Disinformation » Natural Disasters

What Does Your Blood Type Say About You?

imkaan — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 18:33:09 +0000

A Japanese minister has resigned, saying that his blood type accounted for his failings. According to Japanese belief, what might yours mean? John Crace asks in the Guardian:

It came away in my hands. The dog ate it. Honest. When Ryu Matsumoto, Japan’s minister for reconstruction, resigned after just a week in the job, one of the excuses he offered was almost as lame. He said he had the wrong blood type — B — which made him a more abrasive personality and accounted for his less-than-tactful remarks about some areas of Japan badly affected by the earthquake and tsunami earlier this year.

Most people in the UK haven’t a clue what blood type and aren’t much bothered either way. But in Japan there is a widely held belief that blood groups can predict personality, temperament and compatibility with other people; so much so that many newspapers, magazines and TV shows carry daily blood horoscopes.

The idea took hold in the 1920s, when Japanese doctors were looking for proof that the Taiwanese were racially inferior and found that 41.2% of them had type O blood compared with only 23.8% of the Japanese. Even though this theory was discredited in the 1930s, its influence still lingers in popular culture …

Tuscaloosa’s Mile-Wide Tornado (Video)

majestic — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 13:34:41 +0000

This tornado was of literally biblical proportions, as very well demonstrated by this video clip from CBS42.com:

Scientists Find First Evidence Climate Affects Tectonic Plate Movement

HAL9000 — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 00:34:17 +0000

Via Discover:

Geologists have known for years that tectonic plates affect climate patterns. Now they say that the opposite is also true, finding that intensifying climate events can move tectonic plates. Using models based on known monsoonal and plate movement patterns, geologists say that the Indian Plate has accelerated by about 20% over the past 10 million years. “The significance of this finding lies in recognising for the first time that long-term climate changes have the potential to act as a force and influence the motion of tectonic plates,” Australian National University researcher Giampiero Iaffaldano told COSMOS.

The researchers plugged information from research on monsoonal patterns and the Indian Plate’s movement into a model, which indicated that the monsoonal erosion that has battered the eastern Himalaya Mountains for the past 10 million years erodes enough material to account for the plate’s counter-clockwise rotation. By gradually shaving off rocks from the eastern flank and decreasing crustal thickness, the monsoonal rains essentially lighten the load on the eastern part of the Indian Plate, causing the plate to actually turn (at geological speed).

The scientists ruled out the traditional powerhouse behind tectonic movement — mantle convection — because the mantle’s influence works on longer time frames than 10 million years. It doesn’t account, for example, for the Indian Plate’s geologically rapid velocity increase of more than 5 millimeters per year since 3.6 million years ago.

Scientology’s ‘Touch-Healing’ Global Disaster Response Squad: ‘Serving’ Haiti, Burma and Japan

vulcan — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 06:24:05 +0000

Patrick Winn writes on GlobalPost:

BANGKOK, Thailand — After Cyclone Nargis left a trail of corpses along Burma’s coast in May 2008, foreign aid workers clamored to enter the military-controlled backwater.

Despite the world’s pleading, Burma’s paranoid generals forbade most foreign relief workers from entering the disaster zone. A frustrated U.K. threatened unauthorized air drops. The U.S. Navy was forced to float vessels loaded with life-saving supplies offshore.

But among the few who managed to access Burma’s worst-hit areas included adherents of the California-based Church of Scientology.

According to the church, miracles ensued after Scientologists touched down. Their team sought out traumatized Burmese for Scientology’s touch-healing techniques, professed to revive the spirit…

Suburban Sprawl: A Government Tactic Against Nuclear Annihilation And Natural Disaster

JacobSloan — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 19:11:48 +0000

In the aftermath of last month’s devastation, Japanese leaders have called on urban planners to make Japan decentralized and lower density so as to be less vulnerable. It wouldn’t be the first time that sprawl has been employed as a strategy against societal annihilation; during the Cold War, American planners pushed for suburbanization as a defense against nuclear disaster. BLDGBLOG enlightens:

At the height of the Cold War, the sprawling, decentralized suburban landscape of the United States was seen by many military planners as a form of spatial self-defense. As historian David Krugler explains in This Is Only a Test: How Washington D.C. Prepared for Nuclear War, “urban dispersal” was viewed as a defensive military tactic, one that would greatly increase the nation’s chance of survival in the event of nuclear attack.

Specially formatted residential landscapes such as “cluster cities” were thus proposed, “each with a maximum population of 50,000.” These smaller satellite cities would not only reshape the civilian landscape of the United States, they would make its citizens, its industrial base, and its infrastructure much harder to target.

“This might seem the stuff of Cold War science fiction,” Krugler writes, “but after World War II, many urban and civil defense planners believed cluster cities, also called dispersal, should be the future of the American metropolis.”

Krugler points out that this suburban dispersal was not always advised in the name of military strategy: “Many urban planners believed dispersal could spur slum clearance, diminish industrial pollution, and produce parks. Not only would dispersal shield America’s cities, it would save them from problems of their own making.”

However, the idea that urban dispersal might be useful only as a protective tactic against the horrors of aerial bombardment overlooks other threats, including earthquakes and tsunamis.

