Photo of the Day: Flooding in North Dakota

By Michael J.W. Stickings

This can't be good.

Photo from The Globe and Mail: "A home breaks apart as it is engulfed by Missouri River flood waters, Wednesday, June, 22, 2011 in the Hoge Island area of Bismarck, N.D."

For more on the flooding, and on this home in particular, see The Bismarck Tribune. The USGS also has useful information here.

This photo is making the rounds. See, for example, The Washington Post's report on the flooding here.

Photos of the Day: Tornado devastation in Joplin, Missouri

By Michael J.W. Stickings

From The Atlantic, images of some truly horrendous destruction, the deadliest tornado in the U.S. in at least the past 60 years. It's hard to know what to say.

When the Japanese nuclear disaster began

By Michael J.W. Stickings

There's some video currently making the rounds, released by Tokyo Electric Power Company, of the tsunami hitting Japan's Fukushima Daiichi power plant. Here's the ITN report:

CNN has more:

The video shows the giant wave generated by the historic March 11 earthquake crashing over the plant's seawall and engulfing the facility, with one sheet of spray rising higher than the buildings that house the plant's six reactors. Tokyo Electric Power, the plant's owner, told reporters the wall of water was likely 14 to 15 meters (45 to 48 feet) higher than normal sea levels -- easily overwhelming the plant's 5-meter seawall.

And of course it's not over yet.

Japan's new nuclear nightmare -- in progress

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As if the earthquake and tsunami weren't bad enough, Japan is facing a worsening situation with regard to its nuclear facilities damaged in last week's disaster. Here's the latest:

Japan's nuclear crisis verged toward catastrophe on Tuesday after an explosion damaged the vessel containing the nuclear core at one reactor and a fire at another spewed large amounts of radioactive material into the air, according to the statements of Japanese government and industry officials. In a brief address to the nation at 11 a.m. Tokyo time, Prime Minister Naoto Kan pleaded for calm, but warned that radiation had already spread from the crippled reactors and there was "a very high risk" of further leakage. Fortunately, the prevailing winds were sweeping most of the plume of radioactivity out into the Pacific Ocean, rather than over populated areas.

The sudden turn of events, after an explosion Monday at one reactor and then an early-morning explosion Tuesday at yet another — the third in four days at the plant — already made the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station the worst nuclear accident since the Chernobyl reactor disaster a quarter century ago. 

I don't really have anything to add. Like so many others, I'm just watching and reading about what's going on, trying to make sense of it all. There was some hope that pumping in sea water would keep the reactors cool, but it's not clear that will work, nor how much radiation has gotten out and will get out in the days ahead:

The critical two questions over the next day or so is how much radioactive material is spewed into the atmosphere, and where the winds carry it. Readings reported on Tuesday showed a spike of radioactivity around the plant that made the leakage categorically worse than in had been, with radiation levels measured at one point as high as 400 millisieverts an hour. Even 7 minutes of exposure at that level will reach the maximum annual dose that a worker at an American nuclear plant is allowed. And exposure for 75 minutes would likely lead to acute radiation sickness.

The extent of the public health risk depends on how long such elevated levels persist — they may have declined after the fire at No. 4 reactor was extinguished — as well as how far and fast the radioactive materials spread, and whether the limited evacuation plan announced by the government proves sufficient. 

We may not be witnessing another Chernobyl, a massive disaster at a facility without adequate safeguards, but it's still way too early to determine just how damaging this will be.

For more, see our recent posts by Distributorcap and Capt. Fogg.

* It's a nightmare, yes, but obviously not another Hiroshima or Nagasaki. That was a different degree of nuclear nightmare altogether.

The impact of the Great Earthquake of 2011

By Michael J.W. Stickings

This is fascinating, and not a little terrifying:

The powerful earthquake that unleashed a devastating tsunami Friday appears to have moved the main island of Japan by 8 feet (2.4 meters) and shifted the Earth on its axis.

"At this point, we know that one GPS station moved (8 feet), and we have seen a map from GSI (Geospatial Information Authority) in Japan showing the pattern of shift over a large area is consistent with about that much shift of the land mass," said Kenneth Hudnut, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

Reports from the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Italy estimated the 8.9-magnitude quake shifted the planet on its axis by nearly 4 inches (10 centimeters).

We are reminded that we inhabit this planet but do not own it, and that no matter how hard we try to control or even dominate nature, often at our peril (e.g., climate change resulting from global warming), we are easily overwhelmed. If nothing else, we should be humbled -- and humbled into a greater sense of responsibility -- by what has happened.

Images released by NASA show Japan's northeast coast before, left, and after flooding from the quake-induced tsunami.

Earthquake, tsunami lead to mass destruction in Japan

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The reports coming out of Japan today have been simply awful. (And we can expect more such events as a result of climate change.) Here's the NYT:

TOKYO — Rescuers struggled to reach survivors on Saturday morning as Japan reeled after an earthquake and tsunami struck in deadly tandem. An 8.9-magnitude earthquake, the strongest ever recorded in Japan, set off a devastating tsunami that sent walls of water washing over coastal cities in the north. Concerns mounted over possible radiation leaks from two nuclear plants near the earthquake zone.

The death toll was in the hundreds, but Japanese media quoted government officials as saying that it would almost certainly rise to more than 1,000. About 200 to 300 bodies were found along the water line in Sendai, a port city in the northeastern part of the country and the closest major city to the epicenter.

Thousands of homes were destroyed, many roads were impassible, trains and buses were not running and power and cellphones remained down in the region. Japanese officials on Saturday issued broad evacuation orders for people living in the vicinity of two separate nuclear power plants that had experienced breakdowns in their cooling systems as a result of the earthquake, and warned that small amounts of radiation could leak from both plants. 

It could have been much worse, but Japan was well-prepared for such an event:

While the loss of life and property may yet be considerable, many lives were certainly saved by Japan’s extensive disaster preparedness and strict construction codes. Japan's economy was spared a more devastating blow because the earthquake hit far from its industrial heartland. 

For more on Japan's building codes, see here:

Hidden inside the skeletons of high-rise towers, extra steel bracing, giant rubber pads and embedded hydraulic shock absorbers make modern Japanese buildings among the sturdiest in the world during a major earthquake. And all along the Japanese coast, tsunami warning signs, towering seawalls and well-marked escape routes offer some protection from walls of water.

These precautions, along with earthquake and tsunami drills that are routine for every Japanese citizen, show why Japan is the best-prepared country in the world for the twin disasters of earthquake and tsunami — practices that undoubtedly saved lives, though the final death toll is unknown.

Yes, that's what government can do.

For more on the situation with the two nuclear plants, see here:

Japanese officials issued broad evacuation orders on Saturday for people living near two nuclear power plants whose cooling systems broke down as a result of the earthquake. The officials warned that small amounts of radioactive material were likely to leak from the plants. 

For more on the disaster and its aftermath, see also the BBC, which has extensive coverage. Here's some video from Aljazeera:

And from Russia Today:

Top Ten Cloves: Things that can happen when Earth gets knocked off its axis

By J. Thomas Duffy 

News Item: Chilean quake shifted Earth's axis: NASA scientist 

10. Warren Buffett sneaks out his annual report, glossing over his boners 

9. Disgraced, election-losing, Jack Abramoff-toadie Ralph Reed starts thinking about running for Congress 

8. New York Times fawns over teabagger 

7. Harold Ford bails out of running for Senate (and someone thinks Larry "Kuddles" Kudlow should run) 

6. PlayStation 3 goes screwy 

5. Right-wing Freakshower Ann Althouse gives President Obama beer-drinking advice 

4. Jim Bunning hides in "Senator's Only" elevators and gives people the middle finger 

3. People start putting up "Miss Me Yet" billboards to honor The Commander Guy 

2. A certain new senator longs to wear his retro pink leather shorts 

1. Canada breaks out the Inflatable Beavers




(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)

Keith Olbermann on Limbaugh, Robertson, and Haiti

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I should have posted this the other day. It's brilliant.

And it reminds me how much I admire Olbermann. The man tells it like it is with extraordinary eloquence and conviction.

Mr. Robertson, Mr. Limbaugh, your lives are not worth those of the lowest, meanest, poorest of those victims still lying under that rubble in Haiti tonight. You serve no good, you serve no god, you inspire only stupidity and hatred...

(See my own takes on Limbaugh and Robertson. See also related posts by Carl, Capt. Fogg, and J. Thomas Duffy.)

