A magnitude 8.9 earthquake off the Japanese coast has pummeled the coast with tsunamis. Video after the Read More.
Planetary forces are so enormously powerful that attempts to control the environment must often fall a far second to simply being able to survive what Mother Nature throws in humanity’s way. Man has survived on this planet by adapting; by storing away in times of safety the food, energy and resilience that are needed to recover from catastrophes he can neither foresee nor prevent.
HG Wells captured man’s seemingly fragile yet surprisingly tenacious hold upon the earth in the closing the chapters of The War of the Worlds. Humanity has learned to live with his planet — for it is his planet — and will be not easily dislodged from his birthright.
embedded by Embedded VideoThese germs of disease have taken toll of humanity since the beginning of things–taken toll of our prehuman ancestors since life began here. But by virtue of this natural selection of our kind we have developed resisting power; to no germs do we succumb without a struggle, and to many–those that cause putrefaction in dead matter, for instance–our living frames are altogether immune. But there are no bacteria in Mars, and directly these invaders arrived, directly they drank and fed, our microscopic allies began to work their overthrow. Already when I watched them they were irrevocably doomed, dying and rotting even as they went to and fro. It was inevitable. By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain.
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Heinous waves dude. I hear 19 dead so far. Total bummer. Any aftershocks in your neck of the woods Wretch?
No aftershocks in Oz, which is supposedly an old, geologically stable slab of rock. But you never know since we don’t fully understand what causes a quake. Attempts at predicting specific times, places and intensities of quakes have not been particularly accurate.
The best thing to is probably quake preparedness — a reactive measures, akin to setting aside a reserve against an unforseen attack. Contingency plans, prepositioning of supplies, training — these are the things that probably count. Most of this relies on creating a “design margin”.
Peronally, I try to make sure I’ve got a fully charged cellphone/flashlight at hand at all times, together with a digging tool in reach, in my case a Ka-bar, to chip out an air hole or something. Not that it will make much difference if you really get it, but it gives you some preparation goal to strive for.
Never doubt the efficacy of prayer.
We must do all we can. We can do to little. One reason to preserve your design margin is to enable you to aid not just yourself but others. We should not build a Navy and Marine Corps to do disaster relief but we could not do better than to double what we have knowing that we could offer nothing that would be better suited when help is needed.
87-1/2 years ago Tokyo was leveled by the Great Kanto Earthquake. That was less powerful than today’s event, if more costly to life. America poured out aid to the Japanese, even as they fell under the control of the militarists who lead them into war with us. In that terrible war the Japanese and the Americans fought bitterly. At our sides were the Pacific Dominions of the British Empire with whom we built an alliance, ANZUS that carried forward into Korea and the Cold War.
Times change, for over half a century Japan has been our friend and increasingly our partner. New Zealand dropped out of the alliance and has cast itself as ostentatiously neutral and a vociferous critic of the US. They have been sheltered but it has not brought them closer to us. While we share many ties of culture and history with New Zealand our aid to them is now the dry eyed charity that we offer to strangers. Japan is bound closer to us and we need to respond to them as we would to a neighbor.
BTW wretchard I wrote of “design margin” before I read your last. Great Minds and all that.
Now alarms are going out all along the Pacific Rim from Indonesia to Australia and over to North and South America. The alarms I read have sounded in Hawaii. The Russians to give them credit say they have evacuated thousands.
We don’t get quakes where I live. I have felt subtle aftershocks though. I’m watching video of the massive wave sweeping over everything. Well, Japan is pretty well put together as far as quakes go I believe. Still, what a bummer. Those poor people.
When things happen, you either have light, or you don’t,
same with water.
Quality of life suffers a lot in blackness.
Having been given a second chance, I don’t plan on ever being unprepared again.
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A comment in the previous thread reminded me of the aid packets schoolchildren were still bringing to be sent to Japan in 1950!
Everyone in the US Armed Forces based in the Pacific region got a rude surprise in the afternoon – some more rude than others of course.
Muster was held and most bases, units/ships reported all hands accounted for within less than an hour of the hit. The Nets and Radio reported all accounted for a little after that.