Earlier this week, Japanese prime minister Naoto Kan was advised “to decentralize Japan” out of fear of “Tokyo annihilation danger.” Indeed, we read, the recent 9.0 earthquake, tsunami, and partial nuclear meltdown at Fukushima together suggest that “the nation must reduce the role of its capital city to avert an even greater catastrophe.”

Sales of Doomsday Bunkers Up 1,000%

BananaFamine — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 13:02:49 +0000

Blake Ellis reports for CNN:

A devastating earthquake strikes Japan. A massive tsunami kills thousands. Fears of a nuclear meltdown run rampant. Bloodshed and violence escalate in Libya.

And U.S. companies selling doomsday bunkers are seeing sales skyrocket anywhere from 20% to 1,000%.

Northwest Shelter Systems, which offers shelters ranging in price from $200,000 to $20 million, has seen sales surge 70% since the uprisings in the Middle East, with the Japanese earthquake only spurring further interest. In hard numbers, that’s 12 shelters already booked when the company normally sells four shelters per year.

“Sales have gone through the roof, to the point where we are having trouble keeping up,” said Northwest Shelter Systems owner Kevin Thompson.

UndergroundBombShelter.com, which sells portable shelters, bomb shelters and underground bunkers, has seen inquiries soar 400% since the Japanese earthquake. So far sales of its $9,500 nuclear biological chemical shelter tents are at an all-time high — with four sold in California last week, compared to about one a month normally…

For more information, see original article.

Genpatsu-Shinsai: The Language of Disaster That Stalked Japan

ralph — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 21:09:14 +0000

Interesting article from Leo Lewis in the Times from 2007, about how Japan nearly avoided a “nuclear power-quake disaster” back then. It always seems when these great disasters happen there was the one lone expert who no one took seriously. Leo Lewis writes”

Japan’s turbulent history of war and natural catastrophe has already given the world a terrifying vocabulary of death: tsunami, kamikaze, Hiroshima.

But the country now stands on the brink of unleashing its most chilling phrase yet: genpatsu-shinsai — the combination of an earthquake and nuclear meltdown capable of destroying millions of lives and bringing a nation to its knees.

The phrase, derived from the Japanese words for “nuclear power” and “quake disaster”, is the creation of Katsuhiko Ishibashi, Japan’s leading seismologist and one of the Government’s top advisers on nuclear-quake safety. He said that the world may never know how close it came to its first genpatsu-shinsai this week. Luck, as much an anything else, helped to avert it.

Russians Claim U.S. West Coast Fault Near ‘Total Failure’

majestic — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 13:30:23 +0000

You have to appreciate the work that went into this “Apocalypse Soon” report in the European Union Times. Not only do they build on the “Ring Of Fire – America Is Next Great Quake” scare propagated by Fox News, they also manage to work in mass animal deaths, the Supermoon, a comet on its way to smash into Earth and more!

A grim top-secret report prepared by Moscow’s Institute of Physics of the Earth for Prime Minister Putin on the catastrophic 9.0 magnitude Sendai Megaquake and Tsunami that hit Japan on March 11th is now warning that the “balance of our planet” has been altered after the titanic forces underlying this disaster has moved the Japanese Islands at least 13-feet closer to the North American West Coast Region and shortened the day by a couple of millionths of a second and tilted the Earth’s axis slightly.

According to this report, the Sendai Megaquake disaster is the “third part” of a major “four part” realignment of the entire “Ring of Fire” Pacific Plate that began with the 8.8 magnitude Megaquake that hit Chile on February 27, 2010, continued on with the 6.3 magnitude quake that destroyed New Zealand’s second most populous city Christchurch on February 22, 2011, and this past week caused the 9.0 magnitude Megaquake that has left Japan reeling.

At 103 million square kilometers (64 million square miles), this report continues, the Pacific Plate is our World’s largest tectonic plate and the forces now being exerted by it on the Juan de Fuca Plate (located to the west of the North American Plate) due to the previous three disaster of Chile, New Zealand and Japan has brought what is called the Cascadia Subduction Zone to near “total failure” threatening the coastlines of Alaska, Western Canada and the Northwest region of the United States with catastrophic Megaquakes and tsunamis.

As we had reported in our March 9, 2011 report “March Mega Quake Warning Issued For United States”, Russian scientists disagree with their Western counterparts as to the reasons underlying the catastrophic changes our Earth is now going through and continue to monitor the subtle electromagnetic signals that are being detected in our Earth’s upper atmosphere over many regions of the World and the mass animal deaths associated with the violent changing of our Planet’s magnetic field, and which this report further warns is “increasing by the hour” over the Juan de Fuca Plate.

Most astounding in all of these events are the masses of the peoples affected by these catastrophes still ignoring the shocking rise of the Sun over Arctic Greenland two days early this past January that set off a series of Superstorms that have virtually destroyed our World’s ability to feed itself.

Perhaps even worse than the catastrophes that have already shaken our entire Planet is what is soon to come, and as we had, also, previously warned about in our March 1st report “Russian Warning Issued Over “Controlled” Comet Headed Towards Earth”, which aside from detailing how all the major powers are preparing vast underground bunkers, points to a melding of our Earth’s most ancient myths to modern day realities…

[continues in the European Union Times]

Analysis: Science Of Predicting Change Enjoys Fertile Times

Pelliciari — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 21:06:50 +0000

Armenian presidential election protests at Liberty Square in Yerevan. Photo: Serouj (CC)

An interesting analysis from Kate Kelland via Reuters:

Times of change can be drastic — revolutions topple dictators, extreme weather kills tens of thousands and market crashes plunge people into poverty — but for scientists studying complex systems they are fertile ground.