Campbell Brown and the human face of the devastation in Haiti

By Michael J.W. Stickings

An 11-year old girl who was pulled alive from the rubble of her house in Haiti has died:

The girl -- one of scores trapped beneath buildings that collapsed in Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude quake -- was rushed to a first aid station Thursday evening where doctors told her family they were not equipped to deal with her injuries. Her right leg had been pinned by a large piece of metal for two days.

She died before her relatives could drive her to a more sophisticated hospital outside Port-au-Prince.

Her last words, her uncle said, were, "Mother, don't let me die." She was buried Friday in her mother's hometown, her uncle said.

There are obviously so many stories like this in Haiti, with the death toll in the tens and tens of thousands, but the immediacy and intimacy of a single story like this can, in a way, be so much more powerful, and so much more devastating, than the detachment of a report of such a massive death toll, which is so overwhelming, so horrific, as to be virtually incomprehensible. Speaking personally, while I was strongly affected by 9/11, what ultimately led me to break down on numerous occasions -- and one time in particular, alone in my apartment, listening to the head of Cantor Fitzgerald talk about what happened to his firm, which lost 658 employees on 9/11 -- were those more immediate and intimate stories. It's just easier, I think, to relate to, and feel touched by, the loss of a single human being, or to such personal stories generally, than to the loss of countless people in a tragedy like 9/11 or the Haiti earthquake. It's not that we shouldn't try to understand a tragedy in full, just that the more immediate and intimate stories help us do that more than just those big-picture stories. They help us put a face on the suffering.

Reporting on the loss of that 11-year old girl in Haiti, CNN's Campbell Brown expressed the sort of humanity we don't see nearly enough of on the news -- see the video below. She held herself together, but she showed some emotion, and very nearly broke down, and for that I commend her. I realize that those in the news need to put shields up, but sometimes it's nice when those shields come down so that they, and we, can understand, and communicate, what is happening with greater authenticity. No, we don't need them all turning into emotive Glenn Becks -- Beck, after all, is quite possibly insane -- but it's good and refreshing to see them acting like human beings now and then.

As C&L's Nicole Belle put it earlier today: "If only more talking heads in this country could move past their own limited binary thought of politics to recognize that there is no Left/Right, no Democratic/Rebublican paradigm to this story. There is only humanity and more importantly, human suffering, to which we, as fellow humans, are obligated to respond."

There are some notable and despicable exceptions, like Beck and Rush Limbaugh, but much of humanity is responding with admirable feeling, as well as with concrete support, to the suffering in Haiti.

The dark soul of Glenn Beck

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Just consider what Beck said about Obama and Haiti:

I also believe this is dividing the nation…to where the nation sees him react so rapidly on Haiti and yet he couldn't react rapidly on Afghanistan. He couldn't react rapidly on Ft. Hood. He couldn't react rapidly on our own airplanes with an underwear bomber... it doesn't make sense... Three different events and Haiti is the only one. I think personally that it deepens he divide to see him react this rapidly to Haiti.

This is ridiculous, of course. What was Obama supposed to do about Ft. Hood? The killer was apprehended. What was he supposed to do about the underwear bomber? The would-be killer was apprehended. Sure, he could have acted more quickly on Afghanistan, calling for the Iraq-like surge sooner than he did, but divisions over the Afghan War have more to do with the policy than with the timing -- and mostly he has faced criticism from the left.

The quick response to the catastrophe in Haiti is hardly dividing the country. Rather, the country seems to be fully behind the president and the rest of the massive international effort to provide aid and relief to a country desperately in need.

Beck's comments are not as noxious as Rush Limbaugh's, but he nonetheless seems to be saying that Obama shouldn't have responded so quickly, that is, that America should have been slow to address the humanitarian crisis -- and presumably should have let more people suffer and die.

Some conservatives -- such as Joe Scarborough, Pat Buchanan, and Bill O'Reilly -- have generally avoided trying to capitalize on tragedy by attacking Obama and trying to score partisan political points over the Haiti earthquake. The notable exceptions thus far are Limbaugh, Beck, Pat Robertson, and Steve King, the last of whom suggested that undocumented Haitians in the U.S. be deported home.

As Steve Benen puts it, this is "a race to the bottom" -- though the right-wing reservoir of odiousness seems bottomless.

