Cat blogging
Things are crazy around here again. No real time to blog for now and I'm sorry about that. Will be back as soon as possible.
But I did want to drop in long enough to cat blog.
Via Big Shot Bob in Texas.
Labels: cat blogging
Rojak posts, mostly political.
"A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people." -- Thomas Mann
If so, I must be a writer.
Labels: cat blogging
Headline: Powerful cyclone kills 242 in Bangladesh
Headline: Quake kills 2, damages homes in Chile
Aid workers struggled Friday to help hundreds of thousands of survivors of a cyclone that blasted Bangladesh with 150 mph winds, killing a reported 1,100 people, savaging coastal towns, and leaving millions without power in the deadliest such storm in more than a decade.
Soldiers and relief workers were racing Monday to get aid to millions left homeless by the cyclone in Bangladesh, where officials said the death toll had topped 3,100 and was sure to keep rising.
Up to 15,000 people were killed and seven million lives left devastated by the cyclone in Bangladesh last week, aid agencies have said as the full extent of the disaster became clear.
The magnitude of most earthquakes is measured on the Richter scale, invented by Charles F. Richter in 1934. The Richter magnitude is calculated from the amplitude of the largest seismic wave recorded for the earthquake, no matter what type of wave was the strongest.
The Richter magnitudes are based on a logarithmic scale (base 10). What this means is that for each whole number you go up on the Richter scale, the amplitude of the ground motion recorded by a seismograph goes up ten times. Using this scale, a magnitude 5 earthquake would result in ten times the level of ground shaking as a magnitude 4 earthquake (and 32 times as much energy would be released). To give you an idea how these numbers can add up, think of it in terms of the energy released by explosives: a magnitude 1 seismic wave releases as much energy as blowing up 6 ounces of TNT. A magnitude 8 earthquake releases as much energy as detonating 6 million tons of TNT. Pretty impressive, huh? Fortunately, most of the earthquakes that occur each year are magnitude 2.5 or less, too small to be felt by most people.
Labels: Mother Nature
Experts say the tectonic quakes that recently struck Java and Sumatra might be responsible for triggering increased activities at several volcanoes on both islands. A seismologist from the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), Nanang T. Puspito, said the tectonic quakes that occurred along the West Sumatra and southern Java coasts over the past week have likely increased activity in a number of volcanoes. Nanang said plate movements below the earth's mantle could increase the pressure of the upper magma pocket of a volcano and trigger an eruption followed by volcanic quakes.
Labels: earthquake, vocano
New technology that can make tanks invisible has been unveiled by the Ministry of Defence. In secret trials last week, the Army said it had made a vehicle completely disappear and predicted that an invisible tank would be ready for service by 2012.
Labels: invisible tank
Labels: poltergeists
Labels: Google™
A program promoted to Mac formers [sic] reportedly routes Mac users to phishing lures and serves adult-oriented ads. The Trojan may be the first professional attempt to target OS X users.
Labels: Apple
A boy playing with matches started a fire in north Los Angeles County that consumed more than 38,000 acres (12,709 hectares) and destroyed 21 homes last week, authorities said Tuesday.
The boy, whose name and age were not released, was interviewed a day after the Buckweed Fire was sparked Oct. 21, said sheriff's Sgt. Diane Hecht.
"He admitted to playing with matches and accidentally starting the fire," said Hecht said in a statement.
The boy was released to his parents, and the case will be be presented to the district attorney's office, Hecht said.
Labels: California fires
Caesarean deliveries at least double the risk of maternal death or illness compared with vaginal birth but are far safer for babies in the dangerous "breech" position for delivery, according to a new study.
Labels: decisions
"Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll buy a funny hat. Talk to a hungry man about fish, and you're a consultant."-- Scott Adams
Author
Labels: quote
Labels: Mother Nature
Now some macho idiot is going to swagger in to spew about how Tough Men Make Tough Decisions and Do What It Takes, and They'll Protect the Soft Weak Liberals, and The Grownups Are In Charge.