“Complex systems can include societies, financial markets ecosystems like lakes or coral reefs, and even the brain,” said Marten Scheffer of the University of Wageningen in The Netherlands.

Few would want to predict the outcome of uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, or of financial crises or natural disasters, but scientists say there are common traits in seemingly diverse systems that point to “tipping points.”

Identifying and analyzing these, they say, can help people see the risks inherent in an interdependent world more clearly and take action to mitigate them.

“Complex systems can include societies, financial markets ecosystems like lakes or coral reefs, and even the brain,” said Marten Scheffer of the University of Wageningen in The Netherlands.

[Continues at Reuters]

Anti-Radiation Pills Flying Off U.S. Drug Store Shelves

BananaFamine — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 07:12:26 +0000

Via Fox News:

One drug supplier says it has sold 250,000 anti-radiation pills to people in the U.S. concerned about possible exposure from Japanese nuclear reactors.

Troy Jones, president of Nukepills.com, said his company sold out over the weekend of potassium iodide pills, which prevent against radiation poisoning of the thyroid gland. Jones, in an interview with FoxNews.com, said that the pills were sold to dozens of U.S. pharmacies, corporations, hospitals and nuclear labs.

“You name it,” he said. Jones said that he has back-ordered more than a million tablets and is expected to get another 10,000 of the liquid potassium iodine. He also said that he has donated about 50,000 pills to Japan, many of them going to a hospital in Tokyo.

Despite assurances from health officials that Americans are not at risk from Japanese nuclear reactors, U.S. drug stores are reporting a sudden increase in sales of the over-the-counter anti-radiation pills.

Potassium iodide pills are reportedly flying off the shelves at drug stores in at least three West Coast states — Oregon, California and Hawaii — according to several local press accounts.

For more information, see original article.

Earthquake Moved Japan Closer to U.S., Shifted Earth’s Axis, Shortened Day

ralph — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 19:08:36 +0000

This is astounding. Paul Rincon reports for BBC News:

Japan’s coastline may have shifted by as much as 4m (13 ft) to the east following Friday’s 8.9 Magnitude earthquake, according to experts.

Data from the country’s Geonet network of around 1,200 GPS monitoring stations suggest a large displacement following the massive quake.

Dr Roger Musson from the British Geological Survey (BGS) told BBC News the movement observed following the quake was “in line with what you get when you have an earthquake this big”.

The quake probably shifted Earth on its axis by about 6.5 inches (16.5cm) and caused the planet to rotate somewhat faster, shortening the length of the day by about 1.8 millionths of a second.

Japan’s meteorological agency has proposed updating the magnitude of the earthquake to 9.0. [UPDATE: Has been changed to 9.0] This would make it the joint fifth biggest quake since instrumental records began, but other agencies have not yet followed suit.

Japan Nuclear Radiation Likely To Reach California

majestic — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 15:32:31 +0000

The likes of Matt Drudge and Alex Jones have been banging the drum to create fear among U.S. citizens that radiation from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster will reach North America. Now Neil Katz poses the same question for a mainstream outlet, CBS News. The conclusion he posts is:

“As for America, experts say for now we are in the clear. ‘It is true that radiation emanating from Japan is moving across the Pacific and it’s feasible that one could detect those radiation levels in California,’ says [Dr. Cham] Dallas. ‘But it’s certain that it wouldn’t be dangerous.’”

Do any disinformation readers have expertise in radiation safety issues? Can we be so certain that there is no danger as Dr. Dallas suggests? Please post your thoughts in the comments.

Here’s some more of Katz’s story:

As conditions worsen at four nuclear reactors in Japan, many here and abroad are worried about the health risks of radiation.

What are they?

There are two main fears: first the release of radioactive iodine which can cause thyroid cancer. Some has already been released into the atmosphere, but Japanese health officials hope to stay ahead of it.

The government plans to distribute potassium iodide pills that can keep radioactive iodine from being taken up by the thyroid gland and causing cancer.

“Those are all preventable cancers” if the protective pills are taken right after exposure, said University of New Mexico radiologist Dr. Fred Mettler.

The government has also asked about 180,000 people to leave a 19-mile area around the leaking plants at Fukushima on Japan’s east coast. Those who remain have been asked to wear face masks and stay indoors.

But wind and rain could complicate matters.

Officials in Ibaraki, a neighboring prefecture just south of the Fukushima plant which was severely damaged during the 9.0 earthquake which rocked Japan on March 11, said up to 100 times the normal levels of radiation were detected Tuesday. While those figures are worrying if there is prolonged exposure, they are far from fatal.

Tokyo reported slightly elevated radiation levels, but officials said the increase was too small to threaten the 39 million people in and around the capital, about 170 miles away.

So far, the broad radiation danger has been very small, according to Dr. Cham Dallas, University of Georgia professor of public health who studied the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown in Ukraine…

A Lesson In Social Media Ignorance: Earthquake In Japan 2011

BananaFamine — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 07:16:11 +0000

A friend recently shared a link to an image featuring a collection of facebook statuses regarding the recent events in Japan. All of which are blatantly ignorant and insensitive, to such a degree that it most likely will qualify as black humor for some. I am not sure the history of the image, however I’d assume they were gathered using something like YourOpenBook.org (A search on the site reveals many similar postings).

