Strong Earthquakes Hit Indonesia
By NINIEK KARMINI, Associated Press Writer
Sunday, November 25, 2007
(11-25) 09:52 PST JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) --
Strong earthquakes shook western and eastern Indonesia on Sunday, sending panicked residents fleeing from their homes. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
A 6.1-magnitude quake early Sunday was centered 110 miles from Bengkulu, a coastal town on Sumatra island that has been hit by a series of tremors in recent months, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
It was followed 13 hours later by a quake with a preliminary strength of 6.7 on Sumbawa island, to the west, the agency said.
The morning temblor near Sumatra had a depth of just six miles beneath the ocean floor, the USGS said, but did not trigger a tsunami.
"It was very strong ... even utility poles were shaking," said Dina Ramadani, a resident in Bengkulu, adding that people started screaming after one pole toppled over and crashed into a street.
The later quake on Sumbawa struck 27 miles from the town of Raba at a depth of 18 miles, the USGS reported. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said there was a "very small possibility of a local tsunami," but none materialized.
Local officials said there were no reports of damage.
Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, is prone to seismic upheavals due to its location on the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanos and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
In December 2004, a massive earthquake struck off Sumatra and triggered a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen countries, including 160,000 people in Indonesia's westernmost province of Aceh.
Two months ago, an 8.4-magnitude quake off Bengkulu that was followed by two tremors measuring 7.8 and 7.1 killed 23 people and destroyed thousands of buildings. The region has since been hit by hundreds of aftershocks.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
YouTube's Up - But That Crash Was Huge
At 10:14 AM, YouTube came back up, but why it went down , I don't know. That was weird and unprecendented. Just goes to show you it's good to have videos on more than one system, or else.
But it's good that YouTube's back up -- having it down for a whole day would have been a disaster for millions of people.
It's gotten that large!
But it's good that YouTube's back up -- having it down for a whole day would have been a disaster for millions of people.
It's gotten that large!
YouTube - What's The Deal With "Sorry About That, I Broke YouTube?"
And on top of all of the YouTube outages, I've seen these messages on Technorati:
"My bad… . [ IMG i-broke-youtube] Here is a deal… we was only uploading my many new video as well as it seems similar to we contingency have pennyless YouTube . we figured which possibly my video sucked so bad which we killed YouTube or simply YouTube only had an allergic greeting as well as it should be recuperating shortly. What have been your thoughts ? Will YouTube have it by this dire time ? Don’t be insane during Garry Conn, we didn’t intentionally kill YouTube, we suspicion my video rocked! [ IMG GarryConn] [ IMG]"
I've seen this twice.
What's the deal? Is someone trying to destroy YouTube? Is this a joke?
"My bad… . [ IMG i-broke-youtube] Here is a deal… we was only uploading my many new video as well as it seems similar to we contingency have pennyless YouTube . we figured which possibly my video sucked so bad which we killed YouTube or simply YouTube only had an allergic greeting as well as it should be recuperating shortly. What have been your thoughts ? Will YouTube have it by this dire time ? Don’t be insane during Garry Conn, we didn’t intentionally kill YouTube, we suspicion my video rocked! [ IMG GarryConn] [ IMG]"
I've seen this twice.
What's the deal? Is someone trying to destroy YouTube? Is this a joke?
Has YouTube Crashed 4 Days Before The CNN / YouTube Republican Debate?
Wow. It's Sunday, November 25th at 10 AM.
For some reason, when I go to http://www.youtube.com I get this message:
"Http/1.1 Service Unavailable"
That's wild. It also means I can't review my video traffic or upload videos for the CNN / YouTube Debate. I tried to get to YouTube via my FireFox Browser, but again, I got:
"Http/1.1 Service Unavailable"
So what's going on, I don't know. I just know that in all the time I've used YouTube.com, I've never seen this. And it's certainly impacting the business of thousands of people, including CNN.
Yikes!
Saturday, November 24, 2007
CNN / YouTube Republican Debate On Wednesday - Not Too Late To Get In Your Video!
