In the past 24 hours – well, 12, really, there have been two MAJOR earthquakes in the world. A 7.8 in Pakistan that has killed upwards of 325 people and displaced thousands more and a 7.0 quake off the south coast of Peru. The Peru quake was felt in Lima, 500km away and has trapped copper miners. At least one rumour has it that the quake has caused a piece of coastline to become an instant island but I can’t find verification.
Typhoon Usagi has left the building. By that I mean that even though at least 25 people lost their lives, more than 3.5 million more have either lost homes, businesses, property or access to food or clean water, the reporters have all gone home and no one is telling us how the Chinese are coping. Or how we can help.
Life, apparently, goes on.
The day Usagi came under our radar I was poised to publish this cartoon, gleaned from my FB newsfeed. It will probably offend some of you (and I apologize for that) but I thought it sent the best -ever message to greedy retailers who are hell-bent on squeezing every last penny out of our wallets before closing shop on Christmas Eve.
Go ahead. Tell me you aren’t tempted to get the Nativity scene out in time for Halloween.
Christmas trees in the stores on 01 September? Really people? Will we be buying Easter Egg kits on New Years Eve as well? Can we merge St. Patrick’s Day with St. Valentine’;s Day too?
“Bottom line: Super Typhoon Usagi is the the strongest cyclone so far in 2013. It is expected to weaken and impact parts of southeast China, in particular Hong Kong, by Sunday, September 22. Usagi could potentially slam Hong Kong with heavy rain, flash flooding, and strong winds.”
If anyone has updates please leave links in comments – thanks,
Typhoon Usagi hits Taiwan – powerlines cut, flash flooding and landslides – over 3000 people already evacuated and this:
“The typhoon also left 45,000 homes powerless and more than 5000 households without water, it said. Pictures showed overturned vehicles, fallen branches and rivers of muddy water flooding the streets.
A total of 77 domestic and five international flights were cancelled and ferry services suspended, with schools and offices in many parts of Taiwan closed, especially in the south and east, authorities said.
The defence ministry deployed more than 3000 soldiers to ‘high-risk’ areas and placed 24,000 others on standby.”
The storm was downgraded from a super typhoon on Saturday – with its sustained winds falling below 241 kilometres per hour – as it passed through the Luzon Strait separating the Philippines and Taiwan, likely sparing residents in both places from the most destructive winds near its eye.
In the Philippines, Usagi left at least two people dead and two others missing, while in Taiwan nine people were hurt by falling trees on Kinmen island off China’s coast.
The typhoon landed near the city of Shanwei in the Chinese province of Guangdong, about 140 kilometres northeast of Hong Kong, and was moving west-northwest at 22 km/h, the Hong Kong Observatory said. It was expected to skirt about 100 kilometres north of Hong Kong overnight.
Hundreds of residents were taken to temporary shelters, commerce came to a grinding halt and airlines cancelled flights for a period of at least 24 hours.
But thankfully Hong Kong was spared literally at the last minute.
While I was wrapping up the bits and pieces of this post, many one-liners popped into my head. And I thought – hey maybe some other people would like to have some of these and then the dam burst and all these Twitter Stickers came flooding out of my brain…
As always, feel free to repost, share, add to emails, Facebook or Twitter or print them out on cheap paper big enough to line the kitty litter tray – but by all means pick the ones that say it best for you and display them to your heart’s content. In fact, if your software supports a psp image (*.psp), drop me a note in comments and I’ll send you the template so you can write your own 🙂
A US police officer was charged with voluntary manslaughter after shooting a man who ran towards police for help after being involved in a car accident.
The victim, Jonathan A. Ferrell, 24, played football for Florida A&M University in 2009-10, school officials said Sunday.
Ferrell was seeking help at a nearby house early on Saturday after driving a vehicle that crashed into trees in northeast Charlotte, according to Charlotte-Mecklenburg police. A woman answered the door and, when she didn’t recognise the man, called the police emergency dispatcher.
Officers responding to the breaking-and-entering call found Ferrell a short distance from the home, police said. As they approached him, Ferrell ran toward the officers and was hit with a Taser. Police said he continued to run toward them when officer Randall Kerrick fired his gun, hitting Ferrell several times. Ferrell died at the scene.
Police called Ferrell and Kerrick’s initial encounter ”appropriate and lawful.” But in a statement late Saturday, they said “the investigation showed that the subsequent shooting of Mr. Ferrell was excessive” and “Kerrick did not have a lawful right to discharge his weapon during this encounter.”
Police said Kerrick was charged with voluntary manslaughter, which under North Carolina law involves killing without malice using “excessive force” in exercising “imperfect self-defence.”
This story is in the BBC news, the Daily Mail (UK), Buzzfeed and (of all places) Fox Sports. And although I subscribe to many major online US newspapers, not one has featured this story in an email alert or front page headlines. I suspect gun-related deaths in the US have become so frequent that only multiple shootings are getting air time and front page press.
And (annoyingly enough) In none of the posted stories have I found the date this actully took place – although I’m sure it must be a recent event. I miss the days when journalists opened their reports with the date of the event, the place of the event and the names of the main persons involved. These days it can be a treasure hunt just to find the date and time of the post one is reading.
But I digress. Jonathon was shot 10 times while trying to get help after emerging from a car accident and walking over a half mile. His body was in shock. He was mentally and emotionally disoriented and probably scared. But because he was also big, black and male his physical movements were perceived as dangerous.Shoot first and ask questions later. This is the way of the future? Really?
Shame on you,
*UPDATE KerryAnn commented:
It happened this last weekend. I was at the court house yesterday and there were reporters/camera crews from the local affiliates (cbs and fox) and I also saw a CNN truck there. Here’s the local newspaper:
The linked story is complete with video. For me, this is an eye-opening, heart-breaking tale of a police officer who never should have been issued a gun.
While my Facebook friends are taking close-ups and comparing the sizes of the hailstones yielded by the nest of storms hitting Queensland and New South Wales at the moment, more than 500,000 people were rendered homeless by the storm and floods in Japan. Part of the story is here.
Speculation about the ramifications of parts of Western Japan sharing flood waters with land already irradiated by Fukushima is sneaking into conversations.
I haven’t done more than read two small blurbs yet – but couldn’t wait to post this!
There’s evidently an app – a free game (called “The Scarecrow”) built around a quest for wholesome food. Company is Chipotle, a growing Mexican fast food chain that believes in serving real food – not the pesticide-ridden or genetically modified crap that’s being shoved down all our throats whether we like it or not.
My favourite line is the last: Chipotle has high hopes that The Scarecrow will officially cement its status as a fast food chain with a brain.
===
Ok here’s the game:
Join Chipotle and the Scarecrow on a journey to bring real food back to the people. Play the game, watch the animated short film, and find out how to take action.
Every one of these people gave their permission on camera to be filmed. They are proud of their answers. They are proud of their cause. They all share a common ground in their search for the truth in that each person interviewed claims to follow ONLY Glenn Beck, The Blaze, Fox News and are proud to announce they NEVER watch any other news sources.
I refuse to plug their website but if you need to find it – just Google the website name they drop in the clip.
These proud and furious rebels are still mimicking the Benghazi cover-up story – that the president never showed his birth certificate story – so that means he’s not an American story – that he belongs to a secret Islamic Brotherhood story- the he’s to blame for the IRS Scandal story – the list goes unfortunately on.
And this part always get me… as hard as these people are working to impeach Obama (and I suspect standing on a freeway overpass in the full sun in September isn’t easy) only one person could actually name a Republican they would choose to take the president’s place.
The fact that none of these folks can give you an alternative to Obama or the issues of the day just reinforces the suspicion that they are being manipulated. The “Hate Obama” mantra they spout is not their opinion. It belongs to whomever it is spoon-feeding it to them.