Will March 19 ‘Supermoon’ Trigger Natural Disasters?

phunkychic666 — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 15:11:36 +0000

Natalie Wolchover asks some disturbing questions at Space.com:

On March 19, the moon will swing around Earth more closely than it has in the past 18 years, lighting up the night sky from just 221,567 miles (356,577 kilometers) away. On top of that, it will be full. And one astrologer believes it could inflict massive damage on the planet.

Richard Nolle, a noted astrologer who runs the website astropro.com, has famously termed the upcoming full moon at lunar perigee (the closest approach during its orbit) an “extreme supermoon.”

When the moon goes super-extreme, Nolle says, chaos will ensue: Huge storms, earthquakes, volcanoes and other natural disasters can be expected to wreak havoc on Earth. (It should be noted that astrology is not a real science, but merely makes connections between astronomical and mystical events.)

But do we really need to start stocking survival shelters in preparation for the supermoon?

The question is not actually so crazy. In fact scientists have studied related scenarios for decades. Even under normal conditions, the moon is close enough to Earth to make its weighty presence felt: It causes the ebb and flow of the ocean tides…

[continues at Space.com]

Japan Nuclear Plant Explodes

majestic — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 13:44:33 +0000

This is about the worst headline one could ever imagine writing. The story is developing fast and is on every major news channel. Here’s a quick update from CNN:

Phil Plait: No, The “Super-Moon” Didn’t Cause the Japanese Earthquake

ralph — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 16:30:27 +0000

Moon's Apogee and Perigee.

The ever lucid Phil Plait writes on Bad Astronomy:

Japan suffered a massive earthquake last night, measuring nearly magnitude 9. This is one of the largest quakes in its history, causing widespread and severe damage. Before I say anything else, I’m greatly saddened by the loss of life in Japan, and I’ll be donating to disaster relief organizations to help them get in there and do what they can to give aid to those in need.

While there isn’t much I can do to directly help the situation in Japan, I do hope I can help mitigate the panic and worry that can happen due to people blaming this earthquake on the so-called “supermoon” — a date when the Moon is especially close to the Earth at the same time it’s full. So let me be extremely clear:

Despite what a lot of people are saying, there is no way this earthquake was caused by the Moon.

The idea of the Moon affecting us on Earth isn’t total nonsense, but it cannot be behind this earthquake, and almost certainly won’t have any actual, measurable affect on us on March 19, when the full Moon is at its closest.

So, how can I be so sure?

Read More from Phil Plait writes on Bad Astronomy

Monster Tsunami Scares Residents Across Pacific

majestic — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 12:02:11 +0000

The massive 8.9 earthquake off the coast of Japan has created a monster tsunami that has people all across the Pacific Ocean running to high ground. The U.S. Government’s NOAA has lots of interactive and historical information on tsunami travel times and is well worth looking at if you’re anywhere in the vicinity. A static map is reproduced below.

Climate Change “Already Visible,” Say Insurers

moezilla — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 22:02:32 +0000

Photo: Mila Zinkova (CC)

In 1980 there were just 60 floods, blizzards, or thunderstorms, but in 2010 there were 247. “It’s likely that the number of strong storms involving rain, snow and hail is also rising because of warming temperatures,” says the head of the Corporate Climate Center at Munich Reinsurance, adding “we believe we have indications that climate change is already, at least to some extent, visible.”

The number of damaging storms rose from 50 reported thirty years ago to 150 in 2010, notes this environmental blog, adding that “While politicians bicker over the reality of climate change, insurance companies are dealing with its reality.” In fact, altogether the past year saw 950 disasters worldwide, where 30 years ago the number was a mere 400.

But wouldn’t it be interesting if the single most powerful lobbyist on the issue of climate legislation became the insurance companies?

Haitians Mark One Year Anniversary Of Earthquake

Pelliciari — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 22:08:47 +0000

The Haitian National Palace after the earthquake on January 12, 2010

A year after tragedy hit Haiti, survivors are marking the anniversary of the devastating earthquake. A year later and hundreds of thousands of people are living in shelters, communities are slowly being rebuilt and there is a constant battle against cholera. BBC News reports:

Haitians are preparing to mark the anniversary of the earthquake that devastated their country and left some 250,000 of their fellow citizens dead.

Church services are due to be held around the nation, including at the ruined cathedral in Port-au-Prince.

There will also be a minute’s silence at 4.53pm (2153 GMT) – the exact moment when the 7.0 magnitude quake hit.

Traffic stopped as the streets of Port-au-Prince turned quiet and businesses were closed.

People walked in solemn processions to prayer services marking the anniversary of the worst natural disaster in the nation’s history. Many people wore white, a colour associated with mourning in Haiti, and sang hymns as they made their way to the services.

One year on, some 800,000 people are still living in temporary shelters.

[Continues at BBC News]

Cuban Medics in Haiti Put the World to Shame

imkaan — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 04:48:30 +0000

Nina Lakhani writes in the Indepedent:

They are the real heroes of the Haitian earthquake disaster, the human catastrophe on America’s doorstep which Barack Obama pledged a monumental US humanitarian mission to alleviate. Except these heroes are from America’s arch-enemy Cuba, whose doctors and nurses have put US efforts to shame.