Labels: Masculine
Labels: All Hollows Eve
The US is secretly upgrading special stealth bomber hangars on the British island protectorate of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in preparation for strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, according to military sources.
The improvement of the B1 Spirit jet infrastructure coincides with an "urgent operational need" request for £44m to fit racks to the long-range aircraft.
That would allow them to carry experimental 15-ton Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bombs designed to smash underground bunkers buried as much as 200ft beneath the surface through reinforced concrete.
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One MOP - known as Big Blu - has already been tested successfully at the US Air Force proving ground at White Sands in New Mexico. Tenders have now gone out for a production model to be ready for use in the next nine months.
The "static tunnel lethality test" on March 14 completely destroyed a mock-up of the kind of underground facility used to house Iran's nuclear centrifuge arrays at Natanz, about 150 miles from the capital, Tehran.
Labels: Iran
Labels: music
Labels: reincarnation
Labels: must read
Pope Benedict XVI said Monday that pharmacists have a right to use conscientious objection to avoid dispensing emergency contraception or euthanasia drugs - and told them they should also inform patients of the ethical implications of using such drugs.
Labels: shit
The government has closed seven Muslim charities in the United States and frozen their assets. Not one of them, or any person associated with them, has been found guilty of financing terrorism. They will remain shut. George W. Bush can tar any organization or individual, here or abroad, as being part of a terrorist conspiracy and by fiat render[ing?] them powerless.
Americans are finding ways to keep their love affair with big, fast automobiles alive in the era of $3-a-gallon petrol and concern for the environment. This week the singer Neil Young, who is an enthusiast of 1950s vintage big fantail cars, is making his way to Wichita, Kansas, in the heart of the US. The car he's driving is a Lincoln Continental Mark IV, one of the greatest gas-guzzlers of them all, and one of the largest cars ever to hit the open road. Immensely stylish with a wide front grille and neo-deco bumpers at either end, it is also one the most polluting vehicles to have ever graced Route 66.
An avid collector of vintage American cars, Young – who once endorsed Ronald Reagan – has only recently turned to environmentalism. With the release of his new album, Chrome Dreams II, he is on an odyssey across America, documentary film crew in tow, figuring out how Americans might keep the romance of the open road while caring for the environment.
Mr Young and his crew are taking the car he calls Linc-Volt to Wichita, where it will be converted into a 100mph diesel-electric hybrid running on renewable fuel. Motor enthusiasts say it is like putting a Toyota Prius on steroids.
Labels: Neil Young
A Belgian inmate made a dramatic escape from jail for the fourth time Sunday evening after his armed accomplices landed in the prison grounds in a hijacked helicopter, prosecutors said Monday. Nordin Benallal, self-styled "escape king" with several convictions for armed robbery and carjacking, has previously run from a prison van, walked out of jail wearing a wig and sunglasses and scaled a prison wall with a rope ladder.
Labels: truth stranger than...
In what world would fake news mascaraed as fact? Where else would a guy get caught making shit up, in public, in the midst of a regional, if not a national emergency, and GET A PROMOTION?
I spent some quality time in Ye Ole USSR in 1976. I learned soviet history, language, culture, social studies, and my personal fave, American History. I did not know that the wrong side won our not very Civil War, nor that slave compounds were pre-communistic living accommodations. But I did learn that every release of news from PRAVDA was 90% (or more) pure spin. Five Year Plans were famously reached, most often by a judicious rewrite of the original goals. Often the plans were simply scrapped, the mission was declared accomplished, and a totally different plan was created. In a world where copy machines were considered a danger to society, facts were fluid things. Sound familiar?
Labels: truth
In an astonishing attack, the monarch claimed his country had passed on information that could have stopped the atrocity but it was ignored.
Labels: London bombings
Ahmad Chalabi, the controversial, ubiquitous Iraqi politician and one-time Bush administration favorite, has re-emerged as a central figure in the latest U.S. strategy for Iraq.
