Well, things aren’t really looking any better in Japan, are they. More aftershocks, more explosions, more lost reactor cooling capacity, more dead people. Not much happy fun time. Not a lot of happy fun time in my basement, either. I went out and bought a spare submersible sump pump yesterday, along with 24 feet of flexible hose. In a pinch, I figure I can stick the hose out a window and pump things down. That won’t help me much if I’m not home, of course (or if the power goes out), but a battery backup and/or generator just aren’t in the budget right now.
And of course I awoke to find a pipe that came apart, so I have a pretty good flood down there this morning. Naturally, the decent shop vac is over at the other house (was gonna buy one yesterday, too, but cheaped out). Spent a fair amount of time trying to squeegee uphill (everything runs away from the sump, of course), but finally gave up. I guess I’ll have to buy another shop vac at lunchtime today, and hope nothing else comes apart during the day (way back when I cobbled together an alternate line to avoid dumping all this water into my septic tank, I was in a hurry and didn’t bother to glue together a bunch of the joints along the floor, because I wanted to redo all this when things dry out, and figured they weren’t really under pressure. I guess I misunderestimated there.
And of course the joints won’t come apart on command now, so I’m kind of gluing things as they blow apart. Still a couple to go, I’m afraid. Oh well, only my workshop is really in danger, and everything’s up high enough. I hope.
It’s shaping up to be another great week.
The magnitude-8.9 earthquake that struck northern Japan on Friday not only violently shook the ground and generated a devastating tsunami, it also moved the coastline and changed the balance of the planet.
Global positioning stations closest to the epicenter jumped eastward by up to 13 feet.
Japan is “wider than it was before,†said Ross Stein, a geophysicist at the United States Geological Survey.
snip
That part of Asia, to the surprise of many who look at the geological map, sits on the North American tectonic plate, which wraps up and around the Pacific plate and extends a tentacle southward that part of Japan sits atop. The Pacific plate is moving about 3.5 inches a year in a west-northwest direction, and in that collision — what geologists call a subduction zone — the Pacific plate dives under the North American plate.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/world/asia/14seismic.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper
So Mitch McConnell is repeating what he said on Friday: Unless Democrats agree to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits, Republicans will block any increase in the debt limit, forcing the United States into default.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/03/14/956261/-GOP-takes-family-planning,-Social-Security,-health-care-reform-hostage
Perhaps lost in the Wisconsin shuffle is the story ofwhat exactly is happening in Michigan. Newly elected Republican governor, Rick Snyder, is set to pass one of the most sweeping, anti-democratic pieces of legislation in the country – and almost no one is talking about it
Snyder’s law gives the state government the power not only to break up unions, but to dissolve entire local governments and place appointed “Emergency Managers†in their stead. But that’s not all – whole cities could be eliminated if Emergency Managers and the governor choose to do so. And Snyder can fire elected officials unilaterally, without any input from voters. It doesn’t get much more anti-Democratic than that.
Except it does. The governor simply has to declare a financial emergency to invoke these powers – or he can hire a private company to declare financial emergency and take over oversight of the city.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/03/14/956355/-Michigan-Gov-Snyder-set-to-auction-off-MI-towns-to-highest%C2%A0bidders
A third reactor has exploded.
On his first day back from vacation, Glenn Beck addressed the earthquake in Japan, and said he thinks that it could be a “message [is] being sent” by God
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/14/glenn-beck-japan-earthquake-god_n_835573.html
If God is omnipotent, why doesn’t he tell us what he wants? Why this earthquake messaging? Why not just be clear instead of sending difficult to interpret messages?
Happy pi day.
Cake is a lie.