A medical brigade of 1,200 Cubans is operating all over earthquake-torn and cholera-infected Haiti, as part of Fidel Castro’s international medical mission which has won the socialist state many friends, but little international recognition.

Observers of the Haiti earthquake could be forgiven for thinking international aid agencies were alone in tackling the devastation that killed 250,000 people and left nearly 1.5 million homeless. In fact, Cuban healthcare workers have been in Haiti since 1998, so when the earthquake struck the 350-strong team jumped into action. And amid the fanfare and publicity surrounding the arrival of help from the US and the UK, hundreds more Cuban doctors, nurses and therapists arrived with barely a mention. Most countries were gone within two months, again leaving the Cubans and Médecins Sans Frontières as the principal healthcare providers for the impoverished Caribbean island.

Two-Thirds of the West African Nation of Benin is Underwater

ralph — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 20:34:03 +0000

Via BBC News:

The UN refugee agency is to start an emergency airlift of tents to the West African nation of Benin this week, amid the worst flooding there in decades.

Some 3,000 tents will be flown in from Denmark to provide shelter for some of the estimated 680,000 people affected.

Two-thirds of Benin has suffered from months of heavy rain, and about 800 cases of cholera have been reported.

It is the worst flooding to hit the country — one of the poorest in the world — since 1963.

Areas previously thought not to be vulnerable to flooding have been devastated and villages wiped out.

“There are huge areas that are covered in water so people are living on the tops of their houses, because people try to stay near their homes,” Helen Kawkins of the Care aid agency told the BBC.

World Climate Change Vulnerability Map

JacobSloan — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 17:00:51 +0000

Maplecroft, a “global risks advisory firm,” has just released a world map for 2011 that shows the risk from climate change borne around the world. (Dark green/blue areas are most vulnerable.) The calculation is based on both the odds of sea-level-rise/natural disasters, and the ability of local authorities to deal with those issues. The countries least likely to suffer due to climate change are those in Scandinavia, while the United States is graded as “medium risk”…although things look pretty calm out in Idaho, at least.

One Million Cubic Meters of Toxic Red Sludge Floods Forty Square Kilometers of Hungary

Good German — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 20:42:27 +0000

Veszprém county, Hungary. Author: Szerkesztő:Juhasz peter (CC)

CBC News reports:

Hungary declared a state of emergency in three counties Tuesday after a flood of toxic red sludge from an alumina plant engulfed several towns and burned people through their clothes.

The toll rose to four dead, six missing and at least 120 people injured after a reservoir failed Monday at the Ajkai Timfoldgyar plant in Ajka, a town roughly 160 kilometres southwest of Budapest, the capital.

Several hundred tonnes of plaster were being poured into the Marcal River to bind the toxic sludge and prevent it from flowing on, the National Disaster Management Directorate said.

So far, about one million cubic metres of sludge has leaked from the reservoir, affecting an estimated 40 square kilometres, Environmental Affairs State Secretary Zoltan Illes told the state news wire MTI.

Illes called the flood an “ecological catastrophe” and said the sludge could reach the Raba and Danube rivers. He suspended activity at the plant and ordered the company to repair the damaged reservoir.

The disaster agency said 390 residents had to be temporarily relocated and 110 were rescued from the flooded towns, including Kolontal, Devecser and Somlovasarhely. Firefighters and soldiers swept through the region Tuesday carrying out cleanup tasks with bulldozers.

The sludge, a waste product in aluminum production, contains heavy metals and is toxic if ingested.

Many of the injured sustained burns as the sludge seeped through their clothes, and two were in critical condition. Two women, a young man and a three-year-old child were killed in the flooding.

The injured were being monitored because the chemical burns caused by the sludge could take days to emerge and what may seem like superficial injuries could later cause damage to deeper tissue, Dr. Peter Jakabos of Gyor hospital, where several of the injured were taken, told state television.

Two Asteroids Perilously Close To Earth

majestic — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 15:53:02 +0000

NASA/JPL plot of asteroids' paths

These ones probably won’t hit, but they show that so-called Near Earth Objects could collide with our planet at any time with precious little warning. From ABC News:

Today is not a good day for the anxious among us. Two small asteroids — two in twelve hours — are passing the earth, both coming within the moon’s orbit, one of them whipping by about 49,000 miles away.

In a spirit of calm, we ought to point out that NASA says close calls like these happen, on average, almost daily. The difference is that usually we never know. These two objects were both spotted Sunday by the Catalina Sky Survey at the University of Arizona.

The specifics:

–Asteroid 2010 RX30 is estimated to be 32 to 65 feet in size (10-20 meters) and passed within 154,000 miles of Earth at 5:51 a.m. EDT this morning. (The moon, by comparison, is 2,200 miles in diameter and respectfully stays about 240,000 miles away.)

–Asteroid 2010 RF12, about 20-45 feet in maximum width (6-14 meters), is passing within approximately 49,088 miles of us at 5:12 p.m. EDT. That’s a fifth as far away as the moon.