Also too and – you should know this is all part of the MASSIVE Impeach Obama Rally meant to stretch from sea to shining sea. Hell it doesn’t 4even stretch across this one overpass.
This Saturday Australia holds a federal election. Kevin Rudd is holding and running for the office of Prime Minister – which is like President, only different.
This is a clip I just caught up with and while I wasn’t really keen on putting him back in office (he was there before – long story LOL) he has just completely won me over. In fact I’ve watched this now at least 5 times – it’s that satisfying to watch an intellectual put a bible-thumping illiterate in his place.
THIS is my definition of a good Christian – watch:
*Update*
When I posted this video the youtube views were just around 250k. Yesterday it was picked up by Upworthy. They posted it online, to their email list and on Facebook. The number of youtube views jumped to 860k
Just now I noticed the Ellen DeGeneres FB page has re-posted this video with kind words about how good it is to be watching this happen. I have high hopes for this video going viral.
Fingers crossed 🙂
*OOPS! There was more than one clip – I’ve changed my link tuo match the one posted by Upworthy and Ellen so we can track the viewer growth. The link I originally used, btw, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdU3ooAZSH8) had grown but only from 250k to 360k. That’s still amazing though – with any luck at all this will start appearing on US television. Well, not FOX probably LOL
Update x2
5:30pm (5th) Views up to 1,2mil !!!
Update x3
5:30am (6th) Views up to 1.8mil (up to 400k on secondary link)
Update x4
1pm (6th) Views up to 2.1mil (up to 412k on secondary link)
Update x5:
Election Final (7th) views up to 2,7mil.
Mr. Rudd didn’t win the election but major elections are a bit different here in Oz than in the US and the party he was representing was not expected to win in the first place, so there’s that. Plus, Rupert Murdoch has been pulling strings behind the scenes with his ownership of Australian Media outlets and a fair portion of the general coverage has been biased against the Labor party.
That said, this particular video clip has gone to almost two and a quarter million views in less than a week’s time and I am hoping that the more it’s viewed, the more people will remember it when confronted by someone charging If you’re a Christian you have to be against the gays. Because no, you really don;t – and here’s a Christian who will explain this to you.
Someone posted the transcript of Alan Alda’s (Hawkeye) very famous speech as a doctor in a war zone refusing to carry a gun. It was perhaps one of the most poignant of all the poignant speeches in the series and lord knows there were many, many, many poignant statements made on the show exposing war for what it truly is: Messy, lethal and wrong.
It made me think to go on youtube and look for an actual clip to post here. We all love a good video clip, right? And, well, an excuse to post one with Alan Alda is just too good to pass up 🙂
Imagine my surprise when – having found exactly what I was looking for in a seemingly never-ending list of MASH clips, this is what displayed when I clicked on the clip:
(Click images to enlarge)
I was immediately directed to the next clip on the list. It played just fine. So did the one above it and the one above that and the one – well more than a dozen of them all played – just fine. Are they not also under FOX copyright? Head-scratcher, huh?
Hardly.
When FOX was known as 20th Century FOX and produced this series – which was an anti-war, anti-violence novel turned movie turned television series, it’s entire purpose was to demonstrate the insanity of war. And the use of comedy to portray that insanity was pure genius. So what gives? Are today’s FOX producers attempting to re-write the show? Are they that afraid of the Ted Nugents of the world? Or are they getting that much money from the NRA?
I went back to Facebook and retrieved the post featuring the written transcript, just in case you’re too young to remember – or have lived so long you’ve forgotten 🙂
It was on one of my favourite FB pages who call themselves The Other 98%
Thanks Hawkeye for reminding us we can stand up to gun pushers and warmongers, that comedy doesn’t make us weak and history cannot be rewritten on a TV producer’s whim just because the likes of Roger Ailes doesn’t like the original version.
Oz Mudflats 
