Category: Disaster

Earthquakes

There have been not one but two immense and terrifying earthquakes in Turkey, a 7.8 and a 7.4 in relatively rapid succession, centred in Gaziantep. There used to be a Roman fort there; the before and after pictures are horrifying; this massive building which has survived 1700 years lost all of the towers and it just looks like a pile of rubble rolling down the hill it’s set atop. First death toll is over 1000 people and it will go higher.

Syria too is affected, about 300 reported dead. All these numbers will go higher.

Aerial shots of the affected areas are heart-stopping and horrifying.

As always if you want to help, donate to Red Crescent or find a local who’s Turkish and plugged in back home and ask for their advice.

Didn’t go to church yesterday. Made some phone calls. We had leftovers for lunch (the last of the stew soup that Keith made) a fruit smoothie for a snack and chicken sammies with poutine for supper.

Thinkn about coffee.

 

god this is hard

Well I committed an emotional mistake in front of my grandson tonight and I’ll be lucky if I haven’t scarred him for life. Anyway I decided to show him video of what his mum looked like when she was Riker’s age and there is actually video of her, she didn’t get completely eaten by second baby syndrome and not have any pictures. He got to see John when he was slender and hirsute, and then there was Kaitlyn as a toddler and then Grandma Caspell. I backed out of that and then we watched Keith jump out of an aircraft in a tandem jump – had a video taken as a souvenir, and that was awesome, although thanks to the swipe of the passing breeze across his brow his expression was not always as dignified as he might have preferred in retrospect.

He got to see how red and enormous his mother’s infantile hemangioma was – and how it completely vanished. I had a hemangioma when I was born too.

Then I found the video, before in the brilliant sunshine taking off from Lake Weslemkoon, and after, of the crash at Buttonville Airport that nearly took the lives of Paul, Wally Solotow, me and both the kids – Katie in utero.

Hearing my own voice as Paul took video of the crashed aircraft at the darkened side of the runway, calmly saying that Keith took no permanent harm and that if he was experiencing discomfort he’d be crying, put me in no stable state of mind. I’m fine and I’ll be fine since I have a minor child in the house but I IMMEDIATELY changed the name of the file so I never have to watch it again without a goddamned content warning. Bugger me but that was awful. Of course I knew then that Paul was taking video, but the great river of time had released me from that memory, and now I was watching the lopsided aircraft in the terrible light and there it was in realtime.

I ordered mickey d’s for supper for Alex and then forgot to order Jeff’s burger.

8520 words

didn’t get the wordle this morning

sigh

Liz Truss, folks

Nathan @churchofwolves <—- the author and a ‘mutual’ on twitter (we follow each other – he lives in Glasgow.)

Truss fails upwards, tanks the economy, eats shit on the international stage and nets herself 12x the state pension annually for life. Burn this fucking country to the ground.

LizTruss will be entitled to claim up to £115,000 per year from the taxpayer for the rest of her life once she leaves office, despite likely being one of the shortest-serving prime ministers in history.

https://nationalworld.com/news/politics/public-duties-cost-allowance-liz-truss-will-be-able-to-claim-up-to-ps115000-per-year-to-maintain-public-duties-after-leaving-office-3882642

Based on average life expectancy that’s upwards of FOUR MILLION QUID for TWO MONTHS of being an unmitigated omnishambles.

I’m going to be raging about this all day, fuck.

 

 

I just had to share unmitigated omnishambles with you.

So… someone in the UK slapped two googly eyes on a head of lettuce and asked the internet to bet if it would outlast Liz Truss. Current betting is …. not looking good.

WHILE I WAS TYPING THAT I LEARNED SHE RESIGNED.

Much love to Ontie Mary this morning. I told the story to Jeff over breakfast yesterday of what happened when she watched Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope with her kids in the theatre. As I recollect the story she sussed the movie as being CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD and cheered the heroes and yelled at the villains ….

and got told to behave by her kids.

no.

says.

aunt.