A decade ago, this was the stuff of movies — think “Armageddon” and “Deep Impact” — but one of the more memorable lines from back then was that the planet would be whacked by something “the size of Texas.” Asteroids the size of today’s passersby enter the earth’s atmosphere about once a decade, mostly harmlessly.

Of course, every now and then — remember the theory about the death of the dinosaurs — something hits us that is not harmless…

[continues at ABC News]

Fire Tornado Strikes In Brazil

JacobSloan — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:46:23 +0000

Last week one of the rarest and more horrifying weather phenomena occurred in Brazil: a “fire tornado.” Created by extreme drought conditions, the whirling tower of flames raged outside of the city of Aracatuba, scorching dry earth and bringing traffic to a halt, before disappearing.

Before There Was Oil, There Was Water: Harry Shearer’s ‘The Big Uneasy’ (Video)

ralph — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 05:03:02 +0000

Here’s Harry Shearer (of Spinal Tap and Simpsons fame) being interviewed by Michael Smerconish about his new documentary The Big Uneasy on Hardball with Chris Matthews below. Here’s a bit about the documentary:

Almost five years ago, a disaster struck New Orleans. The media said it was a natural disaster primarily affecting poor black people. On both counts, the media was wrong.

In The Big Uneasy, humorist and New Orleans resident Harry Shearer gets the inside story of a disaster that could have been prevented from the people who were there. As we approach the fifth anniversary of the flooding of New Orleans, Shearer speaks to the investigators who poked through the muck as the water receded and a whistleblower from the Army Corps of Engineers, revealing that some of the same flawed methods responsible for the levee failure during Katrina are being used to rebuild the system expected to protect the new New Orleans from future peril.

Massive Guatemala Sinkhole (Photo)

5by5 — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 16:30:54 +0000

This image is NOT a Photoshop alteration. This is a real sinkhole that spontaneously appeared in Zone 2 of Guatemala City due to tropical storm Agatha, and was posted to the Guatemalan government’s image feed:

Photo: Gobierno de Guatemala (CC)

How’d you like to have that just drop out from under you?

The roundness of the hole makes it all the more freakish, and I think we can probably count the seconds between now and when someone will say “aliens”, “end times”, “2012″, or “satellite weapon test” due to that one physical property of this crazy pit.

On a more serious note, this is just the most obvious sign of the destruction that was visited upon already impoverished Guatemala with the first big storm of the upcoming hurricane season in the Gulf. 30,000 people displaced from their homes, roughly 120,000 evacuated, and 93 dead. Does not bode well.

Bill Nye ‘The Science Guy’ Reviews Ideas For Solving Gulf Coast Oil Spill

majestic — Sat, 22 May 2010 13:55:08 +0000

CNN iReporters submitted their ideas on how to solve the oil disaster in the Gulf. CNN asked scientist Bill Nye to take a look at them; he found problems with some proposals but merit in others.

Beneath the Surface: Nashville’s Flood of 2010

cybercasualty — Tue, 11 May 2010 05:01:51 +0000

Almost completely ignored by the national media (eg. CNN’s big headline on May 3 was — and I cringe — “Catastrophic” Flood Being Ignored?, which was just an iReport), the flood destroyed thousands of homes and killed at least 34 people.

This is a first-hand account, posted on “Confessions of a CyberCasualty”:

JoeBot, "Disaster Tourist" (Photo: Andrew Edman)

The rain came on May Day without mercy, drenching Middle Tennessee for nearly two days. The downpour finally let up on Sunday — May 2 — immediately drawing disaster-tourists with cameras in hand.

I join them downtown on 1st Avenue, by the Cumberland River. The water marker reads 47′, and it’s climbing fast. Gawkers gather around to document the progress.

The riverfront stage is completely submerged at this point, but that doesn’t stop the show. We all watch an endless parade of municipal trashcans, propane tanks, dock stairs, basketballs, and uprooted trees floating down the river. Massive clumps of branches and assorted trash wind along like a flotsam serpent, carrying flocks of hungry birds who pick drowning bugs from its back.

A spectacle can really bring folks together. Further downstream, an older couple in church clothes stand with their granddaughter, discussing the scene with a burly Titans fan. Next to them is a loud managerial type and a wizened vagrant couple. The Titans fan says, “There’s yo’ groundhog right ‘ere.” He points and they all look over the wall. Below is a lonely groundhog, poking around the trash and branches for a few green shoots. It appears that he’s trapped on what little embankment is left. The loud button-down guy says to the vagrant couple:

“He certainly looks corpulent to me.” They nod in agreement, looking bewildered. “I could make a couple of juicy burgers out of that little guy.” The vagrant couple continue to nod, but are obviously appalled at the notion. “I’m serious. Groundhog is delicious.”

I go back to Fort Nashborough to watch the water marker with the other disaster-tourists. It’s up almost up to 48′ now — history in the making. Two little grey-mustachioed men chat up everyone who passes by. This is Ron and Don. They are identical twins pushing sixty, tiny and full of energy — former horse-jockeys, in fact. Don jumps up and down and yells to his twin in a munchkin voice: “Look, Ron, a boat, a boat!” A motor boat drifts backwards down the river. “Look, it’s in reverse!” They laugh.

Ron and Don have a plastic soda bottle. Their plan is to put a message inside with their contact information and a historical statement about the ‘Flood of 2010,’ and then send it down the river to see how far it will go. “They’ll probably just send us a ticket for littering though.” Ron points to a bridge downstream.