If anything, I'd say the situation in Haiti is dividing not the country but conservatives -- with some of the most prominent conservatives around actually arguing that the U.S. should give Haitians the middle finger. They've embarrassed themselves, and their movement, and their party, and everything they believe in, but, thankfully, they aren't in a position to dictate policy, or to stand in the way of Obama doing what's right and necessary.

The darkness of some people's souls, if they have souls at all, never fails to boggle the mind.

Images of extraordinary suffering in Haiti

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Some conservatives, like Rush Limbaugh, just don't give a shit, preferring to expose their blatant racism, their callous cynicism, their bitter partisanship, at a time of extraordinary suffering in Haiti, at a time when the world should instead be pulling together to help, as much of it is (including this country).

Here are a few photos from The Globe and Mail. The first, it seems to me, is the human face of the tragedy in Haiti. The second... that's a girl who died when her school in Port-au-Prince collapsed. The third... well, that's just a tiny glimpse at the death toll from the earthquake, which the Red Cross now estimates at about 50,000.

The situation in Haiti is now being described as catastrophic.

Candidate for worst human being in the world: Rush Limbaugh

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So incensed am I, I'll let Think Progress explain what happened:

[On Wednesday], hate radio host Rush Limbaugh attempted to attack President Obama for responding to the devastation in Haiti. "This will play right into Obama's hands -- humanitarian, compassionate," Limbaugh argued. "They'll use this to burnish their, shall we say, credibility with the black community — the both the light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country. It's made to order for them."

Dear Leader Rush also said the U.S. shouldn't support Haiti, or send any humanitarian relief:

We've already donated to Haiti. It's called the U.S. income tax.

Yes, he's anti-Obama, but he's also deeply racist. Do you really think he would have said the same things had such a natural disaster befallen a predominantly white country?

Steve Benen is right:

While the remarks have generated some criticism, including some pushback from the White House, no one seems especially surprised by Limbaugh's callousness. Limbaugh spews bile on a daily basis, and is richly rewarded. This is just who he is.

But Kevin Drum asked the same question I always ponder every time the right-wing, drug-addled radio host crosses the decency line: "I wonder what it takes to get the conservative movement to disown this guy?"

I wonder the same thing, but it simply never happens. On the other side of the ideological divide, when a Democratic lawmaker works with MoveOn.org or appears at Netroots Nation, there's ample criticism from the right about Dems associating with "liberal extremists."

And yet, no matter how loathsome a figure Limbaugh becomes, top Republican officials not only reach out to the right-wing talk-show host, but effectively treat him as the de facto head of their political party. Indeed, in the rare instances in which a Republican actually offers subtle disapproval of Limbaugh, they invariably apologize to him and kiss his proverbial ring.

The GOP effectively lets Rush Limbaugh call the shots, and when he says disgusting things, Republicans don't dare disagree with their boss.

And so Rush gets away with being... what?... what's the right word for him? Let's just say that, like Pat Robertson, on whom we focused yesterday, he's a leading candidate for Worst Human Being in the World.

He was that already, of course, but he significantly bolstered his candidacy with these comments. Even some conservatives pushed back:

-- Joe Scarborough: "The insensitivity is stunning, the words are deplorable... [It's] indefensible."

-- Pat Buchanan: "They're deeply insensitive, no doubt about it. I think the President of the U.S. speaks for the country when he stands up there... I think Rush's comments were cynical."

No, they were far worse than cynical, but they did, once more, expose Rush -- along with his supporters and admirers, and what he stands for -- in all his naked inhumanity.

Candidate for worst human being in the world: Pat Robertson

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Maybe this should be a new ongoing series here at The Reaction. We'll see.

For my initial post on the disaster in Haiti, see here. For J. Thomas Duffy's post on Robertson and Haiti, see here.)

**********

No natural disaster is complete without some insane Christian fundamentalist coming out and saying something unfathomably insane.

(Although, come to think of it, it's all quite fathomable when this happens, given that it happens all the time.)

I've called Pat Robertson a number of things before, including "dangerous idiot" here, here, and here, but I just can't think of the appropriate word or words to use in response to what he said today on his show The 700 Club about the earthquake in Haiti:

The Rev. Pat Robertson, on his CBN broadcast today, offered his own explanation of the earthquake in Haiti:

"Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it," he said. "They were under the heel of the French... and they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, 'We will serve you if you'll get us free from the French.'

