pakistani earthquake prologue

The help is starting to arrive but the devastation in Pakistan is so great that one wonders if enough help will arrive. The magnitude of the disaster is overwhelming. So far, international donors have announced tens of millions of dollars in aid. But, again echoing the tsunami relief effort, aid agencies were quick to draw attention to the shortfall which almost always occurs between pledges made by governments in the immediate aftermath of a disaster and the total money that eventually arrives.
Three days after the magnitude-7.6 temblor struck the Himalayan region, thousands of people in outlying communities waited for help and complained they had run out of food and water. Some organized their own expeditions for supplies. Get the real story.

Earthquake

two peas in an economic pod

lbjbush,

President Lyndon Johnson thought that the US economy could support a war and his Great Society program. He thought surely there could be an economic boom in the late 1960's like there was in the late 1940's.
There wasn't. Economic growth stopped.

Forty years later another Texan thought a war could be fought, taxes cut and serious energy conservation could go by the wayside with the help of an expansive economy. Inflation returned.

Johnson tried to provide guns and butter without raising taxes. George Bush tried to serve up large tax cuts without reducing spending or addressing the nation's rapacious thirst for motor fuels, particularly gasoline.

politics

NASA official foam loss theory

Workers may have accidentally cut or crushed a section of foam that broke off during Discovery's launch. The section in question was on the fuel tank. That is the leading theory for the cause behind the disturbing loss of foam insulation that cast a cloud over NASA's return to space, said Wayne Hale, the newly appointed manager of the space shuttle program. To NASA's horror, a 1-pound, 3-foot chunk of insulating foam peeled away from Discovery's external fuel tank during liftoff in late July. In addition to the big chunk of foam, several smaller pieces broke off, including at least one from an area of the fuel tank that had been modified after Columbia. Thermal tile was also damaged on Discovery's belly; one tile lost a 1 1/2-inch piece right next to the set of doors for the nose landing gear, a particularly vulnerable spot.

nasa

avian flu quarantine in the u.s.?

The topic was discussed on WLS-AM radio in Chicago this morning. President Bush said that if a quarantine had to be done that use of the military might be considered.

avian flu

bendable color e-paper

Fujitsu debuted bendable color e-paper xtreme ultra at CEATEC. The screen/paper/whatever won’t break or anything when bent, thus making it the ideal replacement for paper.

The new electronic paper features vivid color images that are unaffected even when the screen is bent, and features an image memory function that enables continuous display of the same image without the need for electricity. The thin and flexible electronic paper uses very low power to change screen images, thereby making it ideal for displaying information or advertisements in public areas as a type of new electronic media that can be handled as easily as paper.

Fujitsu is a leading provider of customer-focused IT and communications solutions for the global marketplace.

technology

dr dean tells a story

Scientists have long warned of a possible human pandemic if the bird flu virus mutates and becomes more easily passed between people. So far, the H5N1 strain of the virus has led to the deaths of more than 50 people in Southeast Asia and the slaughter of millions of birds.

Deano is not impressed by panicy situations. But he sounded scared on the radio about this bird flu thing. Currently the bird flu can only be caught by human exposure to an infected bird.

asian bird flu

asian flu

hurricane forecaster says busy october

William Gray, a Colorade State hurricane forecaster says get ready for a busy October. This year is the seventh busiest since 1950. Three tropical storms, two hurricanes and one major hurricane are predicted this month and the season does not officially end until November 30.

hurricane

oil infrastructure problems

The oil infrastructure in Iraq is not fit and able to get the oil to where it is needed.... the U.S. According to Smash Monster reports that poor leadership is one item to blame. The failure to re-build Iraq's vast oil fields have impeded production. Oil production remains below pre-war levels of 2.5 million barrels per day. In southern Iraq where most of the oil fields are, attacks against those installations have been light and the real problems seem to come from poor planning and logistics to resume oil production.

oil