A creation of The CNN / YouTube Debate System
On Wednesday, the CNN / YouTube Republican Debate will be held in St. Petersburgh, Florida. This is the long-awaited second of the debates of the successful CNN / YouTube partnership. I expect the star of the debate not to be the videos, but exchanges between Ron Paul and the other GOP candidates -- forget the "Quarter Question."
As some of your know who are regular visitors to this space, my question -- "The Quarter Question" -- was part of the Democratic CNN / YouTube debate process. And as some of you remember, I was a guest on the CNN Roland Martin Show as well as on local Channel Five here in Oakland. So basically CNN and YouTube launched my career as a political commentator. But because of that, my questions may not be picked this time around. I submitted nine of them, and I've got one more up my sleeve before the November 25th deadline.
Which reminds me to tell you that there's still time to get your questions in. Regardless of what CNN does with me, I think it's the greatest debate format ever done and is so right for its time, it could not have been done even four years ago.
Now as far as advice, my suggestion is to stick to questions that concern the Republican Party. I've noticed that a heck of a lot of the submissions -- including mine -- have a "democratic" bent to them. I also read in the NYTimes that CNN Washington Bureau Chief David Borhman has stated that questions which pander to CNN will be rejected, so that excludes one question I submitted and was inspired by a segment of last week's "CNN Situation Room."
But, in their racially ignorant way, the NYTimes -- which employs a writer who managed to present me as two different people in two consecutive paragraphs in an NYT article before the last CNN / YouTube debate -- managed to miss the obvious question to ask Bohrman: if by picking questions that deal with "Republican Issues" they will skip questions concerning race. At a time when the party's beset by divisive questions regarding how it treats African Americans, I can't imagine a debate that avoids that issue.
We shall see.
Ron Paul - Republican - Will Not Support The Republican Nominee Because Of Iraq War
Congressman Ron Paul said that he will not support the GOP nominee for the Presidential election because of the Republican Party's stance on the Iraq War.
Southern California Fires Blaze Again - Fires Return to Malibu, Burning 35 Homes
It's not hard to wonder if this is the work of arson.
MALIBU, Calif. — A fast-moving wildfire pushed by Santa Ana winds raced through the canyons and mountains of this wealthy enclave for the second time in little more than a month Saturday, destroying more than 30 homes and forcing as many as 14,000 residents to flee.
The fire erupted shortly before 3:30 a.m. PST after the long-predicted Santa Anas finally returned, and by late morning it had grown to 2,200 acres, or about 3.5 square miles, but winds began to die down.
"Waking up at 4 in the morning with the smell of smoke in your nose and the wind beating at the windows is something that we learn to live with here, but it always comes as something of a shock," said Mayor Jeff Jennings.
Twenty-three helicopters and airplanes, including a retardant-dropping DC-10 jumbo jet, attacked from the air while 1,700 firefighters battled flames on the ground. One firefighter suffered a minor eye injury.
"It's great to be able to say that we have no loss of lives," Jennings said. "We're sorry about the one injury that's been suffered, but it's certainly not as bad as it could have been."
Helicopters lowered hoses into pools and the nearby Pacific to refill their tanks for water-dropping runs, and SuperScooper amphibious airplanes skimmed the ocean to reload.
Hundreds of firefighters and equipment from throughout the state had been positioned in Southern California for most of the week because of the predicted winds, which had been expected to blow most of the week but didn't arrive until late Friday.
Officials remained wary despite the decrease in wind speeds.
The mayor urged residents to "listen to your radios, go outside and see which way the wind is blowing. Stay alert. Stay vigilant."
An estimated 35 homes were destroyed, and 10,000 to 14,000 people evacuated, said Los Angeles County Fire Chief P. Michael Freeman.
The fire broke out along a dirt road off a paved highway, and there did not appear to be power lines in the area, Freeman said. Investigators were trying to determine the cause, he said.
