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Seismograph

Best of the Web: Fresh 6.3-magnitude earthquake rattles Turkey-Syria border

Stewart Carr
The Daily Mail
Mon, 20 Feb 2023 18:55 UTC
turkey earthquake february 20 2023
© Elif Ozturk Ozgoncu/Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesResidents move to safety on the street after an earthquake in Hatay, Turkey, on Feb. 20.
It comes two weeks after three earthquakes killed over 40,000 in same area

Another earthquake struck the border region of Turkey and Syria on Monday, just two weeks after the area was devastated by a larger quake which killed more than 47,000 people and damaged or destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes.

Monday's quake, this time with a magnitude of 6.3, was centred near the southern Turkish city of Antakya and was felt in Syria, Egypt and Lebanon.

It struck at a depth of just two km (1.2 miles), the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said, potentially magnifying its impact at ground level.

Muna Al Omar said she was in a tent in a park in central Antakya when the latest quake hit.

'I thought the earth was going to split open under my feet,' she said, crying as she held her 7-year-old son in her arms.

Comment: A demonstration of how powerful the February 3rd quake was:
new canyon Turkey earthquake february 2023
The initial quake on turned this olive grove in Tepephan, Turkey into a 1 1/2 mile long canyon
Drone footage:



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Books

Best of the Web: Shakespeare flagged as 'far-right' literature by British government 'counter-terrorism' unit


RT
Sun, 19 Feb 2023 19:14 UTC
William Shakespeare
© Getty Images / Chris Ratcliffe/Getty ImagesThe first four folios of William Shakespeare's work during an unveiling for auction at Christie's King Street on April 19, 2016 in London, England
Several of the UK's most respected television shows, movies and works of literature have been included in a list of works that could potentially encourage far-right sympathies, compiled by the taxpayer-funded and government-led 'Prevent' counter-terrorism programme, according to the Daily Mail.

Works by JRR Tolkien, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell and even William Shakespeare, as well as classic movies 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' and 'The Great Escape' were cited in a list published by the British paper on Saturday as being highlighted by the counter-terrorism watchdog, for their potential use by far-right agitators to promote troublesome viewpoints online.

"This is truly extraordinary," historian and broadcaster Andrew Roberts said of the list to the tabloid. "This is the reading list of anyone who wants a civilized, liberal, cultural education.

"It includes some of the greatest works in the Western canon and in some cases - such as Joseph Conrad's 'The Secret Agent' - powerful critiques of terrorism. [Edmund] Burke, Orwell and Tolkien were all anti-totalitarian writers."
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Eye 2

Best of the Web: The Ukraine hawk heading the European Commission has a Nazi pedigree she does not want you to know about

Evan Reif
Covert Action Magazine
Fri, 17 Feb 2023 21:23 UTC
von der leyen zelensky Ukraine EU
© bg-turk.comUrsula von der Leyen with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Her father Ernst Albrecht, President of the German state of Lower Saxony from 1978 to 1990, brought unrehabilitated Nazis into his administration and carried out a black-flag terrorist operation designed to discredit the left-wing Red Army Faction.

In the wake of the Russo-Ukrainian war, terms like "European values" have come back into the mainstream. One of the people who has been most responsible for this is Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission who is now a nearly omnipresent figure in the media.

According to Ursula, "European values" represent only the highest attributes of humankind: freedom, justice, solidarity, and rule of law.
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Snowflake Cold

Best of the Web: Temperature extremes: Heatwave to snowfall - Argentina's heat and cold records broken in 5 days


NDTV
Sat, 18 Feb 2023 13:23 UTC
Argentina broke records for heat and cold within a short window of just five days this week, with temperatures plummeting a jaw-dropping 30 degrees Celsius as a heatwave gave way to historic snowfalls.
Argentina broke records for heat and cold within a short window of just five days this week, with temperatures plummeting a jaw-dropping 30 degrees Celsius as a heatwave gave way to historic snowfalls.
Argentina broke records for heat and cold within a short window of just five days this week, with temperatures plummeting a jaw-dropping 30 degrees Celsius as a heatwave gave way to historic snowfalls.

A cold front from Patagonia caused temperatures in Buenos Aires to drop from a high of 38.1 C (100.6 degrees Fahrenheit) last Sunday to only 7.9C (46.2F) on Thursday -- a record low for the month of February since 1951, the National Meteorological Service reported.

The lowest ever was 4.2C in 1910.

