Fox News - Nuclear Egg edition

Media Matters appears to be the first to pick this up...

Below is a map of Japan that appeared in Fox News - "Your World With Neil Cavuto" from March 14th to be exact.


You will note with no little astonishment that Fox have discovered a nuclear reactor in central Tokyo, in the district called Shibuya, one of my favourite areas. It is called Shibuyaeggman on this map.

Shibuya Eggman is a music venue, celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. Their site, in its tribute to the victims of the quake now notes - in English - "Shibuya Eggman has no nuclear plant. Our electricity's powered only by music."

By the way, the Sendai represented in this map is not Sendai the city in northern Honshu that was badly hit by the quake. For a moment I thought that too was a mistake but it is not. It is Sendai Nuclear Power Plant (the two Sendai are written with different characters). Not a mistake per se, but... would it not have been more helpful to show the Sendai that was affected rather than the power station that was not?

Instant of destruction

The moment the earthquake struck the beautiful city of Christchurch on February 22nd and killed (probably) over 200 people.

God's Disasters

Never let it be said that a natural disaster can go unattributed to an act of revenge of that really loving, wonderful Christian God...

The website ''Christchurch Quake'' - registered in September to an address in Utah - claims the destruction was a result of ''lesbians running loose on the South Island as if they own the place'' and ''amoral'' behaviour.

Presumably these scum in Utah think they own it instead.

Among the victims of the earthquake thus far confirmed are two babies, 5 and 9 months old.

The major religious structures in the city were all critically damaged.... That's God's doing is it?

I have a picture of my kid standing in front of the main cathedral, when we visited Christchurch, because it was an impressive landmark.

16 to 22 people are understood to have died in this cathedral.

Text bites from Christchurch

New Zealand has announced a national state of emergency.

"Mayor Bob Parker and Prime Minister John Key said this morning at least 75 people were dead following yesterday's quake. They said 55 bodies had been identified and there were a further 20 unidentified bodies. Mr Parker said another 300 people were listed as missing, though not all of them would be trapped in buildings that were being searched for survivors."

"Searchers have flood-lit the CTV site and brought in a digger and more than 20 rescue staff to the still-smoking ruins. Police said more than 100 people may have been lost in the CTV building and the devastation is not survivable so they were concentrating on recovery rather than rescue."

"A mother died with her baby in her arms in Christchurch's shopping district during yesterday's earthquake. Passers-by went to her aid, but the woman was already dead. It was not clear how badly the baby was injured when mother and child were hit by falling debris."

"Rescuers have had to amputate limbs to free survivors from collapsed buildings after the quake, police said this morning."

"Hopes that a Victorian-born woman was about to be pulled from the rubble of a Christchurch building have been dashed this afternoon, with rescuers revealing the woman they have been in contact with is not Ann Voss. Ms Voss has been trapped under her desk in the four-level Pyne Gould building for 24 hours, and overnight spoke to numerous media outlets by mobile phone to detail the harrowing details of being buried alive before her battery died. Rescuers this morning believed that had made contact with the Christchurch resident, after finding a woman trapped beneath a desk who said her name was Anne. But police have told reporters at the scene today that the person trapped was another woman named Anne - not Ms Voss, a former Geelong resident.

Ms Voss earlier said she was convinced she would die in the darkness and called her children in Australia to say goodbye. Her son Robert, 31, who lives in Middle Park, left Melbourne Airport this morning bound for Christchurch. The news comes as Victoria prepares to send 100 police officers to quake-stricken Christchurch as part of a 300-strong Australian policing contingent."

Earthquake

Christchurch, New Zealand has been smashed by another earthquake. Although this one was weaker than the one 5 months ago at 6.3 as compared to 7.1, it was closer to the surface and the effects are far worse. At least 65 people have lost their lives.

This is just awful. Another tragedy in what feels like the year of natural disasters. I was in Christchurch January before last and was much enamoured of what a beautiful place it is.

Their Prime Minister, John Key, has said "We may be witnessing New Zealand's darkest day". His counterpart here, Julia Gillard, has affirmed that whatever our friends across the Tasman need from us... we will get it to them.

Pictures

Cyclone Baby

"Amid the chaos and devastation of Cyclone Yasi, a yet-to-be named baby girl has been born at a Cairns evacuation centre. Akiko Pruss went into labour at the evacuation centre at Redlynch State College at 2.45am Australian Eastern Standard Time. The baby girl was delivered healthy at 6.09am after a three-hour labour. Akiko and her German husband Christian, live in Cairns, and the baby will be their second child.... there were no scales equipment at the evacuation centre to weigh the newborn. English midwife Carol and her husband Andrew Weeks, who are celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary on holidays in Cairns, delivered the baby. Ms Pruss gave birth in the first aid room of the college and was supported by her mother, who had travelled from Japan to be with her."

- The Age

The most life-threatening storm in generations

As I'm write the front of potentially the most destructive cyclone in Australian history is sweeping in to make landfall between Cairns and Innisfail, Queensland. By mid this afternoon, it was too late to leave the area.

The Bureau of Metereology expects this to be "the most life-threatening storm in generations".

It will not be safe to be outdoors for the next 24 hours, and it is hitting now at high tide, in flood ravaged areas. A surge of 6.5 to 7.0 metres above the normal high tide is possible.

10,680 people are now in evac centres. About that many homes in Townsville are at risk of inundation from 12 metre waves.

I was in this part of the country, albiet briefly, about 5 months ago. It really is beautiful.

We'll see what the night brings.

Some years ago the former Queensland premier prayed for rain after a decade of drought. Now floods...

El Niño/La Niña-Southern Oscillation... happens in cycles, but appears to be getting worse. Alternating warming and cooling in the Pacific Ocean. El Niño in 1998 caused an estimated 16% of the world's reef systems to die.

Elsewhere... India is shivering through sub-zero temperatures, Brazil has the worst flooding in decades, and an epic winter storm is sweeping the central United States.
Where I am the heat is muggy. If I could spend all day in my jocks it'd be great. Summer didn't used to be like this...

What happened?
Dare we suspect... ?

Quoting a scientific paper:

"Observations show that the tropical El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variability, after removing both the long term trend and decadal change of the background climate, has been enhanced by as much as 60% during the past 50 years. This shift in ENSO amplitude can be related to mean state changes in global climate."

and from The Telegraph:

"Scientists say there is a likely climate change link to the current La Nina through higher sea surface temperatures. The world’s oceans and atmosphere have steadily warmed over recent decades and that warmth could be providing monsoons and storms with an extra kick.
A major global study in 2010, based on complex computer modelling, found that tropical cyclones will become stronger, with the intensity increasing between 2 and 11 percent by 2100.
And while in some regions, such as the western Pacific and around Australia, the average number of storms might decrease, the number of intense storms in the category 4 and 5 range will increase, along with wind speeds and the amount of rainfall. "

Don't tell me you can see Jesus in bread - but we're all just imagining all this...

I got sick of that during the fires.

Religious extremism in Australia

It exists. It is microscopic, almost without open political representation, and it is loathed. But it exists.

Danny Nalliah is an Australian Christian evangelical pastor, president of Catch the Fire Ministries, and a former candidate for the Family First Party.
He posted the following on the Catch the Fire Ministries website last Thursday, to enlarge on his idea that the floods in Queensland are God's punishment:

" As I was recently getting my hair cut, my barber said to me, “Danny, I cannot understand as to why a loving God is punishing people.” My barber is a Christian, but does not go to church. In fact I led him to the Lord a few months ago.
I promptly responded, “If my daughter or son tell me that they are leaving home because they don’t like all the rules and regulations, but I tell them that the rules and regulations are because we love them and want to protect them from getting into trouble. But if they still choose to go and I hear that they got into some trouble, would it be fair for them to blame me??” "

I see... you would drown your own children and destroy the lives of thousands for not following your weirdo ideas. Thanks, Danny, for clarifying that, you pathetic jerk.

