Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Mother Earth is feeling her age

Just like back in the Indian Ocean tsunami that killed so many people, the Chilean earthquake also slowed the rotation of the earth, but much more significantly, because the pulse traveled through the earth at a much sharper angle to the plane of rotation (since Chile is much farther from the equator than is Thailand and Indonesia).

The quake, the seventh strongest earthquake in recorded history, hit Chile Saturday and should have shortened the length of an Earth day by 1.26 microseconds, according to research scientist Richard Gross at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. One microsecond is one-millionth of a second long.

But worse than that, it actually moved the city of Concepcion a full ten feet to the west!! The whole freaking town!

Other movements around South America caused by the earthquake include:

* Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina and across the continent from the quake’s epicenter, moved about 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) to the west.
* Chile’s capital, Santiago, moved about 11 inches (28 cm) to the west-southwest.
* The cities of Valparaiso and Mendoza, Argentina, northeast of Concepción, also moved significantly.

During the 6.9 magnitude 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which occurred along the San Andreas Fault in California, the Pacific plate moved 6.2 feet (about 2 m) to the northwest and 4.3 feet (1.3 m) upward over the North American plate.

Here’s a map showing the relative movement of the region.

And Obama has just cut off our escape route

Thursday, March 04, 2010

Quick! Where’s the brain bleach?

Once a thing has been seen, it cannot be unseen.

Great comment, though - “Why is the black guy the whitest person there?”

Monday, March 01, 2010

Memo to Congress

Just in case you weren’t aware, or are too stupid to look in a History book, the American voters have a nuclear option, too.

We exercised such an option in 1994 - the Democrats went from having a massive majority in both chambers during the 103rd Congress (57-43 in the Senate and 258-176 in the House*) to the Republicans having a 52-48 majority in the Senate and a 230-204 lead in the House for the 104th, catapulting Newt Gingrich into the Speaker’s Chair with the Contract with America. That was the first Republican majority in both chambers for the first time since the Eisenhower Administration (even though the Senate was under GOP control for a few years during Reagan’s Administration, the House was firmly held by Democrats). And polls today show that 80% of Americans disapprove of the job Congress is doing, while only 14% approve.

Amazingly enough, it was because of the American people’s utter rejection of the attempted takeover of the American health care system ("HillaryCare") that caused the massive power shift, exactly the same as today.

To top it off, San Fran Nan has urged her minions to ignore what their constituents want and pass it in the face of massive objections by the American people. Lucky for her, she’s never had so much as a primary contender, much less a serious challenger. Her WORST performance was in 1994, when she only got 81.85% of the vote…

So they are going to do their damnedest to shove this down the throats of the US public, without any Republican support at all, because they don’t dare waste that majority while they still have it.

Because come November, they won’t have it anymore.

* - note how close those are to the current totals: 57-2-41 in the Senate and 257-178 in the House.