So no losses in US Forces based in the immediate region or in Japan, but the gears are meshing and beginning to turn in regards to another Disaster relief effort.
If it’s not one thing, it’s another…
“Everyone without weekend duty is free on liberty!”
Nope.
Emergency supplies in a backpack in the trunk of the car that you drive to work. Rugged clothes, sturdy shoes or boots, flashlight, water purification stuff, first aid supplies. Military poncho & liner along with nylon line can be used as improvised shelter. After it hits, of course, help those around you. Then get yourself a supply of water and a secure base such as emergency shelter. You can survive a couple of weeks without food, but only a couple of days without water. There will likely be evil doers lurking. Absolutely, if it’s San Francisco.
Building up an adequate Design Margin?
Don’t be asburd!
Obviously, if you are hit by an earthquake, tsunami, hurricane or other natural disaster you should immediately construct some protest signs and assemble at suitable government building to demand that “they” do something about it.
After all “they” have the stuff you need, in a stash somewhere, and “they” just need to let you have it.
In fact, the truly astute assemble well in advance of said disaster and demand that “they” do something to prevent it in the first place. In this case it is obvious that the earthquake was caused by Global Warming, which is a result of their not being adequate goverment subsidies to solar panel manufacturers and wind turbine builders.
And if “they” do not respond properly elevate your concerns to the celebrity level.
Take heart, people of Japan! Sean Penn is tied up fixing Haiti but Charlie Sheen is newly available to address your needs! And Michael Moore will be along shortly to make a movie blaming the whole disaster on the Tea Parties.
Been rumored that, during WW II, US troops found Japanese troops supplied with some of the relief food sent to aid after the big quake.
Figures.
Dude what does heinous mean?People are dying from a horrible natural catastrophe and you are writing as if you are a stoned fag.
AP Reports tsunami swamping the beaches of Waikiki, surging over the breakwall and sweeping through the island chain.
In fact, hardly visible.
Midway reports 5 feet.
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The government has declared an emergency situation at one of Tokyo Electric Power company’s nuclear power plants in quake-stricken Fukushima Prefecture. It says no radioactive materials have been leaked.
Tokyo Electric said an equipment failure has made it impossible to cool two reactors at the Fukushima Number One plant.
The firm says it does not have enough electric power to cool the reactors, which automatically stopped operating when the quake struck.
The government has taken precautionary measures to ensure the safety of nearby residents. But it says that the residents should remain calm, and that currently no evacuation is needed.
The power company is sending eight power generators to the site, and the Ground Self Defense Force is sending one more.
NHK Japaan
Those waves are crazy. I’m glad I live in what appears to be a bubble of safety in northern Florida. No earthquakes, tornadoes, flooding, hurricanes (those hit south Florida, not north Florida) or any of that mess. Maybe I’m being complacent but I really can’t imagine what could go wrong here. Asteroid strikes, I guess. And Socialism can ruin even a tropical paradise of course.
I feel sorry for the Japs. I bet they’re wishing they didn’t already have debt equal to 200% of GDP when facing the bill for this mess.
First waves are coming ashore in Hawaii.
Hope my flight to Maui tomorrow isn’t canceled.
Recent reports say 300 bodies found, commuter Trains missing, ships with hundreds of passengers gone. This is just preliminary findings, the horror is going to be fully revealed when aid arrives. Expect our president to speak soon.
8. RWE
You’re killing me man!
If those weenies in WI think Gov. Walker is a tough cookie they really need to meet Mother Nature. But you are right, they would find a reason to blame “The Man” rather than take any responsible action.
Brock, Darlin’:
Unless you are 200 Mi from the coast you aint immune from any hurricane. If you are 125 mi. in you are only gonna get less hammered than if you were on the beach. I met a Lady Named Camille in 1969. I was in a building with 3F thick load bearing brick walls that shook from the wind. We were 200 Mi from the coast and 150 Mi east of track.
‘Ware storm.
Well the Japanese have been there done that and got the T-shirt but the response to this by the current government is going to be heavily eye-balled. The current party in charge is not very popular.
