JAKARTA, Indonesia - A local geological agency official says a powerful 7.7-magnitude earthquake has struck eastern Indonesia. A tsunami warning was immediately issued.
The official, Fauzi, said the underwater quake hit off Sulawesi island. He did not have any immediate reports about damage or injuries.
The U.S. Geological Survey said Monday the quake struck 13 miles (21 kilometers) beneath the sea and was centered 54 miles from Gorantalo, a coastal town on Sulawesi.
Indonesia is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the so-called Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
“What if this crisis was just a prelude - a precursor to a much greater threat - one that could possibly cost millions of lives? The current economic crises was based on the idea that we can live and consume based on credit - and the belief that we can continue to do so unabated as long as we steadfastly ignore the facts and spread the risks widely enough. That idea didn’t fly. Yet its seems that humanity still seems to believe that the things that have failed in the monetary economy, will, in the long run, still apply to the material reality of our world. Quite simply, because nature will not present us with a bill for the resources upon which we depend for our very survival.”
“The fact that during the current U.S. election campaign, this insane exploitation of nature has been combined with the dim-witted rejection of scientific evidence being propagated by promoters of one side (of course, by the “Christian” Republican side) is actually quite logical. It’s no coincidence that it is precisely those people who have paved the way for the economic collapse that are still of the opinion that as long as we pray hard enough, everything is possible. But no prayer or contingency plan will contain an ecological collapse once it begins.”
Philippe Gelie of France’s Le Figaro ponders the unfortunate record of George W. Bush, and the way that today, at the end of his second term, he has been singularly abandoned by his own supporters, most of whom are up for election in November:
“A kind of curse must be following George W. Bush. The president, who began his first term under the shock of the September 11, 2001 attacks and inaugurated his second term with debacle of Hurricane Katrina, is now completing his time in the White House under the threat of a ‘Financial 9/11.’
“His reaction to the first crisis resulted in a ’sacred unity’ around him, which lasted until the first reversal of fortune in Iraq. The second [Hurricane Katrina] exposed the incompetence of an administration silenced by loyalty. The third should have corrected those bad memories: with the appointment in 2006 of Henry Paulson, former chief of Goldman Sachs, Bush put at the head of the American Treasury an expert on financial markets, who quickly assessed the situation and proposed a drastic remedy.”
Abandoned by the Republican minority in the House of Representatives, Bush has found himself in the unusual role of having to depend on the Democratic majority in Congress. ‘Don’t let this fail,’ he said to his conservative friends. In the hallway, Paulson even put his knee to the floor in front of Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House: ‘Please don’t blow up this deal,’ he asked. ‘It’s not me blowing this up. It’s the Republicans,’ she said. ‘I know, I know,’ Paulson sighed. This unusual image symbolizes the little strength that remains for a president who has fallen to 26 percent in the opinion polls, confronting a Congress which faces election: the entire House of Representatives and a third of the Senate will be replaced on November 4.”
Over the past couple of weeks we have seen discussions of financial hurricanes striking New York but it now looks like there is an outside chance the city could see a real one, or at least a pretty substantial tropical storm.
Currently the threat is only a tropical wave which has brought some pretty substantial rain to Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic but at least two forecasting models call for the storm to track up the East Coast for a hit on the Big Apple. There are mixed opinions as to how strong it will get (either Category One Hurricane or strong Tropical Storm) and of course other models show it petering-out or avoiding New York entirely.
New York is not immune to such storms and in fact it looks like if the storm does hit it could do so around the 70th anniversary of the infamous 1938 Long Island Express.
The odds are this will amount to nothing much but it is worth keeping half of an eye on as the week progresses.
September 17th, 2008 By DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, Assistant Editor, TMV Columnist
This is Galveston in 1900 after a huge hurricane swept through. No telephone system, no television, no internet, no text messaging, no satellites, no weatherscopes. 8000 people died there.
More of Galveston after hurricane in the year 1900. No bulldozers, no cranes, no flatbed 18 wheelers, no huge roll-offs, no electricity. It took years to put the city back to a semblance of what it had once been.
This is the least of the flotsam left by Hurricane Ike 2008. As of yesterday, 45 deaths were attributed to the hurricane. 20,000 people in Galveston were reported to have refused to evacuate.
In Gilcrest, there was once an entire village…
Graves were flooded. Coffins floated out.
For all others, there is devastation for the people, their creatures, their livestock.
Contact your local Red Cross to help. Google Red Cross and your city’s name. Google ‘Feed the Children,’ for an alternative. I witnessed both organizations doing merciful, swift, careful, tireless work when 4000 Katrina survivors were suddenly sent into a forced migration and airlifted to Denver after the hurricane.
Some of our readers have questioned why we are posting about the weather and asking if it is some way political. Well, speaking for myself I have been posting because I think TMV is here to bring our readers news and information and when natural disasters threaten our fellow citizens it is worth reporting. I realize that we are all increasingly partisan these days but I think there are certain areas where we put those issues aside.
In that vein, also want to say how proud and pleased I have been to see Independents, Republicans and Democrats come together to help out the people in the path of Gustav. The Obama and McCain campaigns also deserve kudos for putting politics aside to urge everyone to donate their time and money to help out.
Unfortunately it looks like things are far from over though we do have good news with Gustav.
Gustav has now been officially downgraded to a Tropical Storm and is expected to bring rain to the states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Kansas and Missouri. However the worst does appear to be over and, while there were some close calls with a few levees near New Orleans, it now looks like those levees have been saved.
