Some Thursday Reads

 A man didn't take well his ex-fiancee giving his engagement ring back.

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Today at work we had an earthquake drill, which of course was for real, as a 7.0 earthquake near Eureka, California, occurred today.  I hope the redwood trees are okay.  I really loved those trees when I went on the trip there a year-and-a-half ago.

More:

 A magnitude 7 earthquake about 30 miles off the Humboldt County shoreline prompted a highly unusual tsunami warning for a wide swath of the Northern California coast Thursday, spurring widespread evacuations before it was canceled an hour later.

The earthquake rattled large parts of the region — from San Francisco and Monterey to as far away as Sacramento, Reno and southern Oregon — providing a stark reminder of how coastal seismic activity can threaten to produce damaging tsunamis under the right circumstances.

Many reported terrifying shaking in and around the Eureka area, with bottles of alcohol shattered behind one bar, but there were no immediate reports of major injuries, likely owing in part to the epicenter being so far away from highly populated areas. Preliminary estimates indicate the epicenter was about 55 miles southwest of Eureka and 100 miles northwest of Mendocino.

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God Apparently Incurred His Wrath

today at Congress for being on vacation instead of doing their jobs and decided to curse the area as well as the East Coast with a 5.8 earthquake.

Although places all over the world get earthquakes, they are almost always small and are not large enough to be felt. When they are, they are typically located in the so-called "Ring of Fire" of the Pacific Ocean. A 5.8 is fairly major for the East.

Etc. and News

Japanese officials aren't telling the truth about how dire the nuclear situation is.
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Wisconsin protesters decided to crash a GOP event in D.C. for the traitors who tried to sell public employees down the river.
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News, Etc.

The Koch brothers really have too much time and too much money on their hands; these parasites need to be paying their fair share in taxes instead of trying to make things harder for everybody else.

They are going around the country trying to change laws protecting the right to unionize.
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If it weren't for dumb shit parents, dumb shit politicians, dumb shit reporters, and dumb shit administrators, teachers' jobs would be so much better.
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The death toll from the Japanese earthquake/tsunami could exceed 10,000:

Millions of Japanese were without drinking water, electricity or proper food Sunday, two days after a powerful earthquake and tsunami hammered the northeastern coast, killing at least 1,000 people.

Police in Japan's northeastern Miyagi prefecture warned, however, that the death toll in that hard-hit area alone would likely exceed 10,000.

Japan Earthquake

The 8.9 earthquake centered off the coast of Japan was the seventh largest in the history of the world. Hundreds are believed dead; the only thing preventing hundreds of thousands of deaths is that Japan is a wealthy, industrialized country with buildings that are made to withstand earthquakes for the most part.

If this had occurred in China or Indonesia, the death toll would have run into the hundreds of thousands if not millions of people.

Seven earthquakes over magnitude 8 have rocked Japan since 1891. In 1923, a 7.9-magnitude earthquake killed 147,000 people in and around Tokyo, mainly due to fires that raged through wooden and paper houses. In 1995, despite strict building codes in modern city areas, more than 6,000 people died in the Kobe earthquake, predominantly in poorer, working class districts where the government had failed to implement the higher standards.

The entire Pacific Rim was put on high alert last night after a tsunami warning was issued throughout the region. Tsunamis were feared across the Pacific, because the earthquake was almost as powerful as the 9.1-sized quake off Indonesia that set off the Indian Ocean tsunami in December 2004, killing more than 200,000 people.

The waves that sped across the Pacific at speeds of up to 800 kilometres per hour were so powerful that they reached California early yesterday morning local time, where they pummelled the harbour at Crescent City in the state’s north. Residents had heeded the blaring evacuation sirens, and this saved lives, but the tsunamis ripped chunks off wooden docks and destroyed or damaged two dozen or so boats. One man who tried taking photographs of the tsunami on a beach about 20 kilometres south of town was swept out to sea. Federal seismologists said the 3-metre swells that roared into Crescent City were the largest to hit the United States on Friday—higher than the 2-metre surges that hit Hawaii. The rest of the California shoreline quickly began seeing surges after that. By then, all residents in low-lying areas had been urged to evacuate, and officials closed some schools and coastal roads as a precaution.

A seismologist says this earthquake belongs in a completely different class from the usual kind of earthquake.

He happened to turn on the television 10 minutes after it struck and started watching the coverage. The initial reports were that it was a magnitude 7.9 quake. Kent said it is common to underestimate the strength of powerful quakes until better assessments are made. Then he saw footage of the tsunami hitting Japan.

“I was looking at the tsunami wave and I said there was no way that was a 7.9,” Kent said. “I knew it was going to creep up to the 9 just by looking at the tsunami.”

From the point of an earthquake, Japan seemed well-prepared for what happened, Kent said. Many of the structural safety features worked to protect people against earthquakes.

“There is no other nation that is greater prepared than Japan for large earthquakes,” he said.

But it’s the following tsunami that did so much of the damage.

As people know, a nuclear plant exploded.

More about it.


Video showing a tsunami's destruction:

News, Etc.

A massive earthquake has struck Japan. It was measured 8.8 or 8.9, depending on the news source.

The link provides live updates, including tsunami reports.
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News, Etc.

Apparently the governor of Wisconsin doesn't want THIS fact well known about states without collective bargaining and how well their students do on college entrance exams.
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Have the "reformers" cooked the books with regard to those "value-added assessments"?

Reformers wouldn't be reformers if they didn't; after all, they are trying to run schools on business models.
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At least 65 are known dead in the Christchurch, New Zealand, 6.3 earthquake, while scores are trapped.
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Indiana is following Wisconsin's lead.

A few facts to show nobody other than the filthy rich are doing well in this economic "recovery."

News

Twenty-five miners were killed as a result of a West Virginia mining blast:

Though names have not been released, three members of one family all died in the disaster, Manchin said. Another member of the family was also in the mine, but survived, he said. That man lost his son, nephew and older brother, said Manchin, who lost an uncle in the Farmington Mine disaster in 1968.

One of the four men still missing was believed to be running the longwall miner deep in the mine, Manchin said. The others were believed to be in another section, deep in the mine.

Giannato said that some emergency breathing devices were missing from a storage cache deep in the mine. Rescuers are operating under the assumption that trapped miners may have grabbed those to help them survive until help arrived, he said.

The accident occurred at about 3 p.m. at Massey Energy subsidiary Performance Coal Co.'s Upper Big Branch Mine-South.

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A Sumatra earthquake of 7.8 hit today, but evidently the tsunami warning has been lifted.
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News--Earthquakes

Some 2 million people have been displaced following yesterday's earthquake in Chile:

While this earthquake was far stronger than the 7.0-magnitude one that ravaged Haiti six weeks ago, the damage and death toll in Chile are likely to be far less extensive, in part because of strict building codes put in place after devastating earthquakes.

The quake Saturday, tied for the fifth largest in the world since 1900, set off tsunami waves that swamped some nearby islands before moving across the Pacific. Hawaii began evacuations before dawn, but by early afternoon there — more than 15 hours after the earthquake first struck 6,500 miles away — the fears of a destructive wave had passed. Countries including Japan and the Philippines were on alert and ordered limited evacuations in anticipation of waves hitting Sunday.

Chileans were only just beginning to grapple with the devastation before them, even as more than two dozen significant aftershocks struck the country.

People there are lucky the codes are in place; while it is tragic hundreds died regardless, it could have been in the hundreds of thousands as what happened in Haiti.
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At least two are dead from an earthquake off the coast of Argentina. Yesterday's quake measured 6.3 on the Richter scale.
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An explanation of the Chilean earthquake:

News

This is just horrible. The big news today, of course, is that massive, massive earthquake which struck Chile.

There is a tsunami watch for as far as Hawaii.

I am surprised there are relatively few deaths reported so far:

A Department of Homeland Security official said early Saturday that FEMA was monitoring the situation and was in contact with state emergency personnel in Hawaii, which is under a tsunami warning. But the decision to evacuate coastal areas and handling this evacuation is the responsibility of state and local officials in Hawaii, the Homeland Security official said.

The quake downed buildings and houses in Santiago and knocked out a major bridge connecting the northern and southern sections of the country.

It struck at 3:34 a.m. local time and was centered about 200 miles southwest of Santiago, at a depth of 22 miles, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. The epicenter was some 70 miles from Concepcion, Chile’s second-largest city, where more than 200,000 people live.

Phone lines were down in Concepcion as of 7:30 a.m. and no reports were coming out of that area. The quake in Chile was more powerful than the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that caused widespread damage in Haiti on Jan 12, killing at least 230,000, earthquake experts reported on CNN International.

The quake measured 8.8 on the Richter scale, which is almost as powerful as it gets.
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I hope the feds ignore the GOP idiots in the Nevada congressional delegation regarding national monuments.

The U.S. Interior Department recently listed the Owyhee Desert in Nevada and Oregon and the "Heart of the Great Basin" in Nevada's Nye County as possible candidates for federal designation.

A draft memo said the Owyhee is worthy because it is one of the most remote areas in the continental U.S. and the Great Basin is "one of North America's least appreciated wildland mosaics."