I’d be keeping a heads up to see if the local bad guys in East Asia try to take advantage. Though China has just had another quake with sub standard buildings collapsing. They may want to keep heads down on the subject….maybe.
I can’t help but notice the difference in coverage. It apparently gets more “real” when a disaster hits a society with lots of open news organizations with hi-tech equipment and open Internet access.
AMPOTAN reports since he doesn’t live on a fault area in Japan he didn’t even notice it or know what happened ’till he turned on the news.
how soon before this is blamed on global warming, climate change, or bush?
@18 stargirl:
C’mon now, we all know that this was caused by HAARP.
[/sarcacm]
Interesting, it looks like an emergency food supply, is a real good idea, even when your not in a heavily hit area. Restaurants shut down, convenience store meals sold out. Areas dependent on mass transit in trouble when the transit goes down. Looks like the office bug out bag is going to get more popular.
The Wall Street Journal Online reports a store in Tokyo sold out its supply of collapsible and portable bicycles to people desperate to get home to family.
If something like this had hit in a blizzard?
I really hope that the people of Japan get the help they need, such shocking news.
Growing up in a rural area of the American midwest I was treated to lots of stories from older folks about the blizzard of ’67 and some people spending days stranded in their cars. After that I began a habit of carrying boots, a blanket and some granola bars in the car during the winter. I later extended this to all year (but season appropriate). You just never know.
Ouch, have some water purification tablets and water filters handy. That flooding may have contaminated some water supplies.
Brock #12:
Yeah, and there are never any tornadoes in north Florida, either.
Not quite a year after I moved to Oklahoma a tornado did a low altitude flyby of our apartment complex. I had one of the few undamaged apartments in the building.
In 1989 I went to SC to repair the damage to my Mom’s house from Hurricane Hugo. And a month later I was in the SF Bay area for the big earthquake of 1989.
A tornado knocked down the fence of the house I had just bought in Florida in 1993 and I will spare you the details of the damage done to my property by Hurricanes Erin, Floyd, Harvey, Charley, Frances, Jeanne, and a few others.
There is no place that is “safe.” The people in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were safe from hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes. Your only real safety is in you.
ElamBend:
I was stuck on the NYS thruway for 18 hours (12 years ago almost to the day) and luckily had two cases of pepsi in the trunk and a full tank of gas. Made alot of friends that day. Even after the blizzard passed, it took some time to clear the thousands of cars from the thruway…since then, I always have supplies in the trunk of my vehicle. and that wasn’t life threatening (except for those that spun off the road due to ice and snow)
Obama is still scheduled to speak this morning but apparently it has been moved to 9:30 PST … and he usually runs late.
Expect him to announce the tsunami is unacceptable.
Their basements are going to be flooded.
I wonder how those waves are going to flow onto the west coast. Sitting atop volcanic peaks it seems reasonable that the surge wouldn’t be that large. The water level decreases significantly at the Continental Shelf. I’d expect the wave train to “pick up steam” at that point.
–son’s GF has contacts in the area apparently hardest hit –she says they’d just had a big quake very recently and were already hyper-alert to tsunami. So maybe there won’t be those horrific casualty numbers. the videos on tv are about the damndest things i ever saw –the helicopter shots i mean. good grief.
RE: hurricanes don’t do north Florida. Do you remember Hurricane Ivan? Category 5 when 50 miles off Pensacola, Category 3 when it came ashore on Pensacola Beach. Sustained 125mph winds with gusts to 140. Destroyed buildings all the way north to the Alabama border.
Unbelievable photos showing up all over the web. Looks impossible that anyone in that part of Japan who lived within 1/4 mile of the beach could have survived.
Has anyone heard the estimate that if the electric grid in the USA went down for 6 straight months, 90% of the population will die?
I personally have 4 months of water, rice, dried beans, 3 quarts of lemon juice (to prevent scurvy), three bags of salt, two bags of sugar, and a bunch of canned goods. Like I said, I see it all lasting for 4 months max. After that, it’s grab the old 22LR single shot rifle, and start shooting squirrels in woods behind my house. Also, there is a pond back there choked with cat-tails, and the roots when cleaned and boiled are edible.