"True story. And the devil said, 'OK, it's a deal,'" Robertson said. "Ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after another."

That's right, Robertson said that the earthquake happened because the Haitians are "cursed" as a result of a long-ago pact with the devil to free themselves from French oppression.

Insane? You betcha, even by the extreme standards of fundamentalist Christianity, even by the standards of Robertson's own insanity, which would seem to include admiration of French (i.e., white European) tyranny and a desire for non-white peoples to be subjected to such godly bondage.

Now, Robertson also said that "right now we're helping the suffering people and the suffering is unimaginable," which is fine, but also, rather disturbingly, that "we need to pray for them a great turning to God and out of this tragedy I'm optimistic something good may come."

Sure, over 100,000 people are dead, sure, the country lies in ruins, sure, it's a humanitarian catastrophe, but if those "cursed" Haitians turn to Jesus and accept the Christian yoke, then, hey, it was all for the best, right?

You know what? Fuck you, Pat Robertson, you fucking piece of shit.

You're one of the worst human beings in the world, a shameful embarrassment to humanity, to America, even to Christianity. You're a disgusting, despicable man with disgusting, despicable beliefs.

And you, dear reader, if you believe this nonsense, you're fucking insane as well.

**********

If you want to watch Robertson in action, here's the clip:

Pat Robertson goes all Angel Heart on Haiti

By J. Thomas Duffy

Quite the awful, terrible, horrific disaster going on in Haiti.

Good thing The Commander Guy is out-of-office, otherwise there'd probably be a massive airlift bringing the Haitians to the New Orleans Convention Center so they could wait for some help.

And we come to expect things.

Like chest-thumping network news anchors "dropping in" to do live stand-ups of repeating their bleatings over-and-over, punctuated by "that's absolutely correct." Brian Williams and the NBC Survivor Team all were throwing around the word "absolutely" so much, I half expected to find out they were sponsored by the vodka company.

Another expectation is for former Republican candidate for president, and raving lunatic, Pat Robertson, to go off the rails and start spouting the events of the alternate universe playing inside his head.



Take it away Pat, courtesy of Think Progress:

Today on his 700 Club television show, Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson highlighted the tragedy and said that his network will be there “to help the people.” However, he then tried to offer an explanation for the earthquake, blaming Haiti’s own people for once making a “pact to the devil”:

ROBERTSON: [S]omething happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. Napoleon the Third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, “We will serve you if you get us free from the prince.” True story. And so the devil said, “OK, it’s a deal.” They kicked the French out, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free.

But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other, desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It’s cut down the middle, on the one side is Haiti, on the other side is the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island.

They need to have, and we need to pray for them, a great turning to God. And out of this tragedy I’m optimistic something good may come. But right now, we’re helping the suffering people and the suffering is unimaginable.

(GottaLaff, over at The Political Carnival, has the video.)

Now, you think he would have been happy with just the earthquake.

He's been wishing earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes, mixing in trying to hire assassins, calling on God to "smite" this one or that one, on so many people who have different points of view than his, that when one comes along, he could have just left it with an "I told you so."

Ahhh, but that "Louis Cyphre," he's a tricky fellow.

I think something else was going on here.

This is what must have happened:

Netflix screwed up and sent Robertson Angel Heart, rather than Angels With Dirty Faces , and once the scene with Epiphany Proudfoot, played by the steamy, sultry Lisa Bonet, came to the "racy nude and sex scenes," well, Robertson got all hopped up and happy-in-the-pants, and went to bed thinking, actually, dreaming, hoping, that he was Johnny Favorite.



Naturally, he woke up, how should we say, at attention, popped in the DVD for another view of his beloved Epiphany Proudfoot just before showtime and, Ta-Da, he pays his dues by giving old Louis Cyphre his star turn.

If not, get this man on lots, and lots, of Seroquel.


