Posts from — December 2004

I have been in a few earthquakes in Alaska, California, and Japan, but none stronger than 6.5. A level 9 is almost inconceivable. The earthquake scale is logarithmic, i.e. a 7 is ten times as bad as a 6. Because this quake was in an ocean trench and affected approximately 1000 kilometers of the fault line, the shock wave generated a rolling wall of water at least 40 feet high that sped across the Indian Ocean and impacted countries all along the shore line. The effects stretched all the way to Somalia from Indonesia, with islands disappearing beneath the flood.

Approximately 22,000+ people are presumed dead, but that number is far from accurate as many areas have lost all their modern communications beneath the wave. Until islands and shore communities can be inspected, it is a guess.

Aftershocks will continue for days and there is no way of knowing how many were lost in ships and boats swallowed by the flood.

[Updated 12:14AM 12/27]
[Second update of death toll 1:08PM 12/27]

Well, it looks like Bill O’Reilly may have been correct for the Republicans regarding Christmas, if there isn’t a burst of buying on Boxing Day [the feast of Saint Stephen] this will be a Grinch of a Christmas for big GOP contributors.

The war, deficits, unemployment, maxed out credit cards, no bonuses, and no raises have taken their toll on the consumers and Americans aren’t descending into a massive enough debt to maintain profits for corporations.

Actually, it would help if the complainers would meet a few people who don’t live in their self-contained little gated communities. I’m not suggesting they meet with non-Christians, Heaven forefend, but with Christians that worship in other churches than their own.

Among the Christians I personally know, some exchange gifts on the feast of Saint Nicholas [December 6], others on the feast of the Epiphany [January 6^th, which some call the feast of the Three Kings]. My Orthodox Christian friends will be celebrating Christmas on January 7^th on the Gregorian calendar.

I know a few Christians who consider any link of Christmas with any commercial or government entity to be blasphemy, and others who consider Christmas to be a pagan rite with no connection to their faith.

A small suggestion for Mr. O’Reilly and Faux News lemmings: first get Christians to agree on what and when Christmas is, before you start complaining about the perceived attitudes of those not directly involved with it.

George Bush, proving he is clueless, calls ten members of the military for Christmas. Knowing how limited long distance time is for troops that are deployed, I imagine the people waiting in line were thrilled that the network was taken up by Acme, Inc., instead of being available to contact family at Christmas.

In another move of startling stupidity, Bush dropped by the mess hall at Camp David to spread cheer to the Marines who are not home celebrating Christmas because Bush decided to go to the Marine base and Presidential retreat. If Bush had stayed in the White House or gone to Crawford to harass the Texas Department of Public Safety many of the Marines could have taken a Christmas leave instead of patrolling the perimeter.

Bush could make significant cuts in the Presidential budget by staying in the White House. We have spent an unconscionable amount of money for Bush to traipse all over the country with his security circus.

Georges Malbrunot, a reporter for the French newspaper Le Figaro who was recently released by Iraqi militants, writes that his captors wanted George W. Bush re-elected President. The insurgents felt that Bush would insure that the occupation of Iraq would continue and give them time to build their organization.

Based on recent events, I’d say the kidnappers were correct.

A Christmas re-supply mission to the International Space Station carrying food and oxygen arrived safely. If the Russian Progress supply ship had failed, the two-man crew, already on short rations, would have had to abandon the station within a month.

The Russians claim the previous crewmembers were gluttons, who left deficits in the protein supplies.

How is the US going to get to the Moon and Mars when we can’t even make it to a space station in Earth orbit?

Renaud Van Ruymbeke, a French magistrate is interested in the bin Laden family financial transactions, especially a 2000 Swiss transfer of €241 million to a Pakistani bank account of Osama bin Laden and a Pakistani national.

I thought Osama looked prosperous in his last video, not noticeably stressed by the pursuit of the Pakistani army reported in the media.

As the Solstice has passed it is time to wish my family and friends: [select one]

S Rozhdestvom Khristovym
Sung Tan Chuk Ha
Vrolijk Kerstfeest
Feliz Navidad
Joyeux Noël
Fröhliche Weihnachten
Buon Natale
Happy Hogwatch
Happy Christmas

and hope they are visited by: [select one]

Ded Moroz
Saint Nicholas
Santa Claus
Kris Kringle
Pere Noël
Babbo Natale
Hogfather
Father Christmas

who leaves good things in their: [select one]

Stockings
Boots
Shoes
Clogs
Pillow Case [some people are greedy]

rather than the: [select one]

Lump of Coal
Raw Liver
Bloody Bones
Sticks

some of them may deserve.

Friday Cat Blogging^TM [Kevin Drum]

I’m not coming down until you get the fat bearded guy off the roof.

The Secretary of Defense visits the site of a massacre caused by his incompetence and the troops are supposed to feel that he cares for their welfare.

In case he doesn’t know it, all of the troops feel he should remain while they go home for Christmas. This blatant feel good photo opportunity isn’t fooling anyone. Rumsfeld is under a lot of pressure, even from Republicans, to resign.

Let’s be clear: it was Department of Defense failed policies that lead to American bases being open to infiltration. The lack of military support personnel and the need to house the newly trained Iraqi forces within American perimeters is a result of Rumsfeld’s decisions, as well as the failures of the Medal of Freedom Troika: Bremer, Franks, and Tenet.

After the loss of a similar number of personnel in Somalia [October, 1993], Secretary of Defense, Les Aspin, resigned. He hadn’t been on the job long [9 months], his President didn’t send the troops to Somalia [GHW Bush did], and he hadn’t planned the operation [it was a UN operation], but he felt he was responsible and resigned.