I’m not near it but this has me thinking about how much economic damage would the US would sustain if the Madrid Fault popped a big one? Then there is the Yellow Stone caldera and Mt. St. Helens.
Airline traffic into and out of Japan is way off. Lots of flights canceled. Not good economic news for anybody.
Judging from some of the videos I wish I was long on Japanese cigarettes.
If I was king of the world I’d be encouraging companies to invest more heavily into telecommuting where ever possible.
26. Josh
Yea; Can’t wait to see how Maobama pronounces ‘tsunami’; And he’ll probably call this a ‘man caused disaster’, but, our homeland Security is on the job.
We all know nothing will get done ’til about mid day Monday, because this regime takes the weekends off, no matter what.
Easy does it Paladin, lest I take out my Mage and PWN you.
Short of nuclear attack there is no way that the grid is going to go down and stay down for months.
Weimar Germany flat-lined her currency — but kept the lights on.
Iraq suffered a war against its power grid — but still power was rotated around so that normally everybody had something.
Even the dreaded EMP attack is wildly over blown. As time has gone by the system has been made ever more robust.
The one thing that can cause serious local outages is an earthquake/ failed dam.
Hoover comes to mind. It’s sitting right on top of a fault. Hence, it is destined to fail, no doubt about that at all.
Which means that no one should live downstream from it. Upon failure it will be impossible to get out of town fast enough.
Its easy to hate MREs when you on exercises but they can be a God’s send when the cupboard is bare. I keep minimum two cases on hard. And they last a long time having the slightest resemblance to real food. Whoever made the decision to inclue a small bottle of Tabasco in the bag should get the CMH.
Looks like quite a bit of farmland will be contaminated by hydrocarbons and other gunk.
Interesting thing I am reminded of: after the 2004 Indonesian quake the scientist got together to compare notes and discovered, somewhat to their horror, that by their readings and estimates the quake had NOT released net system tension–it had only transfered it to another part of the plate. Think of it as a self-winding system. Sometimes at least. Afterwards there were a lot of Kamchatka quakes and volcanism. Some think they were connected.
Now we’ve had the Christchurch quake, and today Sengai. Where will the next one end up? Where did the plate load go… to which bearing point? My guess is, if you’re on the west coast you need to buy more supplies.
–JC
Hawaii is sailing toward the Indian subcontinent at some nearly-unbelievable velocity. Something needs to be subducting very very smoothly or it will be piling up somewhere, at the same rate Hawaii is moving.
Pressure is building up on the world’s food, fuel and financial systems. That will soon reflect itself in rising prices and ripple on down to street politics.
The sheer folly of the output-depressing, enervating and paralyzing regulatory system may soon assert itself. People have gotten far too dependent on centralized public safety, emergency and leadership resources which have benefited bureaucrats, but whose seeming safety will evaporate in a puff of smoke once it is really stressed.
Urban networks, welfare systems, the idea of waiting “for someone to help you” has been ingrained in good citizens. There is in Sydney trains a sign that says in effect. ‘If anything bad happens stay where you are until the authorities tell you what to do’. That works OK when trouble is an outlier; when 99.999% of the system works and you are in the tiny slice that doesn’t.
What happens when 99.999% of the system doesn’t work for two weeks and almost nobody is in the slice that works? The same rules don’t work any more.
The ER in the hospital nearest us gets stressed on a bad New Year’s Eve. What happens when you’ve got hundreds of injured and two dozen fathers whose children are dying? Let’s hope the triage nurses can get people to calm down.
We just hope it never happens because if it does, there’s nothing in the book to deal with it. And no resources either. And while there is no sense preparing completely for the 1 in ten million event, the coming stress is entirely foreseeable. It’s not a Black Swan; it’s a great big giant white duck paddling up the harbor quacking for all it is worth.