Bonus Pat Robertson Loony Tunes

Wonkette: Pat Robertson Does Usual Pat Robertson Thing Following Natural Disaster

Juan Cole: Pat Robertson's Racist Blaming of Haitian Victims; and the Televangelist Misuse of History

John Cook: Thousands Dying Because Haitian Slaves 'Swore a Pact with the Devil' for Their Freedom

Steve M: THE COMPANY REPUBLICAN OFFICEHOLDERS KEEP

Amanda Terkel: Shep Smith hits Robertson’s ‘devil’ comments: The people of Haiti ‘don’t need that’ at a time like this


Bonus Bonus

Breaking News! Robertson Held For Questioning In Falwell Death ... Threats Against Chavez, Sharon Make 700 Club Founder 'Person of Interest'

Robertson May Have, Inadvertently, Caused Hajj Stampede Deaths ...Was Working On New Material For Bush Video Blitz, Testing New Curses and Condemnations

White House Meets With Robertson; Plan Video Blitz ...Controversial Minister To Produce Al Qaeda-type Videos, Promising Death and Destruction, To Counter Bin Laden's




(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)

Over 100,000 dead in Haiti earthquake

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(Updated with images and video.)

It is being reported that over 100,000 people have died as a result of yesterday's massive 7.0-magnitude earthquake in Haiti:

The capital, Port-au-Prince, "is flattened," said Haiti's consul general to the U.N., Felix Augustin, who said he believed more than 100,000 people were dead. Hospitals are gone, and medical supplies and heavy equipment are desperately needed, he said.

The country's prime minister said the death toll could be in the hundreds of thousands.

"I hope that is not true, because I hope the people had the time to get out," Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told CNN.

President Rene Preval said he heard reports of death tolls ranging from 30,000 to 100,000 -- but he said the true toll is not yet known.

What more can one say? It's a catastrophe of such enormity that it's hard even to process what happened. I can only hope that aid and support are getting to the right places and that everything possible is being done to help the Haitian people.

**********

Michaelle Jean, Canada's governor general (our head of state), is a native Haitian, and she spoke today about the devastation:

Jean directly addressed Haitians in Creole, urging them to have "courage" as her voice broke.

In Creole, she explained later that she said "men and women of Haiti, we shall not lose hope. We are known for our strength and resilience and we need to stand courageously before this challenge that is affecting us again."

An aide handed her a tissue as Jean read out her statements in English and French, and spoke of the "the long terrible night, that long day yesterday and that long day today."

"We know that every hour and every day can make a difference between life and death."

Asked if she'd heard from members of her own family, the governor general said she was able to get word that an uncle is safe, but was still unsure of news of other loved ones, but quickly added that "it's not about me today."

"I am only one of many" Haitians worried about their loved ones, she said.

I found her comments deeply moving. (You can see her make them here. She said "it's as if an atomic bomb has fallen over Port-au-Prince," the country's capital city.)

Let me post the clip here:

**********

It bothers me that our (or, rather, our news media's) primary focus -- as reflected in what is reported first -- is on Canadians who have died or otherwise been affected in Haiti. (And this is no doubt the same in other countries, where nationals of those countries are given primacy over the Haitians.)

I understand why this is, and I do not want to make light of Canadian casualties or to disregard the suffering of the friends and families of those Canadians casualties (an Ontario nurse, Yvonne Martin, was the first confirmed Canadian death in Haiti), and Canadians are understandably concerned about and interested in the impact of the earthquake specifically on Canada and Canadians, but the unfortunate implication is that Canadians are more important than Haitians, that a single Canadian death deserves greater attention, is sadder, and is more tragic than the deaths of countless Haitians.

This is to take nothing away from what Canada is doing. Like other countries around the world, Canada has already committed a great deal of support for disaster relief in Haiti. And I certainly do not mean to suggest that Canadians are insensitive to the suffering of the Haitian people. I just find the focus on Canadians -- and the similar focus of other countries on their own nationals -- distasteful, disrespectful, and, at a time like this, rather disgusting.

In contrast, Governor General Jean's statement, which addressed the Haitian people and the enormity of the suffering in human, as opposed to national, terms, was not just moving but the right response, in terms of both tone and content, to a tragedy of this magnitude.

**********

The BBC has images of the devastation -- and of the very human side of it -- here and here. Canada's Globe and Mail has a lot more here. 

Here are two images from the Globe. The first is Petionville, a neighbourhood in Port-au-Prince. The second is the presidential place in Port-au-Prince.

 

A lesson in populism

By Carl

Or why people are idiots:

California’s wildfires are not only burning trees – they’re burning state cash, and setting off a cascade of other problems in the state. Already, as the fires appeared to have spread in the past 24 hours, they have delayed a ballot count in two special elections.

