging markets are increasing and broadening their wealth, leading more and more Chinese and Indians and Indonesians and Brazilians to desire a higher standard of living. Invariably this means oil demand goes up. Therefore, when global GDP growth increases, demand for oil and then the price of oil increases.

And around the world, but especially in a country like ours that’s extremely dependent on oil, this creates a price shock and a reduction in growth. The political cartoon of this would be a man named “economic growth” jumping to the ceiling and consistently hitting his head on “the oil supply.” So we’re in a constant cycle of low growth and stable oil prices, followed by higher growth and oil shocks, which knocks the economy back to lower growth.

Hope everyone is safe and powered this morning. Instead of winds and rain, I bring you flowers and birdies via twolf1′s hummingbird video.

A whole lot of Irene on the talk shows. Teddy wonders: “Doesn’t Craig Fugate have, um WORK to do other than being on all the Sunday snoozefests?”

The Newsmaker interview with Emmanuel Cleaver could be newsmaking.

The FDL Book Salon is The Moment I Knew, and Monday Dr. Kirk Murphy sits in for Lisa with Bhopali, a powerful movie none of us should miss.

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Merbabies. This Walt Disney Silly Symphony cartoon was released on December 9, 1938.

Republicans show their collective fannies.

One could make the argument that the fact people are rediscovering these “revelations” is giving the cache a second-life. The major news media organizations that had access to the entire cache had their chance to sift through the cables, now it’s time for citizens of the world to have a turn. Additionally, regional news organizations had access to cables relevant to their region. They wrote about the cables in their newspapers for the people of their country. Those stories did not always make international news. So, for the first time, people are seeing the cables that made big news in various countries, which perhaps even had the effect of creating a massive political crisis in the country.

I was talking to one of our membership engagement team members (MET), our pilot volunteer program, this afternoon. He said that he had a wonderful conversation with someone when calling to thank a member for joining. They talked, exchanged emails, and are at the beginning of what could be a great friendship. It is really heartwarming, exciting, and rewarding to hear stories like that and know that I helped in some way to orchestrate it.

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I received this open letter from Virginia Kennedy, who was arrested in last Saturday’s White House protest against the Tar Sands/Keystone XL Pipeline Project. Virginia was arrestee #4.

According to a very cool map up at the LIPA storm center page, we already have power outages in Hempstead. Levittown, Long Beach and on the north fork.

The loud sound of the first deluge woke me at 4 AM and I can’t get back to sleep, so I thought I would start a liveblog.

When my power goes out–any we’re pretty certain it will, I’m gonna lose internet. We are expecting to lose cell service if the winds are bad –no wind here so far– because out repeaters are on the watertower on the top of an exposed hill and–wait for it–at the beach.