And what are we likely to have out of all this? Either nothing or more warnings about climate change. “We have too much”. “We are the affluent society.” “We should ban guns.” That’s all sixties thinking. Those are expressions of a fleeting condition. Safety is not a guaranteed, permanent state. It is a dynamic equilibrium.
Just a few events can quickly show us how slender our reserves truly are.
According to report, Japan is now eight feet closer to the US.
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Anyone here Obama’s incoherent babble this morning? 2% of oil, 25% consumption, yada yada? The man does not grok numbers. The man has not heard of the new Bakken reserves or fracking. The man does not distinguish past, present, and future. I’ve never heard any series of sentences from a president, that were so far from a coherent story. I mean, Clinton wouldn’t offer you a true fact to save your life, but the lies at least hung together. Dubya made up a few words, but we got what he meant. Carter moaned and groaned, lusted in his heart, had a fear of aquatic rabbits and a nice cardigan sweater, but there was no particular inconsistency between all of these lunacies.
… and Rush has been raving all morning that no questions about Wisconsin were even asked in the press conference.
TOKYO (AP) – Japanese authorities will release slightly radioactive vapor to ease pressure at nuclear reactor whose cooling system failed.
The failure occurred after a power outage caused by Friday’s massive earthquake off northeastern Japan.
Japan’s nuclear safety agency says pressure inside one of six boiling water reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant had risen to 1.5 times the level considered normal.
The agency said the radioactive element in the vapor that will be released would not affect the environment or human health.
Kobe in 1995 was a 7.3 and directly cost Japan 2.5% of GDP. But the hand of man had in that case intruded –Kobe being in some part built on landfill –sand, actually. Tempting to crack, they shoulda read Matthew 7:26 –
I went out to check on my boat in San Diego bay around the time the tsunami was supposed to hit earlier. All but forgo about it and went for a bike ride (beautiful day)… there is about a 10ky current pouring into Shelter Island bay right now. Nothin destructive but… could’ve been worse.
w/38, reminds of an old cartoon –probably Esquire forty years ago –where two proper British pith hatted explorers have walked into a jungle pool of quicksand. The conventional wisdom then was that in quicksand you’re not supposed to struggle, because to struggle is to make yourself sink faster. Anyway, in the toon, they’re both going down, already sunk up to their necks, when one of them remarks, “I say, old man, I’ve half a mind to struggle.”
…breaking, the Tokyo district is getting an ”imminent danger” warning from USGS stress measurements
In an update of update of buddy larsen’s Esquire cartoon there was a far side cartoon that showed 2 pith helmets floating on a pool of quicksand in the jungle, and a parot in the nearby tree repeating to himself “let go Morty! … Morty let go! … let go Morty! …”
I think that Wretchard is right. The term “black swan event” is being over used and miss used. More and more it looks like people and governments have been ignoring Murphy’s Law. It is like the running gag over at Instapundit witj the use of the word “unexpectedly”: Job losses were unexpectedly high for this month, housing prices have unexpectedly dropped again, and etc.
I wonder what Australia’s geologic history of climate shows. What happened there during the last ice age? With Australia’s long coast line and the rising number of Muslim’s I suspect man made disaster is the most likely disaster. How well could the police cope with a Mumbai attack?
Interesting news item:
“In Guam, the waves broke two U.S. Navy submarines from their moorings, but tug boats corralled the subs and brought them back to their pier.”
I would assume the subs have some people on board at all times. It would be a tad awkward to misplace one.
And this:
“Surfers in California who raced to the beach to catch the waves were undeterred by the surges.
‘The tides are right, the swell is good, the weather is good, the tsunami is there. We’re going out,’ said William Hill, an off-duty California trooper.”
It always astonishes me how when we have an inbound hurricane there are numerous people who go down to the beach to look. In all likelhood the 4 people who were just swept out to sea at Cresent City CA, were either gawkers or surfers.
#37 buddy larsen
Hawaii is sailing toward the Indian subcontinent at some nearly-unbelievable velocity.
Can we pay it to take the Golfer in Chief with it?
Watching those tsunami videos provides flesh-and-blood content to the dry actuarial term “Act of God.” I can’t recall the last time I was so overcome with emotion. Awe, contrition, sadness, helplessness…
This is what the end of the world looks like. It is a call to repentance.