Mary.

bobbles and bits

164 aqi this morning – very unhealthy…. unhealthy enough that can set off a smoke detector in some cases. Check this screen capture from Ventusky, the bowl o’ smoke we’re sitting in right now, and how there’s a huge mass of it to the east of us. Thanks Jeff for reminding me of Ventusky’s existence.

Sound brain training on Lumosity this morning, and got the wordle in three tries which made me happy.

8014 words on Part II, this next bit will be a lot less tricky. and then I’m back in the plot farm.

Putin is following the Syria plan for Ukraine. Destroy power, water, hospitals, universities/schools and cultural touchstones. If the Democrats lose the house, the Republicans will stop aid to Ukraine, at which point the Ukrainians will lose the ‘eye in the sky’ assistance from American spy satellites as well as the boatloads of matériel they’re getting every month now. Whether Germany, France and England will come up with more is an open question. China isn’t being helpful, they’ve got local and China Sea issues of their own.

Three loads of laundry yesterday, now to fold and bring upstairs sigh.

Ryker can run when someone’s holding his hand but can only take three steps on his own. I KNOW THOSE FEELS RYKER.

I looked in on Jeff this morning and I’m getting us some IHOP brekky.

I am coming along nicely on the ‘Elementary’ theme on ukulele.

SO LOOKING FORWARD to Andor later today.

 

 

 

who was in the yard

I could hear stuff getting moved around but I can’t tell whose yard the noise was really in. Half expecting to see Paul’s canoe gone when the daylight arrives.

Jeff got sammiches for supper, they were nommy. Turns out that the corned beef on rye being terrible was just that one time, it was fabulous last night.

Particulates still moderately crappy today.

Heard from Mike; he’s hoping to get some shit done and drop by later today. I’m hoping  it’s nice enough to drink beer and eat burgers on the back deck.

No sign of Buster. Jeff keeps checking up on him and he’ll probably end up at the vet.

I’m semi-participating in Jeff’s SG-1 rewatch. I keep singing to myself while doing it (I wrote A LOT OF FILK SONGS FOR THAT FANDOM Y’ALL) but not aloud, Jeff does not favour me bursting into song while I’m sitting right next to him.

5217 words on Part II, got my guitar and mandolin and ukulele practice in as well. Got the tablecloth down on the living room table again, thanks Suzanne for pitching it in the wash.

Kerch Strait Bridge blowed up (in part) the day after Putin’s birthday – I thought it was the day of, but no, so I’m issuing a correction, mOm. Constructed in 2016 after the First Ukraine War as the dirty-colonial-resource-extraction-megaproject-thumbprint of the New Russian Empire, (V Putin Proprietor), the bridge was the longest in Europe, a technical triumph and a hated symbol throughout Ukraine of Russia’s aggression.

Fixing it is going to be interesting; the Russians didn’t have anyone shooting at them during the construction the first time but they will not have any such assurance as they try to reconstruct, and they have to, because they can’t pull cherries and grain and other stolen agricultural products out of the countryside if they don’t.  (Crimean agriculture despite everything had a bumper crop this year.) Anyway, expect more stuff to blow up. The Russians have got one lane (with crazy amounts of security) on the car side going, or will soon, but the rail line is apparently going to be tougher.