His latest job: To press Iraq's central government to use early security gains from the surge to deliver better electricity, health, education and local security services to Baghdad neighborhoods. That's the next phase of the surge plan. Until now, the U.S. military, various militias, insurgents and some U.S. backed groups have provided those services without great success.
That the U.S. and Iraqi officials are again turning to Chalabi, this time to restore life to Baghdad neighborhoods, speaks to his resiliency in this nascent government. It's also, some say, his latest effort to promote himself as a true national advocate for everyday Iraqis.
Labels: Ahmad Chalabi, iraq
A debate over whether rights for transgenders should be included in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act is opening the possibility for a profound shift in the gay movement.
Labels: transgneders
Just follow the link.
Labels: must read
Tree huggers.
Hippies.
Peaceniks.
Pacifists.
Lefties.
Progressives (pejoratively, of course).
Appeasers.
Anti-American.
Terrorist supporter.
Troop hater.
Traitor.
Unpatriotic.
Labels: sticks and stones
It's a nickname no principal could be proud of: "Dropout Factory," a high school where no more than 60 percent of the students who start as freshmen make it to their senior year. That dubious distinction applies to more than one in 10 high schools across America. "If you're born in a neighborhood or town where the only high school is one where graduation is not the norm, how is this living in the land of equal opportunity?" asks Bob Balfanz, the researcher at Johns Hopkins University who defines such a school as a "dropout factory."
Labels: No Child Left Behind
The U.S. is leading efforts to resist a complete ban on cluster bombs, human rights activists have complained. But a conference called by European governments in Brussels Tuesday is regarded as a step towards an international agreement on eliminating cluster weapons -- in which hundreds of small 'bomblets' are packed together. Although an accord appears likely to be reached during 2008, activists are concerned over diplomatic manoeuvres by Washington to ensure that it will not be too stringent.
Labels: WTF?
Labels: music
While Rumsfeld has gotten out of France before an arrest, the case can still be prosecuted since he was in the country when it was filed.By Siun | FireDogLake October 29, 2007On Friday Donald Rumsfeld arrived in France to give a speech - but he had to leave via a back door that went directly into the US Embassy and then quickly scampered out of the country. Why?
Labels: rumsfeld
"We had kept it hidden. He's the black sheep of the family."-- Barack Obama on being related to VP Cheney
On the "Ellen DeGeneres Show"
Labels: John Edwards
Labels: lazy ass blogging
Russia said on Monday safety breaches had caused a radiation leak at a major nuclear reprocessing plant in the Ural mountains, but officials said there was no danger to humans.
Labels: Chechnya, nuclear power
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday that doctors have discovered the 'first signs' of a cancerous growth in his prostate.
With the build-up underway to an expected US rate cut Wednesday, oil prices and the euro launched the new trading week Monday by surging to all-time highs.
Labels: oil
Gunmen in Baghdad snatched 10 Sunni and Shiite tribal sheiks from their cars Sunday as they were heading home to Diyala province after talks with the government on fighting Al Qaeda, and at least one was later found shot to death.
The bold daylight kidnapping came as the top U.S. commander in Iraq said the threat from the terror network has been “significantly reduced" in the capital.
Labels: iraq
The nation's largest telecom companies made contributions to Sen. John D. Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which agreed to a measure to wipe out lawsuits relating to the telecoms' role in White House surveillance.
Labels: politics
Labels: Studs Terkel
Labels: music
Toshiba reported a 28 percent drop in profit for the July-September quarter Monday, partly because of one-time expenses for property value calculations that offset solid sales in computers and chips.
Japanese electronics group Toshiba Corp <6502.T> posted a 38 percent rise in quarterly operating profit on Monday, thanks to sales of its flash memory chips and thermal power plants, and it raised its full-year outlook closer to market estimates.
Labels: WTF?
Two-thirds of parents say their children will trick-or-treat this Halloween, but fewer minorities will let their kids go door to door, with some citing safety worries, a poll shows.
The survey found that 73 percent of whites versus 56 percent of minorities said their children will trick-or-treat on Wednesday.