Dies Irae! dies illa
PAC/48; we’d have to ask the Indians if they want him or not. i’m not at ALL optimistic about the answer. maybe with a large enough dowry. Two or three carrier battle groups or something. Plus Montana and Fort Knox.
bl…
The deal with quick sand is that you can float in it. So you want to get horizontal ASAP. Staying vertical will destroy you because you will not reach buoyancy until you are in past your diaphragm.
Struggling against quicksand even to breathe will sap your strength in no time. Then you die.
Anyhow, I appreciated your pithy points.
In case anyone notices — we’re not dealing with swans — just a bunch of filthy coots.
A black swan = a freak shock to the paradigm… Instead we’ve got coots dumping used food all over the putting greens. We need a better greens keeper — and a new playbook.
b/51, i guess a black swan could also be the ‘unexpectedly missing’. Like the quicksand –the whole thing about not struggling is to gain time for help to come. So the joke is funny because the two gents are alone –there IS no help coming –the no-struggling paradigm is gone moot –and yet, the two gents are gonna stay with it. Their black swan is as you say a paradigm shift –neither of them expected to have to think. Our overarching black swan is again the invisible negative. The American President so positively imprinted in our minds just muscles out the invisible negative. None of us, no one, not even the most paranoid, can manage to hold in mind for very long without losing it again, the thought of a Manchurian Candidate. We wake up anew every morning complaining about the incredibly ignorant policies. Alas, if only it were so, i fear.
–wretchard often bumps into that TS Eliot line about epiphany, about suddenly knowing something that has been too familiar to examine, or even notice, and how that moment of epiphany is the end of a journey one may not even have known one was making.
–i guess one could say, a habit of the mind is to not mind habits.
Radiation leakage possible occurring at the nuclear plant.
http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/76948.html
37. buddy larsen…
I have to set my clock back daily.
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Buddy 52…
Obama: ‘It Would be so Much Easier to be President of China’…
Yeah, Cloward Piven tactics would work like a charm.
Any problems that resulted would be quickly solved
with his Ivy League Street Smarts and academic cadres.
Well while there may be differing opinions on if the events have been ducks, coots, turkey or what have you, the current credentialed elite have definetely given us the bird.
doug, tht’s nice but the clock won’t stop you from rear-ending India –you’re gonna have to go down to the sea and backpaddle
55. toadold…
They left out the Canary.
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Tsunami warning center raises magnitude of Japan quake to 9.1
The Japan earthquake was the fourth most powerful ever recorded with a magnitude of 9.1, twice more powerful than the initial estimate of 8.9, Gerard Fryer, geophysicist of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, said this morning.
Three others that were more powerful since the late 1800s when seismometers started measuring ground motions were in 9.5 in Chile in 1960, 9.2 in Alaska in 1964 and 9.1 in Sumatra in 2004, according to Fryer.
The new magnitude was adjusted based on the impact of the quake throughout the Pacific, he said. “It fits all measurements, including in Hawaii,” Fryer said.
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Buddy:
In the proper hands, BHO as President of China would make a great video.
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Rep. Keith Ellison wrote that the Constitution is evidence of a racist conspiracy
That would make it 60 times more powerful than Frisco 1906 –?
Ellison needs to grow up. It’s past time for that horsehit to take a hike. The constitution could not very well have been written in the 1780s as if it had been written in 2011. For one thing, it would have been “sciennce fictionne” and would never have founded a system that would put a representative from a political movement making war on the host country into that host country’s governing councils.
I blame global warming: all that extra water weighted down the tectonic plates and ….well you see.
The USGS says that the earthquake off Japan ripped a tear in the Earth’s crust 150 miles long and 50 miles wide.
Now just think, even if the tear is only an average of 1 mile deep, that’s on the order of 3000 cubic miles of water to fill that hole.
Let’s give credit where credit is due. Obama said the sea level would go down if he was elected.