“‘Tent City’ was right under that bridge. Lots of people lived down there. They did their own landscaping, everything. I hope they got their tents out before it all washed away.”

Suddenly Don yelps: “Look, Ron, a baby squirrel!” We follow Don’s finger, and sure enough there is a tiny squirrel hopping around the bushes. One man snaps a picture before turning the lens back to his kids, who stand arm-in-arm before the rising river, smiling. Growling metal songs roar out of Coyote Ugly as the rain begins sprinkling again. Ron steps onto a ledge and holds his umbrella over my head.

* * *

I was supposed to put up a rig at Bridgestone Arena’s rehearsal hall the next morning — May 3. On my way to work, I see that the Cumberland River now spans from LP Field to 2nd Avenue. Coyote Ugly — and most of 1st Avenue — is completely submerged. The arena manager comes up the stairs to let us in, stating with grim humor: “The water you are about to walk through is not rain.” Indeed, the torrent bubbling up from every crack and drain on the lower level smells like a thousand back alley piss-puddles. Though it has just begun, this murky green pool will eventually rise to the top of the front-row dashers. What a way to get the day off.

This is happening all over Music City. The lower levels of hotels, parking garages, restaurants, shopping malls, and industrial complexes are filling with urban sludge. Soundcheck’s warehouse — where the stars store their precious guitars, amps, and drumkits — is a swimming pool. Cars and trucks swept away like toys. Entire neighborhoods destroyed. Thousands of people watch helplessly as their homes disappear, inch by muddy inch. Some are trapped and waiting to be rescued. A few are dead, floating behind closed doors.

Photo: Rick Prince

Out on the footbridge overlooking the city, the sun shines down on a flock of disaster-tourists. Mothers push new double-strollers, fathers aim cameras at rescue helicopters, shirtless meatheads flex for teenage girls, fat women wheeze up the incline, children wade through the water in flip-flops. It feels like summer vacation. I even find a wild-eyed vagrant with a big green rucksack swimming around in the 1st Avenue floodwater.

Down at Bicentennial Park, it is completely silent. A lone man stands on a distant shore (across the park), taking pictures. I walk to the floodwater’s edge beneath the train trestles and read the inscriptions on the wall. Surprising irony sinks in as I mull over facts, quotes, and poetic excerpts extolling the glory of Tennessee rivers. One reads:

I’m going out to smell fresh rain on summer dust and prehistoric water odors of the old French Broad in flood.

Won’t you come too?

Wilma Dykeman, 1955

Another reads:

Flooding is the most widespread and most frequent natural hazard in Tennessee.

I suppose the writing is on the wall. I suddenly think about Pops — whose house sits on Seven Mile Creek — and decide to give him a call.

* * *

Pops has been a roadie since the 70s — sound engineer, lighting tech, rigger, you name it. I work with him locally when he’s not out on a tour. Fifty-eight years old, he moves on the floor like a man in his 20s — the sort of ground-rigger who never leaves an up-guy hanging (no pun intended.)

Creek floods come suddenly and subside quickly. Within an hour, the water of Seven Mile Creek went from Pops’ backyard to 5′ above his basement floor, bouncing his washing machine against the ceiling.

I arrive at noon. Stacks of furniture, ruined appliances, and boxes of muddied mementos line the road. I find Pops in his basement, dragging the wreckage outside. His wife is spraying mud off of whatever can be salvaged. Pops smiles and tries to crack jokes — he repeats again and again that he and his wife are blessed, no matter what they may have lost — but I can tell his heart is broken.

I find a drawer full of old photos, and start peeling them apart.

“No,” Pops says firmly. “I don’t need it. I’ve moved this shit from place to place for forty years. Why?” He shakes his head. “It’s all going away.”

Pops collected many wonderful artifacts over the years. Tour and Local Crew passes from the 70s through 2010 — name a band, he probably worked for them at least once — are soaked and scattered across the basement floor. There is a Motorola TV from the 1950s, a suitcase phonograph from the 60s, a Caribbean cruise ship mural with tiny photos of Pops’ friends pasted onto the windows, an elaborate toy sailboat that he made for his son — a whole world of memories laying in a soggy pile. I encourage him to save what he can, but he insists on throwing almost everything away. Though it obviously tortures him — he tries not to look as he dumps these things into trashbags — Pops has decided to use this moment to rid his home of needless objects.

“These are just things, Joe. I never do anything with this stuff.”

Yet he’s touching each one of them now. We haul it all to the street, where it is snatched up by immigrants trucking back and forth. I’m fascinated at how quickly Pops’ trash becomes another man’s treasure.

There are some things that I won’t let him throw away, though. A 1981 Sony TCS 310 — the first portable stereo cassette recorder — given to Pops by Johnny Cash’s daughter, Rosanne; a toy truck and race car that date back to the early 50s; and a small roadcase full of tour laminates, particularly a backstage pass for a Willie Nelson concert in Memphis, dated 8/16/77 — the day Elvis Presley died. Apparently Nelson’s performance had been upstaged by the King’s final exit. Pops tells me:

“Willie looked at his tour manager that night, and said: ‘Never book me in Memphis the day Elvis dies again.’”