Let's focus on the "cash" aspect. California has had major budget woes this year already, mostly due to the facts with respect to the overall poor economy, as well as the plummet in property values.

But...

If California had been allowed under state law to have its taxes, particularly its property taxes, indexed over the past twenty to thirty years, this crisis would have been far more manageable.

You might recall, if you are of a certain age, an asshole named Howard Jarvis. Jarvis is the asshat credited with "Proposition 13," a particularly moronic piece of "citizen activism" that forced California to freeze its property tax rates at 1% (One. Percent.) of the assessed value of the property. This created an immediate average property tax cut of 57% statewide, and a blooming deficit in couty and municipal coffers for eternity, ad nauseum.

This is why, for instance, Los Angeles among many other cities and towns, is under constant threat of default, dragging California as a whole down that path a few times already.

In a juxtaposition of irony, Californians have been hurt by Prop 13 in a booming housing market as it creates a disincentive to sell (the property taxed is indexed to the resale value, not the assessed value), while also creating a desperate housing market in an era of "buy as many homes as you want".

Hmmmm...

And now, those same homes that have been coddled by Prop 13 are burning up faster than you can turn around to look, as Prop 13 tended to benefit more those older, more established areas close into downtown urban areas, like Los Angeles.

Of course, most of the people who approved Prop 13 don't live anywhere near the fire zone, so what do they care, right?

Well, see, the trouble with that logic is, the cash drain that's going to cause this enormous budget gap won't only affect LA. It will affect infrastructure repair. It will affect flood prevention and rescue (another of California's season: mud). It will affect hospitals and firefighters and police forces.

And more important, it will cut into the state's water reserves, already down to between three and six months supply. A three year long drought will do that.

Now, if there's an earthquake up near San Francisco, up in the Central Valley, and the levees break, allowing sea water into the water supplies for both Frisco and LA, it's ballgame over, and there will be a mass exodus from California, south to San Diego.

And where will your property tax freeze help there, smartypants?

Of course, no one could have forseen fire and drought in a desert, could they?

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

While the US burns

By Carl

As California begins the wildfire season both early and in earnest, the question has to be asked, why so many so big?

National Geographic magazine's latest issue attempts to answer this question:

In 2006, wildfires burned 15,000 square miles across the country, a record nearly matched last year. Two-thirds of the burned acreage was in the West. One obvious cause is a decade of drought and warmer temperatures. Mountain snow melts earlier, and winter storms arrive later, extending the fire season in some regions by several weeks. Vast tracts of drought-weakened forest have succumbed to insects and disease, turning trees to tinder. In response, we have bolstered our fighter ranks, padded them with private contractors, provided them more hoses and axes and trucks. Annual federal spending on firefighting has leaped from $1 billion when the recent drought began in 1998 to more than $3 billion last year, with even greater costs forecast for the future. But the drought is only one part of the burn equation.

"The more money we spend, the worse it gets," one fire scientist told me last summer. "If that's not a condemnation of our fire policies, I don't know what is."

Indeed.

One answer is, of course, the short-sighted fire management policies of the past, which demanded that each fire be put out as it occurs and that the best way to do this was to throw money and manpower at it.

In some areas, government policies work best on large problems. In others clearly not so well, and this is one of those times when panicked policies designed to serve the desires of developers and settlers, people with an economic interest in natural resources, were foolish and flawed.

Another answer is, naturally, global warming, yet another instance of Bad Big Government in the form of protectionist policies for economic development. A balanced approach to shepherding and managing our natural resources.

It costs roughly $200,000 a day to fight even a small fire, so that adds up to millions even assuming a quick battle of less than a week. Multiply that by 1,400 fires, and you're talking about hundredss of millions a week, even billions and that's starting to rival the Iraq war for inefficiencies.

Now add to this the cost of protecting other "investments" made with private funds, and you begin to grasp the costs of greed, and for what?

So someone else can have a nice view out their window in the morning?

A new beginning must be undertaken to straighten out the priorities of this nation, one that doesn't exclusively accept that "money = good."

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

New study predicts fewer but more intense hurricanes as a result of global warming

By Michael J.W. Stickings

In the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita a couple of years ago, there was a good deal of discussion about the relationship between global warming and hurricanes (and other such major natural phenomena). As I put it in a link-filled post at the time: Were these larger, more powerful hurricanes related to climate change, or not? Put another way, has global warming directly caused these larger, more powerful hurricanes?