#10. Paladin: Well, you are not the “Paladin” I see in the TV Western, HAVE GUN SHALL TRAVEL… starred Richard Boone. Heinous.. look it up… it’s equal to horrible and terrifying.
61. RWE
“…the earthquake off Japan ripped a tear in the Earth’s crust 150 miles long and 50 miles wide…”
Sounds like my retina tear a fortnight ago…
iirc, Sumatra rip –a positive ‘sea-level raising’ displacement — was also 150 miles long –that must be a stitch-length in the mantle fabric –
jtorgler/62, while i agree with your sentiments, must point out that the show title used ‘will’ not ‘shall’ .
Wretchard, I think you’re a tad too pessimistic about how we humans will adjust if the ant queen is killed. I watched how my fellow New Yorkers, mostly lefties, nevertheless adjusted and flowed, like blood corpuscles, to where the wounded city was bleeding. People just showed up: to help at the Pile, to fight the fires alongside the firemen (read the story of the retired fireboat John J. Harvey and her citizen owners racing to the WTC to pump water), to donate blood and help the docs and nurses at area hospitals, to offer their apartments as refuges to their downtown friends.
And there was the Unknown Dunkirk: the largest evacuation by water in American history, when as many as 300,000 people were taken from the seawall in downtown Manhattan by the spontaneously organized, civilian flotilla of tugboats and ferryboats. Amazing, thrilling, and it all happened within minutes of the collapse of the first Tower. And the gubmint had ZERO to do with ANY of it.
Humans are pretty effin’ resilient, even leftard New Yorkers. (Though I gotta say, New Yorkers are pretty stringy and tough, and not wholly given over, most of them, to idiotic ideologies: we’ve got a lot of pragmatists in STaten Island, Queens, and Brooklyn.)
good one, bev –”true grit” –can’t know if ya got it until ya finally really need it.
VERY NICE buddy! Thanks for the grab and post on that. Love me some JC!
Saying a prayer for those poor souls caught up in the maelstrom of mother nature.
JFS, yep, that old moonshiner could really distill some stuff, couldn’t he. Catch that flick if you ain’t yet.
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Potassium Iodide news –looks like, ASAP is critical –to get the stuff into your innards –
Howdy all from Northern Japan,
Misawa-Shi specificly. We are about 200 miles from the epicenter of the quake. Sendai (the hardest hit area) lies halfway between Tokyo and here.
We lost power but no significant damage. Power is being restored in small chunks of the city here as they test the load on the grid. All US military and families are safe and uninjured.
Hachinohe (about 30 miles south of us and a port city) was hit pretty hard by the tsunami but nothing on the scale of Sendai.
Aftershock were every 5 to 10 minutes for the last couple of days but have settled down to maybe one or so an hour that we can feel here.
Amazingly enough the cell phone towers stayed up for about a day then the emergency supply of power ran out. No voice calls but data was usable. Facebook became the easiest way to send and receive messages for a while.
Everyone is pulling together and helping out. Should be sending people south to help in the relief effort very soon.
Take care and God bless
Charles
Plate_tectonics – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Plates_tect2_en.svg
a little quibble with #37 – Hawaii, volcanically, is actual fairly stable – and certainly is not whizzing towards India –
the Pacific Plate is drifting north-west – and subducting under an arm of the North American Plate, which extends that far in an arc from Alaska – to that area of Japan – where it meets up with the Filipino plate and the Eurasian plate
these recent Japan quakes are right in the area where the Pacific / North American / Filipino and Eurasian Plate come together – which is probably why Japan is so prone to quakes –
Hawaii is considered a ‘hot spot’ erupting from below, and through, the Pacific Plate – this hot spot stays where it is – the Pacific plate drifts north-west over it – thus the long line of old volcanos headed off north-west – from- the ‘hot spot ‘
b/70; the old volcanoes that move off the hot spot are what i had meant as being ‘under way’ –as they have traveled the distance from the stationary hot spot that is forming the trail of progressively younger islands to the southeast. Dunno if the northwesterly movement is apparent or real, tho –could be like a family reunion: all relative. We need to let doug know, tho –he’s down at the beach, backpaddling