I refuse to let him throw that case away, and take it outside to dry. Pops’ wife is out there, crying, sorting through the warped remains of her daughter’s artwork and spraying mud off of tiny baby shoes. Broken pieces of a lifetime lay in front of her as she revisits the memories behind. The hardest part is letting them go.

Photo: Rick Prince

“We don’t need this stuff,” Pops says, tossing one of his father’s tools into a trashbag without looking. “I can always remember.” He laughs. “Of course, maybe one day my mind will go and I won’t have my memories either.” He shrugs, turning a Christmas ornament over in his hands, staring intently, grinning. He puts it up on a high shelf for safekeeping.

Perhaps nothing lasts forever — perhaps it’s futile to hold on. That seems irrelevant as I consider the simple blessing of going home. And as the cottonwood tufts float down around us, Pops and his wife are profoundly grateful to still have theirs.

* * *

By the evening of May 2, hundreds of Nashville homes are completely submerged — some reports claim thousands across Tennessee. Though this receives almost no national attention, the local news stations show entire neighborhoods immersed to the rooftops. Boats and jet-skis go from house to house rescuing those stranded. The death toll is rising.

Rick Prince — a local firefighter and EMS First Responder — has spent the day saving what little he could from homes in West Nashville and Bellevue, artwork and furniture that was spared due to its elevated location. Most of the homes he went into were completely ruined.

When Rick arrived at his friend’s house on Pond Creek near Ashland City, it was too late. “I looked across the rapids [where her home used to be] and saw only the tops of the tallest trees swaying against the river’s current.” Like many residents who have lost everything, she had no flood insurance. The material accumulation of entire lives have been swept away in a flash.

Rick tells me that it was hard to distinguish between curious disaster-tourists and looters casing the scene. One can only make assumptions with strangers, but when “ruffians” scope out unguarded merchandise rather than offering help or taking pictures, suspicions arise. He describes the walls of Rent-A-Center and Budget Brakes in West Nashville left pounded out by debris and the sheer weight of the rushing water, giving open access. At this point, no one has reported any looting yet.

“That makes me proud of the collective ‘us’ of Nashville,” Rick says. “However, it only takes a little more ‘need’ to push any man or woman to make that decision and choose self-preservation. And there is a fine line between need and want. Go team.”

* * *

May 3 — I listen to sirens and helicopters all night. Police have been assigned to various posts all over the city — in some instances to hold back the rubberneckers, but also to curtail looting. One officer — who was in New Orleans for four months after the hurricane — says it reminds him of Katrina. You mean all the gawkers? I ask.

“No, the looting. It started tonight, mostly in West and South Nashville. Not as bad as New Orleans, of course, but it will probably get worse. That’s just human nature, I guess. People will always prey on the weak.”

The apple never falls far from the tree — Nature consistently shows herself to be a cruel mother. Floods, tornados, earthquakes, tsunamis, disease, old age, and death. As people swarm in to gather photographs or rip out unguarded valuables, a dark pit inside the human heart yawns wide as the ravenous jaws of Nature, devouring without empathy. And yet, just as Nature sends sunshine down upon us, so the best of her children relieve their brothers and sisters after crippling misfortune. The gentle hand is divine.

Perhaps the officer’s comparison to Katrina is only superficial. Thusfar Nashville has shown a gentle hand indeed. The looting is only a fraction of that in New Orleans. The volunteer lists are completely full as many thousands of determined Nashvillians come to the aid of their neighbors — with little outside help. One could point to Music City’s economic advantages or the scale of disaster as an explanation.

I think of the memorial in front of St. Ann’s Episcopal Church in East Nashville. Written after the tornadoes of ‘98 destroyed the neighborhood, the inscription reads:

“God was not in the tornado, but in our response.”

An apt sentiment, but it ignores part of the story. It seems apparent that God is more than willing to smash human lives to pieces. For this, the boldest men and women curse him. And yet, he has also given survivors the power to put what is left back together—perhaps upon a stronger foundation. For this, the humble thank him, straining against the fierce current and keeping faith that we will arrive on that distant shore.

[This article was submitted to various national news organizations on May 5. The Gulf oil spill, the twarted carbombing in NYC, and the rape of a child prostitute by Lawrence Taylor were deemed to be much more important. As usual, Tennessee exists in its own little world, apart from all others.]

Boobquake to Rock World on April 26th

bluemana — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 20:00:24 +0000

The Facebook event has over 50,000, Looks like the “movement” started with Blag Hag’s “In the name of science, I offer my boobs”:

This little bit of supernatural thinking has been floating around the blogosphere [on April 21st]:

“Many women who do not dress modestly … lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes,” Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted as saying by Iranian media. Sedighi is Tehran’s acting Friday prayer leader.

I have a modest proposal. Sedighi claims that not dressing modestly causes earthquakes. If so, we should be able to test this claim scientifically. You all remember the homeopathy overdose?

Time for a Boobquake: On Monday, April 26th, I will wear the most cleavage-showing shirt I own. Yes, the one usually reserved for a night on the town. I encourage other female skeptics to join me and embrace the supposed supernatural power of their breasts. Or short shorts, if that’s your preferred form of immodesty. With the power of our scandalous bodies combined, we should surely produce an earthquake. If not, I’m sure Sedighi can come up with a rational explanation for why the ground didn’t rumble. And if we really get through to him, maybe it’ll be one involving plate tectonics.