If you focus strictly on murder you are missing a lot of the world’s really interesting crime stories.

In New Zealand someone has stolen an aluminum bridge 30 meters [about 100 feet] long. The foot bridge that gave access through a wetlands in Waihola, New Zealand is assumed to have been stolen to be sold for its scrap metal value.

You have to wonder why no one noticed trucks hauling off a bridge.

There was a major bank robbery in Belfast, North Ireland. The Northern Bank was robbed by a gang that gained entry by kidnapping the families of two executives and forcing the executives to open the vault.

The gang stole £20 million [around $40 million], but there are problems. About £17 million is in the unique currency of Northern Ireland which is not used widely outside of that area, and £12 million of that is new, uncirculated, sequentially numbered notes. So they only actually have £3 million of readily convertible cash and everyone in Europe looking for large transactions.

It will make a nice movie when they get caught.

[edited for clarity]

After thinking about it for a while, I’m beginning to believe that Alberto Gonzales may, in fact, be even worse that John Ashcroft.

John Ashcroft was an obnoxious ideologue, but he enforced the laws that were on the books, even if he was extremely selective about which laws received his attention.

As the President’s Counsel Gonzales has written options that purport to give the President powers that extend beyond the Constitution and claim that the War on Terror abrogates the need to comply with the Geneva Convention.

For those who don’t think much about law this may even seem reasonable: there’s an emergency and emergency powers are needed to deal with it.

The basic problem is that all of the powers of the government of the United States are confined by the Constitution, with all other powers reserved to the people and/or states. The government has no power that is not granted by the Constitution, for the granting and restriction of power is the underlying purpose of any constitution. The Constitution is the Law against which all other laws are judged. The Supreme Court was founded with the single purpose of judging legal cases through the filter of the Constitution.

Any actions outside the confines of the Constitution are by definition outside the Law.

The purpose of the Geneva Convention was to establish some minimum Rules of War. Claiming that the Rules of War don’t apply to a war is illogical on its face.

What Gonzales has advised the President is the equivalent of saying the police are not required to abide by the law because the criminals have already broken it. Is this the type of thinking that is appropriate for any lawyer, much less the Attorney General of the United States?

To take some of the pressure off the hard working folks at Wampum who are busy tabulating the nominees for the Koufax Awards, the American Street are sponsoring the Perranoski Prize, an extension with additional categories that do not conflict with the Koufaxes.

Go over and give some recognition to some of the hard working people who fill your blog roll.

The Rules for nominating and voting

1) You may nominate more than one per category.

2) Please be clear about which award you’re nominating for. Saying “they deserve to win in every category” is insufficient; you must name the categories. If you plan to make nominations in every category, here’s a list you can copy/paste to ease your task:

Best Designed Blog
Best Art or Photoblog
Best Moving Image Blog
Walt Kelly Best Toon Blog
Best Technical Achievement Blog
Best Humanitarian Blog
Don Drysdale Award
Best Investigative Research Blog
Hall of Fame Award

And where applicable, please add a brief explanation of why each nominee you make deserves to win that category.

3) Make your nominations in comments or by e-mail to: kahlil[at]despammed[dot]com

Please note the e-mail address, because they’re planning some upgrades to their site next week which may take them offline for a day or two. But the e-mail should continue to function.

NASA currently has two rovers wondering around Mars looking at rocks: Spirit and Opportunity. They recharge their batteries with solar panels and have to shut way down during the Martian winter to conserve energy. As they roll around and kick up dust the solar panels become coated and lose some of their ability to recharge their batteries.

This is exactly what has happened to the Spirit, its panels are operating at about 50%, but Opportunity‘s have apparently been cleaned a couple of times and it is operating at 100% efficiency.

Either Opportunity has landed in an area that has beneficial winds, or it has found a full service gas station on Mars.

So I’m sitting here, minding my own business, listening to the radio and the impact of the bombs at the range on the other side of Choctawhatchee Bay and out of nowhere comes this warning box on my screen saying:

Cannot load dialog.

Error 623: The system could not find the phone book entry for this connection.

Since I wasn’t asking for a dialog and was connected via the DSL, I thought that this was rather odd.

I went out and looked for a similar problem and found it on a help site. Same occurrence: just upgraded to a high speed connection and sites kept asking about phone books.

The proposed solution sounded a bit odd: open Internet Explorer, go to “tools/options/connections” and select Never dial a connection.

Since I don’t use Internet Explorer, I thought this was odd, but I did it anyway, because the way Microsoft has messed with Windows who knows what might work.

I re-booted and the problem has gone away. Even though I use Firefox, Bill insists that IE be involved in Internet connections in a background way. This is why, even though you don’t use IE, if you have a Windows box you have to keep downloading and installing the IE patches.

Hey! Enough of the clicking already! People are trying to sleep. Sheesh, humans.

It arrived at 6:42AM this morning, but it has warmed up. That is to fool suckers into uncovering plants and such just before the SNOW arrives on Friday!

You think the people in your area don’t know how to drive in snow, you should see the mayhem that occurs down here on the Redneck Riviera when the roads freeze. The bridges tend to have high humps to allow sailboats passage, so when that high bridge gets wet and freezes people are trying to drive up a sheet of ice. I can tell you that Billy Bob is not going to be gracious pulling your SUV out of the Bayou on Christmas morning.

I blame this on all of those people wishing for a “traditional” Christmas. Been there: Fairbanks and Shemya in Alaska, Omaha in Nebraska, Rochester, Utica, Hamilton in New York, Frankfurt in Germany, London in England. . .and I don’t need to do it again.

I think azaleas in bloom and camellias getting ready to burst are good at Christmas.