The South American country this week battled its eighth heat wave so far this summer with temperatures shooting up to nearly 40C (104F) in the center and north.
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Fireball 2

Best of the Web: Meteorite found in northern France following break-up of brilliant meteor fireball

Deena Theresa
Interestingengineering.com
Fri, 17 Feb 2023 11:20 UTC
023 CX1 Fireball Meteorite discovered in Northern France.
© FRIPON/Vigie-ciel023 CX1 Fireball Meteorite discovered in Northern France.
On February 12, around 10 pm EST (0300 GMT, February 13), an asteroid burned up rather dramatically over Europe.

Hours later, a space-focused citizen science volunteer group found a meteorite from the fireball event 2023 CX1.

Members of the science group Vigie-Ciel (translated to 'Sky Lookout') and a related project, FRIPON, another space-focused citizen science effort working with French scientific institutions like the Paris Observatory and the University of Paris-Saclay can be credited with confirming the exciting find.

Loïs Leblanc, an 18-year-old student, found the meteorite first. At 4:47 pm, Leblanc chanced upon "a dark stone barely level with the ground of a field in the town of Saint-Pierre-le-Viger," the group wrote in a blog post.


Comment: Videos below of this terrible beauty as it burned up over northwestern Europe:

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Satellite

Best of the Web: Russia issues warning over 'quasi-civilian' satellites US is using to 'win' war for Ukraine


RT
Thu, 16 Feb 2023 18:22 UTC
satellites starlink
Starlink array over Earth
Civilian satellites used by the military could become targets, a senior Moscow diplomat has cautioned

The US and its allies are exposing civilian space assets to potential attack by utilizing them for military purposes, a senior Russian diplomat has warned. The warning came after NATO unveiled plans for a space monitoring fleet that will use commercial and military satellites for its missions.


Comment: Even when they tell the truth, NATO is lying. They ALREADY ARE using any and all satellites in their 'war to destroy Russia by proxy'. And the Russians are kind of also lying; they have already targeted some Western 'civilian' satellites, since Day One last February 24th, when a number of 'civilian satellite services' went off-line, probably due to Russian cyber-attacks.


Konstantin Vorontsov, deputy director of the non-proliferation and weapons control directorate in the Russian Foreign Ministry, said on Thursday that the US is weaponizing space and blurring the boundaries between military and civilian infrastructure in orbit.

American use of spacecraft to benefit other nations on the battlefield "is in fact a form of participation in [conflicts] by proxy," Vorontsov said, adding that "quasi-civilian space infrastructure" in particular could face "retaliation."

Comment: Musk is the most prominent of the satellite operators in the civilian/military field, but he is not the only one. Russia already has the capacity to block satellite functions, however the time may come when it might feel that more dramatic action is warranted...



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Mail

Best of the Web: Trump announces he is embracing ballot harvesting

Roberto Wakerell-Cruz
The Post Millennial
Wed, 15 Feb 2023 00:01 UTC

Comment: No, this is not satire!


donald trump
Former President Donald Trump's campaign is examining ways to win over the mail-in vote after the Democrats' performance in the 2020 presidential and 2022 midterm elections. The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump's staff is examining state laws on absentee and mail-in voting, as well as ballot harvesting techniques.

Trump, who was famously critical of mail-in votes following the 2020 election, is changing his tune following comments by some GOP 2024 presidential hopefuls, like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who have criticized the party for not capitalizing on opportunities in recent elections by focusing too much on Election Day turnout.

The change of heart can be observed in a Trump fundraising email released earlier this week which read, "The radical Democrats have used ballot harvesting to cancel out YOUR vote and walk away with elections that they NEVER should have won. But I'm doing something HUGE to fight back."

Comment: He'll also need funds to bribe thousands of ballot mules throughout Election Month, hire poll station officers (preferably disguised as Democrats), and hire ballot harvesters to begin operating months beforehand. It's a tall order, but if anyone can game a corrupt system, it's Trump!

See also:

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Fireball 2

Best of the Web: Chelyabinsk meteor: Ten years on from 'wake-up call', how safe are we from a potentially catastrophic strike?

Tom Acres
Sky News
Wed, 15 Feb 2023 16:22 UTC
A decade on from the Chelyabinsk meteor, and our planet has come a long way in detecting the threat of interstellar objects potentially hurtling into the atmosphere. But has the risk been completely eliminated - and exactly how prepared are we for another dramatic impact?
Chelyabinsk fireball meteor
Chelyabinsk fireball recorded by a dashcam from Kamensk-Uralsky, north of the city of Chelyabinsk
It wasn't quite the day the Earth stood still, but those who witnessed a fiery asteroid briefly outshine the sun as it soared towards the Russian city of Chelyabinsk will almost certainly never forget it.

