James D. Vanover, died after a fall this morning at Launch Pad 39A, where the space shuttle Endeavour is being prepared for an upcoming launch. Vanover was a swing-bridge engineer who had worked at Kennedy Space Center for 28 years, first with Lockheed Martin, and then for 15 years with United Space Alliance, the current general contractor for the space shuttle program.
#1
See also IRNA > DER SPEIGEL: CLOUDS OF RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL HAVE BEEN OVER TOKYO.
Is Japan's Govt. deliber censoring info as to the TRUE SCALE of the NucReax leaks.
IIUC, IRNA = TEHRAN GOVT. may think so since IRNA also repors that the USN has ordered its 7th Fleet warships to move offshore, safely away from Tokyo + Japan???
Five elk calves have been found starved to death in Värmland in central Sweden recently, with experts fearing that the drawn out harsh winter may claim further victims.
Per Persson, an 85-year-old hunter living in northern Vämland, told the local Nya Wermlands-Tidningen (NWT) daily that he has never seen anything like it as the elk, rendered ravenous by the long period of snow-cover, seek to find food.
"The elk eat everything they come across. They are even eating spruce, it has gone that far," he said, confirming that five dead elk calves have been found in the area.
With the big thaw still a few weeks away, local authorities are warning that the food situation is set to remain parlous for the emaciated elk and more fatalities are to be expected.
"The reserves of fat that they have built up have run out now. The population is going to decline significantly," Per Larsson, a county conservationist, told NWT. Global warming, eh?
#1
The species we North Americans call elk, Cervus canadensis, is not what europeans call "elk". Our moose (Alces alces) is their "elk".
Moose in Euroland get big but their bodies are typically slightly smaller than they get in N.A. or Siberia, and the racks are much smaller.
Amazing that somehow facts that poke holes in the theories of AGW can somehow make it through the MSM filter regarding the issue. When they do, they need to be reposted everywhere. Light of day, cockroaches, etc.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
03/14/2011 7:20 Comments ||
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#2
Sounds like they need to issue more elk-moose tags for the fall hunting season. And don't let the poor things eat spruce - makes the meat taste like turpentine.
#5
Thought squirrels in Ohio just fell frozen off them trees. Not to worry, they would thaw out in spring. In the NorthWet, they have a different problem. My cat. It's hard to assemble a complete squirrel form just a head and a tail.
#7
Thought squirrels in Ohio just fell frozen off them trees.
That's in the north, up Cleveland-way. Down here in the south, just across the Ohio river from Kentucky, things are very different. I haven't ever seen ice floes like the runaway slaves used to leap from, back when slaves ran away. At the rate things are going, though, both ice floes and slaves may soon return, although this time it won't be Africans, but taxpayers... or perhaps doctors. ;-)
#8
No worries, one and all; I'm sure the odd starving lo-djur will prefer an emaciated älg, even full of Spruce, (which the Swedes would probably distil to Vodka), to a rootin', tootin' wild pig, Darwin@work.natural.selection. (And, from what I hear, gun ownership here depends on a required demonstrable level of responsibility, which most everyone atRantburg U would pass).
#1
FREEREPUBLIC > SUPER-EARTHQUAKE NO2 ALERT FOR JAPAN.
Quake Pert forecasts a MAG 7-OR-GREATER TO OCCUR WIDIN THE NEXT 3 DAYS.
* SAME > SOME 2000 BODIES FOUND IN QUAKE-HIT MIYAGI COATSAL AREAS. Roughly 8,000 from an initial 10,000 Persons feared missing in Miyagi still out there.
#2
These folks, deserving of your prayers, came back from what the 20th Air Force dished out for a year and a half. They'll come back from this. But some of those pictures remind one of what the place looked like after a night run by Curt & Co.
#3
ION RENSE > RUSSIAN SCIENTISTS QUAKE WARNING FOR THE US.
* NEWS SKERALA > MORE EARTHQUAKES [new] FORECASTED FOR JAPAN.