Ukrainian authorities are openly mocking the Russians on social media…. it’s savage and entirely deserved. An example of press coverage. Obviously someone knew about this destruction way in advance if they planned a stamp.

heart rate accelerator

Ran my current fave pair of earrings – 75 dollar Lioness Elise gems with Swarovsky crystals and cultured pearls – through the laundry. One embedded itself in a hole in the drum – that took some doing getting it out and kneeling on a concrete floor, calice tabernak – and the other sent itself to the lint trap. Both survived unharmed as far as I can tell…. they’re clean now, I should probably wear them.

boot to the head! (wah, wah)

  1. today’s blog post title is a call back to a famous Frantics album from 1987
  2. Because today I administered a social media boot to the head to the GAWDAM Canadian Blood Services. You may or may not be aware that the GAWDAM Canadian Blood Services ended the mandate for mask wearing while you donate.
  3. yup you heard me
  4. give blood and catch covid
  5. what a draw, what a pull, what a crowd pleaser!
  6. anyway I told them until they restored the mask mandate they can do without my blood.
  7. because they said burnaby needs 300 donors now and I’m like IF YOU COME TO MY HOUSE THAT WILL WORK FINE TOO. DEY VANT MY BLUT DEY CAN COME GET IT
  8. still stalled on story – all stories.
  9. baseball sized hail fell in southern AB August 1, I watched video of people pulled over and screaming inside their cars, it was scary af
  10. my schadenfreude over Alex Jones’ troubles at his defamation trial is great. Finding out yesterday that his ‘defence’ lawyer sent TWO YEARS OF TEXTS on accident TO THE PLAINTIFFS’ LAWYERS made Jeff and I smile quite rudely
  11. Russia keeps almost hitting Ukrainian grain shipments. Putin Khuylo! (usually translated as Putin is a Dickhead!!)
  12. heat map of the US and southern Canada on July 31 2022 shows solid red and you wonder why I’m all apocalyptic  darkest is highest temperature - us heat map 31 july 22
  13. Jeff and I remain very very happy that there’s a functioning air conditioner in this house.
  14. I have too much laundry both dirty and to put away.
  15. words cannot describe how happy I am that my mOm reads my blog posts to her sister almost every day …. and so sometimes I put stuff in that I think will make Mary laugh

Double nickel birthday

Mike’s 55 today. It feels like yesterday that we went to the Dylan concert for his 50th, but nope, five years got out from under us, how amazing.

I’ve got a brief bit of shopping to do for snacckies to do but otherwise we’re just going to bake in the heat on the deck and order out.

Sakurajima erupted yesterday but it has since calmed down somewhat, so that’s good because Japan just can’t catch a break. “The Isle of Cherries” blowing up is kinda mean.

Bulldog Hanover, driven by Dexter Dunn, has set a new world record of 1 minute 46 seconds for a harness racing mile. I just want the names to be Bulldog Hangover and Dexter Diddit. sad

708 words

Otto is home

  1. The floating bridge was only out a sixteenth of an inch. TIGHT TOLERANCES YO.
  2. very nice folks at PlayMusic and efficient too
  3. Jeff very kindly assisted by driving. There are SO MANY BARBEQUE joints along that chunk of Kingsway! Plus the Captain’s Boil.
  4. I’m going to sketch the position of it in with magic marker, I don’t want to go through this again.
  5. Hard to move grain through a port in UK when the Russians keep bombing it. Starvation will stalk the world this winter.
  6. A crow dropped a plastic bag of monopoly houses on Gaston Park yesterday morning AND THAT’S A LITTLE ON THE NOSE FOR POLITICAL COMMENTARY FROM BOIDS, YO
  7. Ate some peanut butter, started sneezing immediately and I am now so itchy me wan die.
  8. 539 words.
  9. I think mebbe I’ve got ‘lurgy from peanuts?
  10. I made paneer from the milk that was going bad. It’s absolutely lovely and I’m looking forward to making spinach paneer with it.
  11. Woke up just after one this am after going to bed rather early (I was tired).
  12. Got up and made coffee and drank it since now that it’s three am it’s obvious I’m not going back to sleep.
  13. Messaged Keith for his opinion on which Don Bluth animated film is best (there was an article). Land Before Time is one of my fave animated kids movies and parts of it are flat out terrifying. I loathed Rockadoodle and All Dogs Go to Heaven; I think An American Tail is one of the funniest and saddest animated films ever. I’ve never seen Anastasia and Secret of NIMH but I hear they’re amazing.
  14. MPX (Monkeypox) is about to be declared a global public health threat by WHO. Should have happened when the global count got to a thousand, and just watch, the response will be even worse than COVID. THANKS NOW I NEED A NEW TOPIC. Marburg is back too but the Ghanaian health authorities have a good team in place and they aren’t sitting on their hands; I have more faith in them and the foreign assistance than the goddamned American and Canadian public health authorities at this point.
  15. Apparently Alzheimers research has been fabricated FOR ALMOST TWO DECADES
  16. When people talk about hating big pharma, reasons like that would apply.
  17. A junior polar bear with a can stuck to her tongue approached humans for help. Russian vets flew 2000 km to help her. Putin’s still bombing UKRAINE tho
  18. SO ITCHY. so itchy.
  19. Jeff’s about to go on ‘rat patrol’ with Buster in the alley. There were two rats yesterday.