In what I consider to be a nice sign of non partisanship, both the McCain and Obama campaigns have begun to help publicize a way we can all give a little help to our fellow citizens along the Gulf Coast (and perhaps help in advance for those in Georgia and South Carolina)
The major cellular phone providers are working together to let you donate money to the American Red Cross.
Simply text the word GIVE (4483) to the number 24537 or call 1-800-435-7669 and you can donate money to the Red Cross relief fund. The text message will donate $5 which will appear on your next monthly bill.
You can also go to www.redcross.org to donate.
I know this is normally a political site, but right now I am asking for us all to put that aside and help out those in need.
The latest updates on Gustav offer both good and bad news.
The bad news is that the storm is moving more quickly than expected. The original track had the storm making landfall sometime tomorrow, but it now appears that impact could be sometime overnight. This means that the coastal areas are already getting the impact from the outer bands of the system.
However, by traveling more quickly over the Gulf, the storm had less time to gain energy and, as a result, it is no longer expected to reach Category 4. It is now anticipated to be a Level 3 storm at impact and will quickly drop down to Level 2.
Of course this is still a VERY powerful storm and there is a very good chance of significant damage in the New Orleans area, but with the much more effective evacuation process it is likely most of the loss will be material rather than human and that is an important distinction.
Still, we should all keep the people of the Gulf Coast in our thoughts and prayers.
100 PM CDT SUN AUG 31 2008…GUSTAV WEAKENS A LITTLE MORE…BUT STILL A MAJOR HURRICANE…
A HURRICANE WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FOR THE NORTHERN GULF COAST FROM CAMERON LOUISIANA EASTWARD TO THE ALABAMA-FLORIDA BORDER…INCLUDING THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS AND LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN. A
HURRICANE WARNING MEANS THAT HURRICANE CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED
WITHIN THE WARNING AREA WITHIN THE NEXT 24 HOURS. PREPARATIONS TO
PROTECT LIFE AND PROPERTY SHOULD BE RUSHED TO COMPLETION.
and
AT 100 PM CDT…1800Z…THE CENTER OF HURRICANE GUSTAV WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 25.9 NORTH…LONGITUDE 86.6 WEST OR ABOUT 270 MILES…520 KM…SOUTHEAST OF THE MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER.
GUSTAV IS MOVING TOWARD THE NORTHWEST NEAR 17 MPH…28 KM/HR. THIS
GENERAL MOTION IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE WITH A DECREASE IN FORWARD
SPEED DURING THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS. ON FORECAST TRACK…GUSTAV
SHOULD MAKE LANDFALL ON THE NORTHERN GULF COAST ON MONDAY.
and
AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS STORM SURGE OF 12 TO 16 FEET ABOVE NORMAL TIDAL LEVELS IS EXPECTED NEAR AND TO THE EAST OF WHERE THE CENTER OF GUSTAV CROSSES THE NORTHERN GULF COAST.
Pardon the snarky headline, but today I witnessed something which may well have me heading for the fainting couch. Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama actually came out with a decision which was completely in step with the choice made by President George W. Bush and I was nodding my head in agreement with both of them. President Bush announced today that not only would he not be at the convention on Monday as planned, but would not be in New Orleans either. Choosing to stay out of the way of the anticipated relief efforts, he is heading home to Texas to coordinate with FEMA executives, the military and the leadership in the various Gulf States which will likely be affected.
Senator Barack Obama said that he had talked to the Louisiana governor and other officials. He added that he was monitoring the storm, but was planning no tour of the coast because he wanted to stay out of the way.
Bush apparently has learned his lesson from both Katrina and the 2004 Florida hurricane season. During Katrina, the president took mild criticism for flying over the affected areas in Air Force One, because any such air travel shuts down air lanes, no matter how pressing the need may be. In 2004, Bush took a photo op handing out food and water in the Sunshine State. The resulting chaos from his Secret Service entourage shut down traffic for hours and hindered relief efforts more than it helped.
By way of contrast, Senator John McCain and his presumptive running mate flew down to Mississippi to meet with various officials and hold press conferences highlighting everything they were doing in the face of this disaster. (One can only assume that the normal contingent of Secret Service and the throngs of press members were in tow.) We live in the era of the interwebs, cell phones, conference calls, teleconferences and 24 hour cable news services which will provide live video of everything happening on the ground 24/7. You lose nothing by not being there other than missing an opportunity for a press conference and photo opportunity.
I would also remind both Senators Obama and McCain that neither of you are currently the President. Nor are Palin or Biden the Vice President at this time. Louisiana and Mississippi both have fully-functional Governors and Senators in place to handle the impending possible crisis. It appears, at least at this time, that President Bush is on top of the situation, coordinating preparations and bracing for the storm as best as can be managed. Perhaps candidates for an election which is still over two months off should just get out of the way and let them do their jobs rather than turning this into a sideshow.
Holly already updated you on Hurricane Gustav, which is shaping up to be monster and setting its sights on the Gulf Coast. (Right on its heels, we may have Hurricane Hanna shooting up the same pipe, sadly.) And John McCain is already hinting that he may either postpone the GOP convention this week, or drastically alter the format and schedule to reflect the serious nature of the possibly impending crisis. One would be hard pressed to argue with the wisdom of such a decision if our attention is needed elsewhere during a possible national disaster.
While this next topic is absolutely trivial in comparison to a category five hurricane hitting the coast again, it is one to give some thought to. My co-host on Mid Stream Radio, Cindy, is on her way to the convention. If it is postponed she, along with many other already financially-strapped bloggers and Blogtalk Radio Hosts will find themselves with non-refundable airline tickets and reservations at sold-out hotels an