MAG 7.0-OR-HIGHER in + around Nippon.
and
* WORLD NEWS > TWO DAYS AGO, A MARCH [2011]MEGA-QUAKE WARNING WAS ISSUED FOR THE US, BUT STILL NO NEWS ABOUT IT.
* SAME > MU RESEARCHER SAYS NEXT LARGE ECNETRAL US EARTHQUAKE MAY NOT BE IN NEW MADRID.
* WAFF > A DIRECT HIT ON JAPAN! | GOVT SOURCES SAY HAARP WAS A DIRECT HIT ON JAPAN.
* NEWS KERALA > JAPAN QUAKE [aftershocks] COULD [hypothetically]GO ON FOR YEARS, SAYS USGS EXPERT. As per USGS Director DR. MARCIA MCNUTT, courtesy of "OMORI'S LAW".
* TOPIX/WORLD NEWS > TSUNAMI WAVES REACH KURILS ISLANDS + RUSSIA EVACUATES 11,000 FROM KURILS ISLANDS AFTER JAPAN QUAKE; + FOUR TIDAL WAVES HIT PHILIPPINES, COASTAL AREAS NOW "GHOST TOWNS", after Govt-ordered evacuation.
Filipinos are repor now starting to return back to their homes.
Besides in INDONESIA, VOLCANOES ON RUSSIA'S KAMCHATKA ARE REPOR ERUPTIN'.
* SAME/NEWS KERALA > ZHIRINOVSKY PROPOSES RESETTLEMENT OF JAPANESE IN RUSSIA. Leave dem dar Disaster-prone islands + come live in East Russia = RFE.
Must learn Russian + Russ customs though.
IMO ARTIC read, IFF CHINA WANTS JAPAN FOR MILBASES, LET'EM HAVE IT, DISASTERS-N-EVERYTHING [wink-wink].
SUB-READ, CHINA + JAPAN STAY OUT OF THE SEA OF OKHOTSK/NORTH CHINA SEA + RUS KURILS "STRATEGIC ZONE".
** Also from TOPIX/WORLD NEWS > CHINESE VESSEL [PB] AGAIN SPOTTED NEAR SENKAKUS. Chin vessel claims it is simply patrolling + monitoring China's sovereign DAOYUS territory.
* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > WEN BANGGUO:CHINA WILL NEVER HAVE [Western-style]MULTI-PARTY GOVT.
No Federalism + No Privatization + No competing/different Political Parties, -ISMS SAVE FOR CHINESE [State]SOCIALISM + CHIN CPC.
The source of this airborne radioactivity is a radioactive plume released from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi Nuclear Power Plant. For perspective, the maximum potential radiation dose received by any ships force personnel aboard the ship when it passed through the area was less than the radiation exposure received from about one month of exposure to natural background radiation from sources such as rocks, soil, and the sun.
#5
How many bananas is that? Why don't they compare it to the amount a kid in the 1950's got when they were doing atmospheric nuclear testing. We seem to have survived.
#7
Number of people who died of fall out related radiation from open air nuclear testing [not counting those intentionally exposed in government experiments - re:atomic soldiers] since the 1950s?
Number of people in the same population who died of skin cancers due to sun exposure?
It's all relative. Don't think so? Then why all the expense and national effort for over 3,000 people killed on one day on 9/11 when ten times as many people die on our highways that year and every years since. Yet, we seem to climb into our cars everyday and face the hazard with casual rationalization.
#8
Coastal Asians tend to build flimsy housing that is easy to replace. Japanese culture is largely based on earthquake adaption. Its the nuke plants that they are really worried about.
#10
A question for or Nuke Plant experts...
Dar found this Before and After link from OZ and I was looking at the changes around the nuke plant. Which buildings would have long term temp storage of spent rods (holding tank) and do you see them in the after photo?
Posted by: Water Modem ||
03/14/2011 18:06 Comments ||
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#11
The picture of the lady wrapped in the blanket really got to me.
I must say that the second bullet point in the intro was in really poor taste. But I guess some will spare no expense to make a point.