While there is general consensus among scientists on the reality and causes of global warming, there has been disagreement over particulars, including the hurricane issue: How will global warming affect the frequency and intensity of hurricanes? The research I've come across -- and, admittedly, I'm hardly an expert on the matter -- suggests that hurricanes will be more intense overall but that they would not be more frequent. (For more on this, click on the link in the first paragraph, above.)

A new study backs this up:

Hurricanes and tropical storms will become less frequent by the end of the century as a result of climate change, US researchers have suggested.

But the scientists added their data also showed that there would be a "modest increase" in the intensity of these extreme weather events.

The findings are at odds with some other studies, which forecast a greater number of hurricanes in a warmer world.

The study was conducted by researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL). "The model is simulating increased intensity of the hurricanes that do occur, and also increased rainfall rates," said Dr. Tom Knutson, the study's lead author. However, "[w]e do not regard this study as the last word on this topic."

It would seem to make sense, given rising sea-surface temperatures, that hurricanes would get more intense overall as a result of global warming, but the "reduction in hurricane frequency in the Atlantic" predicted by the GFDL (using a new model that "simulate[s] the fundamental fluid dynamics and thermodynamics that control hurricane genesis in the Atlantic in a numerical model to a very high resolution") seems to be a curious finding.

Regardless, whatever the frequency of hurricanes going forward, what seems to be more clear now is that they will be getting more intense. In other words, there will be more Katrinas and Ritas as global temperatures rise.

All the more reason -- not that there is not already reason enough -- to confront in a meaningful and sustainable way the most pressing crisis of our time, one that threatens everyone everywhere, not just the inhabitants of New Orleans.

Life and death and Burmese totalitarianism

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The latest -- from The Globe & Mail:

Isolated from the outside world by a military regime ruthlessly determined to control the flow of international aid, and battered again by torrential downpours, the stranded victims of [Burma]'s cyclone disaster are succumbing to hunger, disease and despair.

Two weeks after a cyclone ravaged [Burma]'s low-lying Irrawaddy delta region, killing tens of thousands, international aid is merely trickling into the disaster zone. Planeloads of aid have arrived in the largest city of Rangoon, but the regime has banned foreign relief workers from distributing the shipments, leaving the job to teams of inexperienced local volunteers and the military.

This lacklustre effort has utterly failed to relieve the suffering of hundreds of thousands of increasingly weak survivors, many of them children.

The totalitarians have "increased the official death toll to almost 78,000, with another 56,000 missing," but U.N. and other, less Orwellian estimates put it at 200,000, with 2.5 million people in total affected by the cyclone.

While the totalitarians continue to lie and to brutalize and to deprive the Burmese people of essential aid, the suffering -- on a staggering scale -- continues.

(For my previous posts on the horrific situation in Burma, see here and here.)

Death to the people, power to the junta

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Cyclone Nargis devastated Burma, but, for the totalitarians, the brutalization continues, with the military blocking foreign aid and relief workers from entering the country and reaching the areas hit by the storm, stealing food, and otherwise doing little (and nothing) to help the estimated 2.5 million people affected by the storm (with another one on the way).

Oh, and did you know that, with all this going on, they held a referendum on Saturday?

No joke.

Here's the Breaking News:

A new constitution proposed by Burma's military government has been overwhelmingly approved in a referendum, state media say.

Some 92.4% voted yes to the changes in a vote on Saturday.

The referendum was held in two-thirds of the country, but was postponed for two weeks in areas hit by the cyclone.

The constitution enshrines the junta's hold on power and excludes the main opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, from office.

Yes, that's right, the totalitarians forced through a new constitution that effectively cements their hold on power -- and they did so through a sham of a referendum that was held as the country was dealing with the aftermath of a horrible natural disaster that may have killed as many as 128,000 people (Red Cross estimate) and that wasn't held in one-third of the country.

And it's a constitution that was drafted by the totalitarians themselves (and that has been sharply criticized around the world).

No wonder it received 92.4% of the vote. I'm sure the referendum was as "democratic" as any of the votes in the "democratic" Soviet Bloc satellites of Eastern Europe during the Cold War.

Vote Yes... or else.