Another fire broke out Saturday morning in San Diego County near the town of Ramona and was 40 percent contained after burning 50 acres, said Roxanne Provanik, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Power lines blown down by fierce winds caused last month's 4,565-acre Canyon Fire in Malibu that destroyed six homes, two businesses and a church. That blaze was part of siege of more than 15 Santa Ana-stoked wildfires that destroyed more than 2,000 homes, killed 14 people and blackened a total of 809 square miles between Los Angeles County and the U.S.-Mexico border.
Santa Anas, triggered by high pressure over the Great Basin, blow into Southern California from the north and northeast, racing down through the canyons and passes of the region's east-west mountain ranges and out to sea, pushing back the normal flow of moist ocean air.
Malibu, with homes tucked into deep and narrow canyons along 27 miles of coast on the southern foot of the Santa Monica Mountains, is prone to Santa Ana-driven wildfires. Among them was a 1993 blaze that destroyed 388 structures, including 268 homes, and killed three people.
Saturday's fire burned to the west of the portions of Malibu that burned in October.
Neighbors alerted one another, while authorities drove through Corral Canyon, a neighborhood of about 350 homes, telling people to leave.
Meredith Lobel-Angel, 51, and her husband, Frank Angel, 54, said they had 15 minutes to leave their split-level home and managed to take little other than some clothes and their laptops.
"I ran out on the deck and I just saw a little fire and smoke up the canyon on the ridge (about a mile away)," Frank Angel said. "By the time we evacuated it was already over the ridge. It spread faster than I've ever seen it."
Carol Stoddard, 48, was told by firefighters that her home was probably gone. The 3,500-square-foot, seven-level home was worth $2 million.
Stoddard, a freelance videographer and photographer, captured some of the fire's destruction as trees beside her home and her collection of 12 uninsured cars burned.
"I stayed there until I couldn't breathe and the embers were flying everywhere," she said. "It was dark and I was standing around my house. I couldn't see. I couldn't grab enough stuff that was of importance like my passport."
As a precaution, officials at Pepperdine University told its students to move to a campus shelter, although the school remained largely empty because of the holiday weekend.
"Prior to the Thanksgiving holiday I was told the weather conditions was Santa Ana winds and we all know what that means," said university spokesman Jerry Derloshon.
Stoddard was philosophical about the probability that her house was gone and said she was determined to stay in Malibu no matter what the conditions.
"I'll maybe live in a tepee," she said.
___
Associated Press writer Noaki Schwartz in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
MALIBU, Calif. — A fast-moving wildfire pushed by Santa Ana winds raced through the canyons and mountains of this wealthy enclave for the second time in little more than a month Saturday, destroying more than 30 homes and forcing as many as 14,000 residents to flee.
The fire erupted shortly before 3:30 a.m. PST after the long-predicted Santa Anas finally returned, and by late morning it had grown to 2,200 acres, or about 3.5 square miles, but winds began to die down.
"Waking up at 4 in the morning with the smell of smoke in your nose and the wind beating at the windows is something that we learn to live with here, but it always comes as something of a shock," said Mayor Jeff Jennings.
Twenty-three helicopters and airplanes, including a retardant-dropping DC-10 jumbo jet, attacked from the air while 1,700 firefighters battled flames on the ground. One firefighter suffered a minor eye injury.
"It's great to be able to say that we have no loss of lives," Jennings said. "We're sorry about the one injury that's been suffered, but it's certainly not as bad as it could have been."
Helicopters lowered hoses into pools and the nearby Pacific to refill their tanks for water-dropping runs, and SuperScooper amphibious airplanes skimmed the ocean to reload.
Hundreds of firefighters and equipment from throughout the state had been positioned in Southern California for most of the week because of the predicted winds, which had been expected to blow most of the week but didn't arrive until late Friday.
Officials remained wary despite the decrease in wind speeds.
The mayor urged residents to "listen to your radios, go outside and see which way the wind is blowing. Stay alert. Stay vigilant."
An estimated 35 homes were destroyed, and 10,000 to 14,000 people evacuated, said Los Angeles County Fire Chief P. Michael Freeman.
The fire broke out along a dirt road off a paved highway, and there did not appear to be power lines in the area, