Metors and earthquakes and wars, oh my

[Skins24]

This one's for you Jags.

http://www.local6.com/orlpn/news/stories/news-206794820030327-080357.html

Meteor Chunks Damage Homes, Light Up Night Sky

Posted: 9:37 a.m. EST March 27, 2003

Updated: 9:42 a.m. EST March 27, 2003

PARK FOREST, Ill. -- A freelance photographer shooting a fire in south suburban Park Forest captured a bright flash of light that "turned midnight to noon" for several seconds, and police said it appeared it was the breaking up of a meteorite.

Huge chunks of rock-like objects (pictured, [below] ) from the suspected meteorite damaged the roofs of two homes, but nobody was injured.

Park Forest Police Captain Francis DioGuardi said a large chunk also landed on a residential street and broke apart, slightly damaging the siding of another home.

People in several states throughout the Midwest reported seeing a bright flash of light in the sky last night. The lights were seen in Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio.

The National Weather Service agreed that the flash of light was caused by either a meteorite or piece of space debris.

____

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/03/26/state1636EST7193.DTL

Experts: Northwest quake under way _ taking weeks, not seconds

Wednesday, March 26, 2003

(03-26) 13:36 PST PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) --

A widespread earthquake is taking place beneath the Northwest, slowly unleashing energy that may be equivalent to the magnitude 6.7 Nisqually quake that rocked the region two years ago, experts say.

But the so-called "silent" or "slow" earthquake is releasing that energy over weeks rather than in the sharp, seconds-long jolts of a typical quake. No one can feel it.

The event started Feb. 26 and seems to be sputtering to a halt far beneath northwest Washington and southwest British Columbia. The quake originated beneath the Strait of Juan de Fuca near Friday Harbor, Wash., and Victoria, British Columbia.

Recently discovered silent quakes, which can only be detected with sensitive instruments, aren't as harmless as they may seem.

Scientists say they may be adding to the tremendous pressure in an area where the brittle rocks of two tectonic plates are locked offshore.

Evidence shows that every few hundred years, the jammed plates release that stress in huge magnitude 8 or 9 earthquakes that can rattle the entire Northwest coast and generate lethal tsunamis. The last such powerful subduction-zone quake occurred about 300 years ago.

"These slow slips aren't reducing the stress on the locked zone," said Herb Dragert, a research scientist with the Geological Survey of Canada in Sidney, British Columbia. "They're actually, in little pulses, adding a tiny bit of stress to the locked zone."

About every 14 to 15 months, the slow-motion earthquakes are generated about 15 to 30 miles deep at the interface of the lower Juan de Fuca tectonic plate and the upper North American plate.

In that area, called the "slip" zone, the rocks are hotter and more flexible than in the locked zone 30 to 60 miles farther west, allowing the plates to pass each other more easily.

"What is going on for those 14 to 15 months is that things are stickier in the slip zone," Dragert said. "Then the slip happens -- the sticky portion is released -- which adds stress to the locked zone" as the North American plate shifts westward toward it.

The locked zone is causing the western edge of the normally westward-moving North American plate to compress and be shoved eastward about a half inch each year along the coast. However, each slow earthquake reverses that eastward motion, allowing the North American plate to rebound westward by about 0.08 to 0.16 inches during the course of the quake.

The earthquakes weren't detected until data was obtained from the global positioning system, or GPS, a network of 24 orbiting satellites with instruments that can measure tiny movements of ground-based stations.

Scientists have found that the silent earthquakes' signals show up on seismographs, but until recently they were overlooked because they don't look similar to the signals from regular earthquakes.

The discovery of the silent quakes provides a new tool for monitoring the fault zone that could rupture into a powerful subduction zone earthquake, an event that occurs near the coast on average about every 500 years.

_________

(as if you needed another reason to hate France)

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=524&u=/ap/20030327/ap_wo_en_po/eu_gen_france_racism_surge_2&printer=1

Report: Racist violence explodes in France in 2002

2 hours, 4 minutes ago

By NATHALIE SCHUCK, Associated Press Writer

PARIS - Violent racist attacks quadrupled in France in 2002 to the highest level in a decade, and more than half of the assaults were aimed at Jews, a national report said Thursday.

Assailants carried out 313 acts of racist violence last year, compared to 71 in 2001, according to a report by the independent National Consulting Committee on Human Rights.

