Miscellaneous News.

The WSWS notes the cyclone disaster worsens in Burma.
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Dolly Parton has paid tribute to gospel singer and friend Dottie Rambo, who was killed in a bus crash yesterday in Missouri.

Consider how well known Rambo is, I am surprised there is no obituary from the New York Times yet. They did one of Vestal Goodman a few years ago.

More from the Tennessean is here.
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A judge decreed the McCartney marriage over, but fans of the former Beatle knew it was over from Day One.
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So is Tony Rezko a crook or was he framed, as closing arguments were made in his trial today.

Earthquake News.

First Burma, with as many as a million and a half dead from the cyclone and its aftermath of disease and starvation, and now China.

China has perhaps the most deadly earthquakes in the world. Literally millions have died there in earthquakes since recorded history's worst, in 1556, when an estimated 850,000 people died.

Perhaps 5,000 have died from this latest one in one county. More than 900 students are trapped in a single school when it collapsed. The tremors were felt as far away as Thailand and Vietnam. Who knows how many more have died?

The worst one in China in modern times was the 1976 Tangshan earthquake where an estimated 240,000 people died (although some estimates have up to 600,000). That quake registered at a 7.8. The death toll, as the article notes, was covered up for a time by the Chinese government.

This one has been registered at a 7.8 on the Richter scale. Eighty percent of the buildings in Beichuan County have been leveled.
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Update: This earthquake's power is about on the level with the Tangshan earthquake. The death toll has been upped to 7,600. I'd say that's probably conservative, though perhaps not as severe as the 1976 quake in terms of lives lost. This one happened in the afternoon, not at night. The shock could be felt as far away as Beijing, 960 miles away.
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Update II: The death toll has risen to 8,500.
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Miscellaneous News.

Just as it seemed the Mogul/Verdi/Reno earthquakes were subsiding, another quake shook the area last night. It was a 3.8.

I didn't feel anything. I was just dozing off after trying to watch a DVD.
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A woman who won a $5 million Georgia lottery last year on her birthday was slain by her ex-boyfriend, according to authorities.

The woman, Doris Murray, wanted to receive the winnings in annual payments and lived modestly.
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Bill Hargrove, 106, the oldest league bowler of all time, has died just a few days before his 107th birthday.

Here is some trivia:

In May 2007, just after turning 106, Mr. Hargrove was feted and fussed over at Suburban Lanes in Decatur. Cameras flashed and spectators oohed as the United States Bowling Congress presented him with a custom-made plaque inscribed to "the oldest league bowler ever."

The organization said as far as it knew, he was the oldest bowler in the world.

The honor did not slip up on him unawares.

"I was hell-bent on getting it," he said in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article at the time, knowing full well that a Florida bowler had previously made it to 105.

William C. Hargrove, 106, of Clermont was admitted to Northeast Georgia Medical Center a few days after his last game and died there of congestive heart failure Monday, four days shy of his 107th birthday.

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Another politician couldn't keep his pants zipped.
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The platypus is as strange on the inside as on the outside.
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Could the Burma/Myanmar cyclone have a death toll greater than the 2004 tsunami?

If the death toll is a half million, that would rival the East Pakistan/Bangladesh cyclone of 1970.
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Miscellaneous.

Our dictator is trying to exploit the Burmese cyclone disaster for political gain, since his approval ratings are buried in an avalanche of disgust.

Miscellaneous.

Arthritic dogs can be helped, even those with serious problems.
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The Burmese or Myanmar cyclone could have resulted in as many as 50,000 deaths and as many as 2 to 3 million homeless.
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Miscellaneous.

For 47 million you can buy this monstrosity at Incline Village, Nevada.
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As many as 10,000 could be dead as a result of a cyclone centered in Burma, also called Myanmar by those who want the rest of us to look it up on a map. The current death toll is around 4,000.
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