Taiwan’s little EU problem and other things

  1. So the EU ambassador to China, a Spaniard, has announced that the Spanish government’s position on Taiwan (peaceful reunification for 1 China) is actually the EU position. It’s not. Horror across the internet this morning at this blatant contradiction of the majority stakeholder view across the EU.
  2. I’m so itchy I’m having trouble sleeping. My tear ducts seem to be blocked up too, and my eyes are sticking shut.
  3. Started working on Part II – 73 words so far.
  4. Three shootings in Toronto last night, one dead, two gravely injured, shooter or shooters still at large.
  5. Words cannot describe how much I’m hoping – and I’m an abolitionist – that Steve Bannon goes to jail in the same country where someone said that the economy would fall apart if jails didn’t contain almost free labour.
  6. Putin says Russia’s high tech sector is facing ‘colossal’ problems due to sanctions.
  7. They’re emptying the jails and putting the dregs of Russian society at the front, according to sources inside Russia.
  8. 110 degrees F in Fort Worth TX today that’s 43 degrees C. The grid in TX is teetering thanks to Repulsigan policies and chronic underspending by ERCOT on maintenance. Bad things are going to happen, it’s like sunshine and gravity.
  9. Wonderful Nova program about the JWST and the first pictures. I knew it was a hellaciously complex and overbudget project, but just HOW complex and HOW overbudget was kind of heartstopping, so thank science it worked. Ain’t nobody going to fix it if it quits.
  10. CBC is reporting lightheartedly that repeated COVID infections will be the norm and don’t pose a problem and this is directly counter to every reputable clinician and epidemiologist that I follow stating loudly and clearly that every repeat infection raises the spectre of disability from Long Covid. Fuck them for saying that.
  11. With Jeff’s kind assistance, I have taken Otto to the krankenhaus. I will receive word on Thursday.
  12. Keith reports that Jim is doing much better.
  13. I have finally seen “The Trouble With Harry”. Damn but John Forsythe was hotter than August in his prime, and what a freaking voice.
  14. 40 degree C weather in Britain. Monuments and bridges are at risk of cracking, damage and failure. Brits don’t take heat seriously so the betting is it will be super hard on the disabled and elderly. Australians and Americans on twitter are trying to help with inexpensive advice. From today’s twitter: In more “country totally prepared for hot weather” news: Blackpool Victoria Hospital (note, in the UK) has propped its doors open to keep the building cool, but now the hospital is full of seagulls  AND HERE’S ANOTHER ONE “SKY NEWS REPORTER, CITING MILITARY SOURCE: UK ROYAL AIR FORCE HAS HALTED FLIGHTS IN AND OUT OF ITS LARGEST AIR BASE IN THE UK BECAUSE THE “RUNWAY HAS MELTED” IN THE HOT WEATHER and ANOTHER:

    UK airport suspends all flights as heatwave melts runway tarmac

    A spokesperson for Luton Airport said: “Following today’s high temperatures, a surface defect was identified on the runway.”