Labels: Halloween
Coming soon to the Supreme Court: a rare appearance by a black lawyer. More than a year has passed since a black lawyer in private practice stood at the lectern in the elegant courtroom and spoke the traditional opening line, "Mr. Chief Justice and may it please the court."
Labels: SCOTUS
Labels: Child labor, Gap
Almost nonstop, gargantuan 145-ton trucks rumble through China's biggest open-pit coal mine, sending up clouds of soot as they dump their loads into mechanized sorters.
The black treasure has transformed this once-isolated crossroads nestled in the sand-sculpted ravines of Inner Mongolia into a bleak boomtown of nearly 300,000 people. Day and night, long and dusty trains haul out coal to electric power plants and factories in the east, fueling China's explosive growth.
Labels: Porter Wagoner
China has stepped up its conservation drive with a law that makes officials' career prospects dependent in part on their energy-saving efforts, the Xinhua news agency said.
The country's top legislature approved on Sunday a series of amendments to its energy-saving law, almost doubling the size of the legislation.
Among the new provisions is one that requires the performance reviews for local government officials' -- vital for advancement in the Communist Party -- to include an assessment of their energy-saving efforts.
Beijing is trying to steer the world's fourth-largest economy away from a model of growth at any cost towards more sustainable development, as the human and economic costs of nearly three decades of dirty expansion mount up.
Labels: China, energy conservation
UN atomic watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei said Sunday he had no evidence that Iran is building nuclear weapons and accused US leaders of adding "fuel to the fire" with recent bellicose rhetoric.
Labels: Frank Zappa
Labels: milestone
"You have to help us, because if it was not for us you would now be a province of Nazi Germany[.]"-- Tom Lantos
Chairman of the House of Representatives' Foreign Affairs Committee speaking to Dutch lawmakers.
Labels: Tom Lantos
Fans of Snipes Mountain Brewery's cloudy Hefeweizen relish the subtle wheat flavor of the bright, summery brew, and like beer drinkers everywhere, they know when their favorite brew tastes a little too hoppy or bitter.
Connoisseurs could be in for a surprise this year, and they may not be alone.
Small brewers from Australia to Oregon face the daunting prospect of tweaking their recipes or experimenting less with new brews thanks to a worldwide shortage of one key beer ingredient and rising prices for others.
Barley and wheat prices have skyrocketed as more farmers plant corn to meet increasing demand for ethanol, while others plant feed crops to replace acres lost to corn.
A decadelong oversupply of hops that had forced farmers to abandon the crop is finally gone and harvests were down this year. In the United States, where one-fourth of the world's hops are grown, acreage fell 30 percent from 1995 to 2006.
Labels: biofuels
Labels: rabbit holes
U.S. forces will turn over security to Iraqi authorities in the southern Shiite province of Karbala on Monday, the American commander for the area said, despite fighting between rival militia factions that has killed dozens.
Karbala will become only the eighth of Iraq's 18 provinces to revert to Iraqi control, despite President Bush's prediction in January that the Iraqi government would have responsibility for security in all of the provinces by November.
Forty years ago, researchers developed a programming language that would become a brilliant educational tool.
As I remember it, LOGO was a triangular turtle that roamed across the monochrome screen of an Apple II in my first grade classroom. Wherever he went, a line of ink would follow him -- it came from a pen that was tied to his tail.
My digital friend simultaneously gave me an intuition for geometry and how to think like a computer programmer.
I would type FORWARD 50 and the turtle would move forward. When I gave the command RIGHT 90, he would turn sharply to the right. If I prefaced those two commands with REPEAT 4 and surrounded them with brackets, the turtle would draw a square.
I was learning, but my experiences didn't feel like a lesson. It was fun!
While I sat at my desk one day, two of my classmates figured out how to overwrite the entire screen, which seemed kinda naughty at the time. They giggled, did it again, then giggled some more. From curious children, hackers were born.
Labels: hackers
Labels: great name, Sri Lanka