The Elko County Commission voted Thursday to send a letter to Gov. Jim Gibbons, Nevada's congressional delegation and the White House to oppose any such move.

They're dumber than dirt.

Haiti

More than 150,000 bodies have been recovered from the earthquake of almost two weeks ago.

The UN says it could take YEARS to recover all of the bodies.

Haiti

The death toll is now estimated at least 200,000, plus several thousand Americans are missing.


MSNBC reports:

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Haiti

When it comes to a catastrophe of the magnitude of Haiti's, such things as caskets and embalming are luxuries. It's just easier to toss the bodies into a big hole and bury them.

This goes against Haitian culture, which values burial of the dead.
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MSNBC:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Fears of violence remain:





Here is this incredible story about Jeanette, who was pulled from the rubble SIX days after the earthquake:

Haiti

A young woman who blogged about her adventures in Haiti has lost her life there thanks to the earthquake.
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This interactive map shows Port-au-Prince before and after the earthquake.

Earthquake Stats

Here is a handy chart of the most destructive earthquakes on record. Note the Sumatra earthquake of five years ago didn't cause all of those deaths since the earthquake was centered in the ocean; it was the resulting tsunami which did the damage.





The numbers of deaths in the Tangshan earthquake of 1976 have always been a subject of dispute. The lower estimate is probably understating the extent of the casualties.

Haiti

MSNBC has some reports:

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Incredibly, survivors are being found in the rubble in Port-au-Prince.

It's a race against time, though, for relief groups.

Up to 200,000 are now feared dead:

Up to 200,000 people are feared dead as a result of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that has destroyed much of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, officials in the Caribbean country say.

Lorries piled with corpses have been trying to collect the bodies that have been visible on the streets across Port-au-Prince for burial in mass graves outside the city.

"We have already collected around 50,000 dead bodies," Paul Antoine Bien-Aime, Haiti's interior minister, told the Reuters news agency on Friday.
Send your pictures


"We anticipate there will be between 100,00 and 200,000 dead in total, although we will never know the exact number."

If the casualty figures are accurate, Tuesday's temblor would be one of the 10 deadliest earthquakes ever recorded.

About 40,000 dead have already been buried, while the bodies of another 2,000 victims have been incinerated at one of Port-au-Prince's rubbish dumps.

A boy was found alive after being buried under rubble for three days:




As the president mentioned today, a previous president and an Oval Office squatter have come together on a fund for Haiti:

Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund

More than a few people aren't happy about Bush being on some kind of relief effort, given the fact his administration all but destroyed a major American city--New Orleans--thanks to blatant neglect.

It's a good point although I don't expect Bush to screw it up with Bill Clinton there. Bush is simply being used as a fundraising tool.

Haiti Earthquake [Updated]

The WSWS gives its own perspective on the disaster in Haiti:

Officials warned Wednesday that the earthquake that devastated the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince may have claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands, as the city’s residents piled corpses in the street and dug through the rubble for survivors.


Measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale, the earthquake was the most devastating to hit the impoverished Caribbean island nation in 240 years. With its epicenter barely 9 miles from Port-au-Prince, a city of 2 million, and its source relatively close to the surface, the earthquake inflicted immense damage.

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Obama pledges a sweeping aid effort to help Haiti.
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The Red Cross says as many as 50,000 people perished from the earthquake.
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Videos:

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Al Jazeera:

More Haiti Earthquake

The death toll is said to be staggering, with at least 100,000 dead and perhaps several times that number:

The death toll from Haiti's 7.0 magnitude earthquake is at least 100,000 and could be several times that number, Haitian officials said Wednesday.

Haitian Consul General Felix Augustin said the capital Port-au-Prince "is flattened, CNN reported.

"More than 100,000 are dead," Felix Augustin told reporters.

Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said it could be much worse, saying several hundred thousand people may have been killed.

Al-Jazeera explains the science behind the earthquake:



link

Haiti is a country beset by natural disasters:



link

Some earthquake footage:



link

MSNBC:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Hatefest on Haiti

Of course it is the old demented one, Pat Robertson:



In this crackpot's view, Haiti is in trouble because it is in a "pact" with the "Devil," and the country needs to turn to God like its neighbor the Dominican Republic.

Haiti Earthquake

Haiti's president believes thousands are dead as a result of a massive earthquake yesterday near Port-Au-Prince, the country's capital:

President Rene Preval said he believes thousands of people were dead from Tuesday afternoon's magnitude-7.0 quake.

"Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed," Preval told the Miami Herald. "There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them."