  15. My dad does not like seagulls. Not in his aircraft engines and definitely not in his hospitals. NO WORD ON HOW HE FEELS ABOUT MELTY TARMAC
  16. The ERs at Dr. Helmcken Memorial Hospital in Clearwater and South Okanagan General Hospital in Oliver are on diversion due to staff shortages.
  17. let’s talk about everything that’s wrong with this article. First off, fuck that family for booking a Disney cruise in Alaska during a pandemic. Second, Air Canada SAID it was going to be cancelling flights left and right at the end of June. Did they not get the memo? What did they think was going to happen. THIRD their daughter HAD COVID BEFORE THEY STARTED TRAVELLING or she wouldn’t have popped symptoms on the fourth day…..they would have ended up on a boat with a sick child anyway. How the fuck is that a vacation? fourth they got treated terribly by Air Canada and had to sleep in airports and it’s like HAVE YOU NOT BEEN PAYING ATTENTION TO THE NEWS? EVERY SINGLE PROBLEM CITED IN THIS ARTICLE has been part of the nightly news since the travel season started. There’s NO ROOM in the current Air Canada schedule for aircraft going mechanical.
  18. Maybe Roger Waters of Pink Floyd is a more important figure and musician than the Weeknd and Drake but why the fuck would he say so in public? I’ll tell you why!! HE DIDN’T GET REVIEWED IN THE MAJOR PAPERS! Oh, you poor poor man.  that’s get off my lawn style crankiness and RACISM. PS I hold no brief for either of them and Drake’s a creepy asshole who macks on minors and makes for great memes but HE’S A HOMETOWN CHILD IN TORONTO so of course it was a big deal. Not understanding the local politics doesn’t make you a likeable figure dude.
  19. Time to back up your computers, earth’s about to get smacked hard by a coronal mass ejection.  Radio and GPS disruption expected, low latitudes aurorae, first thing tomorrow. Chances of being an x event is 10% but we’ll get something for sure….
  20. WHO confirms a Marburg outbreak in Ghana.
  21. Zelenskyy remains pissed at Trudeau, line forms on the left pal.
  22. July 2022 heat dome temperature gradient europa
  23. Above is the atmospheric ‘ pot lid’ on Europa.
  24. NASA’s ‘climate spiral’ video.
  25. SO ITCHY

Do you believe it?

  1. Ivana Trump dying alone in her house from a fall down the stairs. When her kids and ex are about to be deposed. Go ahead and believe, I’ll be over here thinking that’s one way of avoiding being deposed.
  2. medieval marginalia of snail attacking man responding with a broad axe
  3. That’s for pOp, in honour of his consulting animal, the snail.
  4. An entire generation of young Democrats in the US is going to watch the Republicans flat out steal the midterms and the next presidential election and decide that since they’re all fucking broke and have no health insurance it’s time to try revolution.
  5. G20 Finance ministers depart from their most recent confab with a ‘strong’ consensus on global food security and not a sausage of agreement about Russia invading Ukraine (twice in this century, but apparently only the most recent invasion counts).
  6.  Simone Ashley’s Monot Dress is capturing the fancy of the world but all I could think when I saw her was God, those shoes don’t really…. okay fine she’s beautiful but I wish she was wearing nicer shoes.
  7. Dr. Jen Gunter, a true phenom OBGYN who speaks fire and truth about reproductive systems and justice, has received her OWN FLUEVOG SHOE DESIGN
  8. So maybe I’m not the best person to have OPINIONS on SHOES.
  9. I should probably leave the house today.
  10. Pork collops and salad and tea for breakfast.
  11. Wow to continue the snail-ish trend Helmet in the shape of a sea conch shell, Japan 1618, Worcester Museum
  12. what more snails? This lil one lives on hydrothermal vents and has steely toesies. Okay so it’s a scaly footed gastropod but it does have steely toesies.