Posted by: kelly ||
03/14/2011 19:56 Comments ||
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#12
Kelly, that piccie is very iconic. But perhaps the author had this one in mind:
[The Nation (Nairobi)] When a woman saw a white snake in her kitchen, little did she know that the reptile would call for marriage celebrations between her husband and another woman, a week later.
On March 5, she spotted the snake on one of the posts holding the roof of her grass thatched kitchen in their home in Busonga Village of Budalang'i.
Villagers tried to kill the snake, but they could not reach it as the roof is high, and villagers feared the pure white serpent. They smoked the house for three days, but the snake refused to leave.
Some claimed their hands lacked the strength to kill the serpent. Two days later, the snake had not crept away, so the woman decided to call her husband to inform him of the visitor.
Surprisingly, Mr Evans Wandera Obuoga who lives and works in Nairobi told them to stop bothering it, claiming that he knew the snake.
In no time, the snake became famous in Nyanza and Western provinces, prompting the home to become an attraction site. Hundreds flocked daily to look at the stubborn, shiny white snake.
A week later, the media was curious too. The Nation found hundreds of people queuing to view the snake that stared back calmly from the roof.
Visitors paid Sh20 before entering the traditional kitchen. They said the snake had stayed without food for a week.
When he arrived from Nairobi where he works as a medical representative, Mr Wandera was not hesitant to tell the media that his dead wife, with whom he bore a son, was sending a message to him.
"When I heard that a snake was found in my kitchen, I called some of my relatives to go and try to scare it away, but all the efforts to get rid of it did not succeed," Mr Wandera said.
After thinking about it, he recalled that his dead wife had said she would come back to haunt him, if he did not marry her sister who was taking care of their son.
"I bore the boy with the woman just after my high school, but his mother died when he was just three months. I took him to his grandmother to take care of him, but after two years, his maternal uncles came for him."
The now famous Wandera, claims that after marrying his current wife a year later, the child's mother started haunting him. "There are times she appears in matatus and sits with me and sometimes, the only human being I could see around is her."
He says there were times when he wanted to take a motorcycle and the woman appeared and occupied the seat and when he tries pushing her, he ends up falling.
Friends don't let friends drive haunted.
Refused boy
Mr Wandera told the Nation that when his second wife refused to accommodate the boy, he decided to take him to a friend's home in Kendu Bay.
On his way back, he claims, the boy's dead grandfather appeared and sat with him and told him to marry his daughter as the boy's mother had said.
He says every time the woman's images disappeared, he would see a long, white snake creeping away.
"That is why when I was told that there had been a stubborn snake in my house, I asked what colour it was and when I was told it was white, I told my relatives to leave it alone," he said.
He says when he remarried in 2009, images of the boy's mother disappeared and he lived in peace until that sister-in-law came visiting and his wife could not allow her to enter the compound.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2011 00:00 ||
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In el-Hawari outside the eastern, rebel-controlled town of Benghazi, behind a five-meter high wall, surrounded by palm trees and lawns, is Muammar Kadhafis private brothel. Here he loved to spend the nights with lusty prostitutes.
- His Private pimp, Belaid Cambal, fixed women from Libya, Morocco and Lebanon, said a defector from Kadhafis guard in Benghazi. Mansour El Warfalli was to storm and vandalizes brothel. - We found a lot of Viagra, said Mansour, and laughed.
[Pak Daily Times] Ivory Coast's internationally recognised president Alassane Ouattara returned to Abidjan on Sunday after a regional tour to enlist support from fellow African leaders as his rival clings to power, a member of his entourage said.
"He has returned to the Abidjan Golf Hotel," said a member of Ouattara's entourage, referring to the hotel where the leader had been holed up under United Nations, aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society protection since being declared the winner of the November 28 presidential runoff election.
Ouattara's return came a day after troops loyal to his rival Laurent Gbagbo ... President of Ivory Coast since 2000. Gbagbo lost to Alassane Ouattara in 2010 but his representtive tore up the results on the teevee and Laurent has refused to leave despite the international community's hemming, hawing, and broad hints... stormed into Abidjan's Abobo district with tanks, mortars and helicopters to dislodge Ouattara supporters. An AFP journalist and a witness counted eight bodies in the streets of the pro-Ouattara Abobo district, which was rocked by heavy shelling Saturday.
Ouattara aides slammed the offensive as "blind murder". The bodies were riddled with bullets and partially undressed. They were in the Plateau Dokui area of the suburb, near a road leading to the zoo. A resident said he had seen another four bodies in southern Abobo in Sodeci.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2011 00:00 ||
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[Arab News] Dozens of people left a district of Ivory Coast's economic capital Abidjan on Sunday, a day after shootouts between forces backing two presidential rivals.
Residents of the northern Abobo district said festivities between forces loyal to incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo ... President of Ivory Coast since 2000. Gbagbo lost to Alassane Ouattara in 2010 but his representtive tore up the results on the teevee and Laurent has refused to leave despite the international community's hemming, hawing, and broad hints... and those supporting his rival Alassane Ouattara continued most of Saturday, but had died down on Sunday.
"People are starting to leave because they fear more combat," said Issa Dembele, a resident of Abobo. "Personally, I'm preparing to evacuate my own family."
The United Nations, aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society estimates around 200,000 people -- most of Abobo's population -- have left in the past two weeks.
Gbago has refused to step down after a November presidential election, which Ouattara is recognized internationally as having won.
Forces loyal to Gbagbo launched an assault on Saturday to drive Ouattara's fighters out of the suburb, although residents said those fighters still controlled several areas.
The latest African Union effort to mediate in the dispute failed this week, adding to fears of a return to civil war in the world's top cocoa grower, whose crisis has pushed cocoa futures to regular 32-year highs in recent weeks.
Allies of Gbagbo, who contends the poll was rigged, refused to accept an AU proposal for a Ouattara-led unity government.
"Things are calm now, apart from gunfire here and there. But people are leaving," said Abobo resident Tiemoko Souala.
International sanctions such as a ban on European ships using Ivorian ports, together with the near-collapse of the local banking sector, mean supplies of Ivory Coast's cocoa to world markets have virtually dried up.
Around 400 people have already been killed in post-election violence according to the United Nations, while some 450,000 Ivorians have decamped their homes for fear of attacks. Around 90,000 have sought refuge in neighboring Liberia.Dozens of people left a district of Ivory Coast's economic capital Abidjan on Sunday, a day after shootouts between forces backing two presidential rivals.
Residents of the northern Abobo district said festivities between forces loyal to incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo and those supporting his rival Alassane Ouattara continued most of Saturday, but had died down on Sunday.
"People are starting to leave because they fear more combat," said Issa Dembele, a resident of Abobo. "Personally, I'm preparing to evacuate my own family."
The United Nations estimates around 200,000 people -- most of Abobo's population -- have left in the past two weeks.
Gbago has refused to step down after a November presidential election, which Ouattara is recognized internationally as having won.
Forces loyal to Gbagbo launched an assault on Saturday to drive Ouattara's fighters out of the suburb, although residents said those fighters still controlled several areas.
The latest African Union effort to mediate in the dispute failed this week, adding to fears of a return to civil war in the world's top cocoa grower, whose crisis has pushed cocoa futures to regular 32-year highs in recent weeks.
Allies of Gbagbo, who contends the poll was rigged, refused to accept an AU proposal for a Ouattara-led unity government.
"Things are calm now, apart from gunfire here and there. But people are leaving," said Abobo resident Tiemoko Souala.
International sanctions such as a ban on European ships using Ivorian ports, together with the near-collapse of the local banking sector, mean supplies of Ivory Coast's cocoa to world markets have virtually dried up.
Around 400 people have already been killed in post-election violence according to the United Nations, while some 450,000 Ivorians have decamped their homes for fear of attacks. Around 90,000 have sought refuge in neighboring Liberia.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2011 00:00 ||
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The landscape of parts of Japan looks like the aftermath of World War Two; no industrialised country since then has suffered such a death toll. Most noticeably of all, there has been no looting, and I'm not the only one curious about this. It is a good question that must be asked. And the answer is not the police and military.
Posted by: No I am The Other Beldar ||
03/14/2011 10:53 ||
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#1
no ni33ers = no crime
know ni33ers = know crime
#8
It would be interesting to see the other side of the coin as well. When Katrina hit, the roads were filled with people streaming in with boating and swamp craft, church groups with relief supplies, etc without centralized/government direction [which was as much a hindrance as a help - govt that is]. The Japanese are a discipline society, so if the government fumbles [like they did immediately following the Kobe quake], there may be very little back up.
#9
After the Kobe quake, people waited for government action. But not very long - it was quickly clear that the government was fumbling, and locals started self-organizing recovery efforts.
He's the former Grateful Dead soundman and famous LSD chemist, for those of us not up on such things.
No doubt his afterlife is not quite what he expected, one way or the other. He made good music; a pity about the other.
#1
A trip into the past. Owsley's Acid, 99.9 clinically pure. I had heard of it back in 60s--it was somewhat legendary or notorious depending upon one's view.
[Arab News] More than 10,000 doctors and medicine students are protesting the Turkish government decision to introducte a new health care system, which they claim compromises the quality of health care.
The protesters, some wearing doctor's uniforms, gathered outside the Health Ministry in Ankara on Sunday, shouting slogans against the government.
They warn that the quality of care could deteriorate since under the new system health workers would be paid based on the number of patients they care for.
The government says the new system is designed to keep the doctors at state-run hospitals by offering competitive salaries based on their performance and discourage them from treating patients at private clinics.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Wait a damned minute. I read about this somewhere else recently. Oh yeah I remember. ObamaScare.
[Straits Times] THOUSANDS of anti-government 'Red Shirt' demonstrators took to Bangkok's streets on Saturday amid a heavy police presence, marking a year since the start of protests in the capital that turned deadly.
Thai society remains deeply divided following political violence that left about 90 people dead - mostly civilians - in a series of bloody street festivities between armed troops and protesters in April and May last year.
Police estimated that about 25,000 people had joined Saturday's gathering by early evening with the numbers expected to increase later for a video-link address by the Reds' hero, ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra.
'In the past year we have suffered excruciating pain and been suppressed by the elite,' said Nattawut Saikuar, one of seven main leaders of the movement recently released on bail after nine months in prison.
'I invite our brothers and sisters to come out tonight,' he told a satellite television station run by the Reds.
The rally near Bangkok's Democracy Monument was expected to be the largest since May 2010, when troops firing live rounds and backed by armoured vehicles moved in to end the Reds? two-month demonstration.
Posted by: Fred ||
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A dedicated Teamsters Union worker was attending a convention in Las Vegas and decided to check out the legal brothels in Nevada .
When he got to the first one, he asked the Madame, Is this a union house?
No, she replied, Im sorry, but it isnt.
Well, if I pay you $100, what do the girls get?
The house gets $80 and the girls get $20, she answered.
Offended at such unfair dealings, the union man stomped off down the street in search of a more equitable, hopefully unionized shop. His search continued until finally he reached a brothel where the Madame responded, Why yes sir, this is a union house. We observe all union rules.
The man asked, And, if I pay you $100, what cut do the girls get?
The girls get $80 and the house gets $20, she replied.
Thats more like it! the union man said. He handed the Madame $100, looked around the room, and pointed to a stunningly attractive green-eyed blonde.
Id like her, he said.
Im sure you would, sir, said the Madam, but
She gestured to a 72-year old woman in the corner.
Ethel here has 50 years seniority, and according to union rules, shes next.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Laurent Gbagbo
The landscape of parts of Japan looks like the aftermath of World War Two; no industrialised country since then has suffered such a death toll. Most noticeably of all, there has been no looting, and I'm not the only one curious about this.
[Arab News] More than 10,000 doctors and medicine students are protesting the Turkish government decision to introducte a new health care system, which they claim compromises the quality of health care.