Comparable to the size of a house and travelling at a scintillating 11 miles per second, what was quickly dubbed the Chelyabinsk meteor arrived unannounced in a manner reminiscent of a science-fiction disaster film. It was an unnerving spectacle.


Comment: Indeed, this was discovered beforehand and thus was not being tracked. What gives the Chelyabinsk meteor a terrifying edge is that another, different, space rock was being tracked and was forecast to enter Earth's atmosphere later that same day!


Dashcam footage from the morning of 15 February 2013, in the central Russian city close to the Ural Mountains, shows the small asteroid entering the Earth's atmosphere before it exploded with 30 times more force than the US atom bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in the Second World War.

Windows shattered, buildings were damaged, and hundreds of people were injured - but Chelyabinsk got lucky.

"Had it been directly over the city, the damage would have been worse," warns NASA's planetary defence officer Lindley Johnson. "It was definitely a wake-up call."


Comment: And don't forget what the Chelyabinsk meteor events sounded like...

If you ever see a long-duration fireball streak through the sky, and you suspect it's 'close' to your location, stay away from windows for a few minutes!

The shockwave generated by the above atmospheric explosion would have knocked any nearby aircraft to the ground. Fortunately, none were in the vicinity at the time, but one wonders about other 'unexplained' airplane crashes in recent years: e.g., What are they hiding? Flight 447 and Tunguska Type Events

To answer the question asked in the above headline, the risk posed by increased cometary debris isn't just a matter of 'potentially catastrophic strikes'- i.e., single asteroids which make impact and cause devastation over a discrete geographic area - but also multiple other, planet-wide, risk factors such as the atmosphere becoming loaded with comet dust (aka 'meteor smoke') from all these meteor fireball events in recent years, and what effect this is having on the climate...

AMS fireballs table
© Sott.net


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Fire

Best of the Web: "Get the hell out of there" - Ohio's apocalyptic chemical disaster rages on

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Tue, 14 Feb 2023 19:31 UTC
ohio train derailment toxic chemicals burning
The toxic chemicals released in the train derailment in Ohio pose a threat to the health and safety of local residents
Update (1300ET): During a press conference, the NTSB referenced a video from Salem, Ohio, about 20 miles from East Palestine which shows sparks and flames emitting from beneath the train. The apparent structural issue with the train was captured on a security camera when it was travelling through Salem. According to Michael Graham, board member on the NTSB, two videos they had obtained were indicative of mechanical issues attributed to the rail car axles which likely led to the derailment.

The second video obtained from when the train was passing through Salem was recorded by a processing plant nearby a hotbox detector which scans the temperature of the axles as trains pass by. According to Graham, the wayside defect detector reading resulted in an alarm alerting the crew of a mechanical issue shortly before the derailment in East Palestine. Consequently, that alert forced the train to execute an emergency brake application which may have been the cause of the derailment. Presently, the NTSB is reviewing the trains data and audio recordings in order to examine the cause of the derailment and which hotbox detector indicated a mechanical error preceding the accident. The NTSB is expected to issue a preliminary report on its findings within 30 days.

Comment: More early footage:


The good senator from Ohio meets with Tucker Carlson:


The local authorities tried to suppress the story:



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Jet4

Best of the Web: U.S. military shoots down (another) unidentified object over Lake Huron

Julie Tsirkin, Courtney Kube, Summer Concepcion and Dan De Luce
NBC News
Mon, 13 Feb 2023 19:37 UTC
unknown objet shot down
A fourth 'unknown object' has been shot down by the U.S. military over Lake Huron, near Michigan's Upper Penninsula
Pentagon says it hasn't determined the nature and purpose of the last 3 objects taken down, which it declines to describe as balloons.

U.S. military leaders on Sunday said they were in the dark about the exact nature and purpose of airborne objects shot down over the United States and Canada since Friday.

Unlike a balloon shot down off the coast of South Carolina Feb. 4, described by officials as spy aircraft, it's unclear how the most recent objects stay aloft and move along, Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and the U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), said at a media briefing Sunday.

"I'm not going to categorize them as balloons," he said. "We're calling them objects for a reason. I'm not able to categorize how they stay aloft."

After the briefing, a defense official added that there was "no indication of aliens or extraterrestrial activity with these recent takedowns."

Comment: More reporting on the various incidents. Of course, being the MSM they are heavily laced with pro-US and anti-China comments, but still some interesting nuggets there. The Pentagon seems a bit rattled:







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