Posts from — April 2015

World News:

They are still finding some survivors in the collapsed buildings in Nepal, including a four-month-old baby, but time is running out.

The official death toll is approaching 6,000 and they still haven’t reached all of the villages in the affected area. They only have 20 helicopters available, those were grounded today by the weather.

US News:

Reporting on the investigation into the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, the police chief announced that they have discovered that the transport van made two stops, not just the single stop as was reported earlier. The second stop was discovered when the investigators reviewed private video sources.

Normally, no one would care about a second stop, but this wasn’t a normal transport, and the investigators have to be suspicious as to the reason the officers involved didn’t mention it when questioned about the transport. This is not a good sign, and will not help community relations.

It’s Hexennacht, but there is no Blocksberg available for dancing down here and it is so soggy that bonfires are out of the question.

Of course the Church grabbed this holiday too and called it Walpurgisnacht in honor of one of their Anglo-Saxon saints, rather than good German witches [Hexen]. The Celts celebrate Beltaine at this time of the year. It is considered the beginning of summer in much of Europe.

Archæoastronomy

Because almost all of the US national news outlets are tools of the corporations that own them, and bend reality to fit with the official ‘vision’ of their masters, I get my information from foreign sources. A side benefit is that you get reporting that does not automatically accept the ‘conventional wisdom’ in the US.

The CBC opinion piece on what has been happening in Baltimore goes right to core of the problem: Police killings are the real state of emergency. As a Canadian Mr. MacDonald doesn’t believe that police officers shooting people is normal.

In his piece for the BBC Jon Sopel looks at efficacy of riots in making a point. He points out that most people only remember Ferguson and Baltimore, as if all of the other unarmed people killed by police officers didn’t exist.

If you go back to the run up the Iraq invasion there were huge anti-war demonstrations that most people in the US knew nothing about, because the US media didn’t cover them. What is the point of having thousands of people march in protest if they are the only people who know the protest took place. History is distorted by claims that ‘everyone’ supported the invasion, when that is patently untrue.

If we want to prevent riots, why don’t we do something about the police using unarmed people for target practice.

The Prime Minister of Nepal is now talking about the possibility of 10,000 deaths, as a result of the earthquake. They are finally able to over-fly many of the remote areas, and things are looking grim.

The Australian government has recalled its ambassador to Indonesia as the result of the death by firing squad of two Australian citizens for drug offenses.

While I recognize the reason behind Australia’s actions, I don’t understand why anyone would risk moving drugs through Indonesia. Their death penalty for drug offenses is not a secret, and it has happened in the past.

Baltimore exploded because people don’t believe that anything is going to change without violence. If you look at the series of unarmed black males being killed by the police all over the country and how quickly it fades from the headlines with no one really being held responsible, why would you expect people to respect the law or the police?

Both the Australian and Canadian media are following the story closely and providing slightly more up-to-date information than the other news outlets.

The aftershocks are really rattling people’s nerves and keeping them outside, away from the structures that still exist. This is coupled with logistics problems that are hampering the distribution of relief supplies to the population.

There is only one international airport in Nepal and it is overwhelmed. Many of the staff at the airport are missing, and the airport shuts down when there are aftershocks. Search and rescue teams, and other specialists are stuck at airports in surrounding countries waiting for flights in. They really need helicopters and air drops of supplies.

The current count on the dead is over 4000, but there are many areas with which there has been no communication since the quake.

The US Geological Survey has the technical details on the 7.8 quake which was shallow [approx. 10 miles deep] with a epicenter in the Kathmandu Valley.

The BBC has been reporting Nepal earthquake: Death toll passes 1,000.

More than 1,000 people have been killed in Nepal’s deadliest earthquake for more than 80 years, police say.

The 7.8 magnitude quake struck an area of central Nepal between the capital, Kathmandu, and the city of Pokhara.

There were also victims in India, Bangladesh, Tibet and on Mount Everest, where avalanches were triggered.

Many well-known local structures have been flattened, and the aftershocks are still continuing, causing people to sleep outside away from buildings.

The last estimate I saw was 1800 victims, but the number will probably rise higher as the rubble is searched and smaller towns are visited.

To Leap or Not To Leap

Leaf or grass?

[Editor: Hadley paused to consider chasing a blowing leaf, but decided to eat some more grass.]

The Friday Ark for lots of animal pictures.

The ABC notes the silver celebration: NASA marks Hubble Space Telescope’s 25th anniversary with release of Westerlund 2 star cluster. There is a video of the cluster and a link to Hubble’s ‘greatest hits’.

The universe is filled with wonders that we only know about because of instruments like Hubble. Hubble has managed to affirm or refute many theories about the formation of our universe which make things more understandable.

It is ANZAC Day in Australia and New Zealand, which is similar to the American Veterans Day, in that it began as a remembrance of World War I, and has become more generalized over the years.

“Anzac Day commemorates the involvement of Australian and New Zealand troops in a World War I campaign on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey.” This year is the centennial of the Gallipoli landing.

The Gallipoli Campaign began as a Winston Churchill [then First Lord of the Admiralty] plan that spun out of control and got a lot of people killed on both sides with nothing much changing, but then, that was quite common in World War I.

Peter Weir made a movie, Gallipoli, which, if nothing else, proves that Sergeant Alvin York, and T.E. Lawrence weren’t the only people who fought in World War I.

The BBC noticed that the Mammoth genome sequence has been completed.

Yes, there really are people who want to modify an elephant egg to produce a mammoth. They are less clear why they want to do this, but they are apparently moving ahead with the project.

I hate to be a naysayer, but is the era of global warming really the ideal environment for reintroducing a species that flourished during the Ice Age? The last known mammoths went extinct on Wrangle Island in the Russian Arctic 4000 years ago when things were still much colder than today.

The money being spent on the recreation of mammoths would be better spent on reducing global climate change so we don’t have more existing species going the way of the mammoth – extinction.

Saint George is the patron saint of England, Georgia [the country], Bulgaria, Portugal, Catalonia, and the city of Moscow. Orthodox countries tend to celebrate George on November 23^rd.

PETA condemns George for his senseless slaughter of dragons. The YWCA condemns the condemnation and wants to know when PETA is going to volunteer to be DragonChow™

It is UNESCO’s International Day of the Book.

It is also the birth and death day of Billy the Bard, who was a great writer in desperate need of a spelling checker.

Master Shakespeare gave all of the best lines to villains supplying low humor to those who have read the Folio, e.g. Arlen Specter quoting Iago, reputedly in support of Clarence Thomas.

She’s the only planet we have, if we blow it, we can’t pack up and move.

Wikipedia has an Earth Day entry, with links to other sites.

Today is Queen Elizabeth’s 89^th birthday, but it won’t be officially celebrated until June.

It was cool today after the cold front that has been stalled in the area and responsible for over a week of rain finally made its way through. The temperature is expected to bounce back tomorrow which will make my cats happy. I put the heater away, so last night was not pleasant for them.

Sydney and New South Wales Australia are being mugged by an intense low pressure system that has caused flooding and winds of over 60mph. While not an ‘official’ tropical storm, the effects are the same with major damage in the area.

From the BBC: FBI admits forensic evidence errors in hundreds of cases.

When it is done intentionally it isn’t an ‘error’, it is a crime: perjury at a minimum. People were executed based on the lies created by the FBI’s analysis of the evidence.

Hundreds of cases will have to be reviewed, basically every case that used hair analysis performed at the FBI lab that resulted in a conviction.