Accepting the report, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said he was worried the war in Iraq (news - web sites) would cause religious tensions in France to surge.

"We must prevent international tensions from transferring to our national community," he said. The war could "traumatize" some people, he said, adding that a victory by the U.S.-led coalition was expected to be less painful than it has proved.

"We were expecting a technological war, a quick war, a 21st century war, and we have discovered a war that is among the most horrible, like those of the 20th century," he said.

In the report, the committee said 193 of 313 attacks were against Jews and noted a "real explosion" in anti-Semitic violence. Last year, the group reported 32 acts of anti-Jewish violence.

The committee said increased anti-Semitic attacks came against a backdrop of fighting between Israel and the Palestinians, and added that many of the attackers came from rough neighborhoods on the outskirts of France's cities.

In the last two years, France has suffered a wave of violence against Jewish schools, temples and cemeteries that coincided with new fighting in the Middle East.

The violence, which peaked a year ago when a Marseille synagogue was burned to the ground, has markedly decreased. But Muslim-Jewish relations remain tense. France has the largest Jewish community in western Europe and one of the continent's biggest Muslim populations.

France's large North African community was also targeted in racist violence.

Of 47 attacks against them, 25 of those were attributed to the extreme-right. One person of North African origin was killed — the only death mentioned in the report. The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks stirred anti-Muslim sentiment, the report said.

Violence by France's far-right groups dropped in 2002. Nine percent of the reported attacks were blamed on the far right, compared to 14 percent in 2001, the report said.

The group also tallied 992 nonviolent but racist acts — such as threats or graffiti — in 2002, compared to 350 in 2001.

[redman]

Originally posted by rskin24

The committee said increased anti-Semitic attacks came against a backdrop of fighting between Israel and the Palestinians, and added that many of the attackers came from rough neighborhoods on the outskirts of France's cities.

Fascinating way of reporting this. Do you know who lives in these "rough neighborhoods on the outskirts of France's cities"? Quite often it's Arab immigrants. Why not just say that?

[Jagsbch]

Thanks rskin24

Well according to some astonomer junkies, we have just entered the debris field, from when the Sun blasted the "comet of the century" we ought to be in this field for oh about 2 months. I have been looking up and OI have yet to see a single shooting star in week's. any way Vic said the worst of it is supposed to be experienced towards the end of our course in the debrix field. Bch out.

[tex]

May as well kick in a little.

The Real Saddam Died in 1999?

WorldNetDaily reports that Saddam couldn't have been killed by the U.S. strike because he died from cancer in 1999. Dr. Moslem al-Asadi, who lives in exile in Iran, says, "The real Saddam died because he had cancer of the lymph nodes, and since his death in 1999 they're just showing his doubles." Al-Asadi says Saddam's sons, his first wife and Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz keep the truth hidden by using three doubles and that Saddam's younger son, Qusay, is actually running the country.

In 1979, Saddam’s bodyguard Michael Ramadan, who is now under CIA protection, wrote in his book "In Saddam's shadow" that Saddam was so ill he was dependent on pain killers. In another development, British intelligence intercepted an urgent call to Moscow Saturday suggesting that Saddam is still alive in a secret hideaway in Baghdad but requires medical attention. They think Saddam suffered abdominal injuries when cruise missiles struck his bunker. His two sons, Uday and Qusay, are alos believed to have been injured, or possibly killed, in the attack. Sources say Saddam was pulled from the rubble and taken away in an ambulance. They believe he underwent a major operation and a blood transfusion in a secret location, and at one point it was thought he died.

The British official says Saddam's aides "requested urgent medical assistance for a senior government official who was injured…Saddam's name was not mentioned during the conversation—but there is little doubt it was him they were talking about," he says. "They said he was not critically injured but demanded urgent treatment because he had lost blood and could get worse. This regime wouldn't go to that trouble for anybody else—including members of his family."

The victim was described as having suffered third-degree burns, a crushed abdomen and trauma, which are typical of a bomb attack. "There was some discussion of having the injured man medevaced out of Baghdad to be treated elsewhere," the source says. "But no mention was made of where that would be. The official who took the call said the request would be passed on to Moscow."

[PCS]

Kick in a little? Egads Tex I think you punted it.

[tex]

Originally posted by Park City Skins

Kick in a little? Egads Tex I think you punted it.

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: