Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Indonesia: Earthquake Magnitude 6.2 - Near South Coast of Papua

Papua Quake_300910
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Wednesday, September 29, 2010 at 17:10:52 UTC

Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 02:10:52 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
5.314°S, 133.933°E

Depth:
21.2 km (13.2 miles) (poorly constrained)

Region:
NEAR THE SOUTH COAST OF PAPUA, INDONESIA

Distances:
105 km (65 miles) NNW of Dobo, Kepulauan Aru, Indonesia

310 km (195 miles) WSW of Enarotali, Papua, Indonesia

885 km (550 miles) NNE of DARWIN, Northern Territory, Australia

2985 km (1850 miles) E of JAKARTA, Java, Indonesia

Bad Guys

Nuclear Weapons: 20 Facts They Don't Want You to Think About

Politicians and Their Armageddon Machines

Nuclear arsenals: who wants them? - A coterie of politicians.

Why do they want them? - For the illusion of power and to feed their egos.

How do they keep them? - By fostering a culture of fear.

How do they do that? - By positing a Threatening and Unknown Future.

There are 5 primary nuclear weapons states (and four others from proliferation). The politicians of these 5 nuclear states put the future of the citizens of all the other 187 states of the UN at risk as well as their own citizens because of their insistence in keeping their nuclear arsenals.

In no case have the citizens been asked if they want these arsenals.

The reason these politicians want these Armageddon weapons is because they believe it gives them stature and power; makes them players; gets their feet under the top table. For this perceived personal benefit they are prepared to put the survival of the human race at risk.

Nuclear arsenals are the ruthless tools of power-fixated individuals.

In order to keep their arsenals, these individuals must keep the citizens in ignorance. We have a vague dread of these things and what they can do. Humanity has a residual group memory of the unspeakable suffering of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But this is very scary. We don't want to think about it. And that suits the power junkies just fine. Ignorance is power - for the junkies - but not the citizens.

Red Flag

Genetically Altered Salmon? It Doesn't Stop There

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© dueband.com
We've always played with our food - even before we knew about genes or how to change them.

For thousands of years, humans have practiced selective breeding - pairing the beefiest bull with the healthiest heifers to start a new herd. That concept was refined to develop plant hybridization and artificial insemination. Today we've got tastier corn on sturdier stalks, bigger turkeys and meatier cattle.

Now comes an Atlantic salmon that is genetically engineered to grow twice as fast as a regular salmon. If U.S. regulators approve it, the fish would be the first such scientifically altered animal to reach the dinner plate.

Scientists have already determined that it's safe to eat. They are weighing other factors, including environmental risks, after two days of intense hearings.

Binoculars

Are Tornadoes Increasing?

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© NOAA
Few sights on Earth are as awe-inspiring (or terrifying) as that of a tornado spindling down from a storm-choked sky. So we feed our obsession. We flood the Internet with twister footage and headlines about peculiar vortices and rampaging storms.

It all leads to an inevitable question: Is tornadic activity increasing?

"There's no evidence that it is," says Joshua Wurman, president of the Center for Severe Weather Research. "If you look at the frequency of tornado reports in the U.S., they're going up every decade, but there's pretty good evidence that it's due to improved reporting efficiency."

Scientists call this a reporting effect, meaning that reports of a phenomenon increase but actual occurrences do not. Yes, it might seem like more trees are falling in the forest, but it's only because more people are there to hear them.

Binoculars

Northern Lights Becoming Rarer, Researchers Warn

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© NNPThe spectacular sight of the Northern Lights is becoming less frequent
The Northern Lights have petered out during the second half of the decade, becoming rarer than at any other time in more than a century, according to meteorologists.

The Aurora Borealis generally follows an 11-year "solar cycle" in which the frequency of the phenomena rises to a maximum and then tapers off into a minimum and then repeats the cycle.

According to researched at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, however, the solar minimum was officially in 2008, but has been "going on and on and on".

Noora Partamies, a researcher, said: "Only in the past half a year have we seen more activity, but we don't really know whether we're coming out of this minimum."

The Northern Lights, a blaze of colored patterns in the northern skies, are triggered by solar winds crashing into the earth and being drawn to the magnetic poles, wreaking havoc on electrons in the parts of the atmosphere known as the ionosphere and magnetosphere.

Bizarro Earth

Drenched Mexico Hillside Collapses; At Least 7 Die

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© AP Photo
Oaxaca, Mexico - A hillside collapsed on hundreds of sleeping residents Tuesday in a rural Mexican community drenched for days by two major storms, killing at least seven and leaving at least 100 missing, disaster officials said.

The death toll could rise much higher in Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec, a town about 130 miles (220 kilometers) southeast of Mexico City. Oaxaca state Civil Protection operations coordinator Luis Marin said 100 people were confirmed missing, but Oaxaca Gov. Ulises Ruiz told the Televisa television network 500 to 1,000 people could be buried.

At least 100 homes were buried, and residents who made it out have had no success in digging out their neighbors, said Donato Vargas, an official in Santa Maria de Tlahuitoltepec reached by a satellite telephone.

"We have been using a backhoe but there is a lot of mud. We can't even see the homes, we can't hear shouts, we can't hear anything," he said.

Bizarro Earth

Hundreds Feared Dead After Landslide Buries Mexico Town

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© European Press Agency A landslide in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, Mexico. Reports suggest up to 1,000 people may have died in the remote area of south-western Mexico
'We can't even see the homes,' survivor says; 8,000 people impacted, more slides feared

Hundreds of people were buried in their homes early Tuesday after a rain-soaked mountainside gave way in southwestern Mexico, officials said.

Donato Vargas, an official in Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec reached by phone, said 500 people were missing and that 300 homes were buried after the slide around 4 a.m. local time.

"We were all sleeping and all I heard was a loud noise and when I left the house I saw that the hill had fallen," Vargas said.

"It has been difficult informing authorities because the roads are very bad and there isn't a good signal for our phone," Vargas said shortly before the call dropped.

Reached by the news agency AFP, Vargas added that "we fear that those missing are buried inside their homes because we've already searched nearby areas."

Cloud Lightning

Colombian Officials Put Mudslide Death Toll at 30


Bogota - Colombian rescue officials say it will take at least a week to unearth about 30 people who were buried by a landslide as they changed from one bus to another because a mountain road was blocked.

Regional disaster agency chief John Freddy Rendon says he doesn't expect any survivors from Monday's landslide between the towns of Giraldo and Canasgordas northwest of Bogota.

Igloo

First Snowmen of the Season Spotted as Surprise Cold Snap Sweeps Across Britain

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© UnknownThe Scottish Cairngorm hills have seen their first Winter snow in September
Britain has received its first autumn snowfalls for the year as a surprise cold snap sent millions reaching for the central heating controls this weekend.

Summer made a particularly swift exit from the Highlands as the first sprinklings of snow paid an early visit to the north of Scotland.

The last time Britain saw a September cold snap as severe as this current one was in 2003, when much of northern England was below freezing.

Two Scottish weather stations recorded record lows: Tulloch Bridge recorded a temperature of -4.2°C, and Tyndrum -4.4°C - the coldest temperatures recorded since the two stations opened in 1982 and 1990 respectively.

For the people of the Cairngorms particularly, it was a wintry end to September.

Snow fell on the Scottish mountain range overnight, and hill-walkers had to wear their winter woolies and specialist equipment as they enjoyed blue, sun-filled skies with slippery conditions underfoot.

As usual it was the children who took best advantage with some of the earliest snowmen ever built on the Cairngorms.

Bizarro Earth

California Heat Wave Gives Downtown Los Angeles an All-Time Record High of 113 Degrees

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© AP Photo/Lori SheplerPeople escape the record heat and enjoy the beach in Huntington Beach, Calif., as a heat wave grips Southern California, Monday, Sept. 27, 2010.
California's blistering fall heat wave sent temperatures to an all-time record high of 113 degrees in downtown Los Angeles on Monday, and many sought refuge at the beach.

Downtown hit 113 degrees for a few minutes at about 12:15 p.m., breaking the old all-time record of 112 degrees set on June 26, 1990, said Stuart Seto, a weather specialist at the National Weather Service office in Oxnard. Temperature records for downtown date to 1877.

Electrical demand was much higher than normal for this time of year but no problems or shortages were expected on the state grid, said Gregg Fishman, spokesman for the California Independent System Operator, which controls about 80 percent of the grid.

"It's manageable. We've got the resources available," he said.