By the way, a number of comments were deleted on his blog, and there was an interesting one allowed to stand: one praising Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church.

If you're an Australian reading this... the Westboro Baptist Church are the people who picket funerals in America, taunting the grieving families with slogans like "God hates fags", and they assert that Nazi Germany was run by Jewish homosexuals.

That is the level of astoundingly stupid that Danny thinks is quite all right, apparently.

Getting stuff done

This is why we can be proud to be Australians:

"As the floodwaters neared their peak yesterday, the people of Brisbane could have been forgiven for panicking. Fortunately, the opposite happened.
Rarely can an emergency mass movement of people have happened so swiftly and with so little fuss. People rolled up their sleeves and got to work...
Thousands sat on street corners until the early hours of yesterday morning, mingling with refugees from nearby suburbs and neighbours they had never met. They watched the sluggish brown tide slowly rise - eerie, a bit frightening, but not the end of the world...
Yesterday volunteers were hard at work - the organisation managing volunteering said 11,000 people had already officially registered for clean-up duties, but the actual figure would be far higher, because most people just turned up and set to the task. Often a person in a sandbagging chain would not know the name of the person next to them."

Queensland

Toowoomba
Warren McErlean sees a water gauge on a street rise 20 centimetres in 10 seconds on Monday afternoon. He attempts to save the Rice family...

Jordan Rice, 13 years old, insisted his brother Blake, aged 10, be rescued first. He and his mother Donna, 43, do not make it.

''I thought I would push it backwards but by the time I walked 20 metres, it [the water] was up on the bonnet and coming up the windscreen.''
Mr McErlean grabbed a rope, tied one end to a post, the other around his waist and set out to rescue the woman and two boys but the fast-moving water swept him downstream.
Another rescuer, known only as Chris, pulled Mr McErlean to safety before tying the rope to himself and approaching the car to grab Jordan.
But Jordan wanted his brother to go first so Chris took Blake, handing him to Mr McErlean part way across before heading back to the car.
''I had the boy in one hand, the rope in the other. I wasn't going to let go but then the torrent came through and was pulling us down,'' Mr McErlean said.
''Then this great big tall fellow just came out of nowhere, bear hugged us and ripped us out of the water.
''When I got back I turned to look at the guy [Chris]. He looked at me and we knew it was over. The rope snapped and the car just flipped.''
Chris, who had been holding Jordan's hand until it was torn from him, flew metres in the air before locking his legs around a post in the centre of the road, said Mr McErlean.
''The others were just gone, just disappeared,'' he said.

South East Queensland

Clive Palmer, one of Australia's richest men, uses his private helicopter to rescue 60 people from floodwaters in and around his horse stud farm. 80 horses drown in their field.

"This is all very sad and distressing but the welfare of our people must come first. They have been traumatised and it's vital that they are rehabilitated. There will be a cremation and burial for the horses," Mr Palmer said.

Grantham in the Lockyer Valley

"...in "lock down", with police and the coroner going from building to building looking for survivors."

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh says "This is a valley that has been completely and utterly devastated".

Prime Minister Julia Gillard is on the ground. Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd wades through water to help his constituents recover property.

15 confirmed dead
61 unaccounted for
4000 in evac centres
75% of Queensland is a natural disaster zone
120,000 homes and businesses without power

Deep Water

"I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, Of drought and flooding rains, I love her far horizons, I love her jewel sea, Her beauty and her terror - The wide brown land for me."

- Dorothea MacKellar 1906

Since when does Homeland Security work for BP?

Two weeks before the accident in the Gulf of Mexico, a BP refinery in Texas spewed an immense amount of toxic chemicals into the skies. BP says it did not percieve the scale of the emissions till weeks after.

Freelance photographer Lance Rosenfield was working on assignment when a BP security guard followed him. Rosenfield was later detained by police after taking photos. The police shared his personal information with the BP security guard on grounds of "Homeland Security". Then an FBI agent shows up...

The photographer's own disturbing version of events is here.

Those cats at BP...

Black Saturday a year ago today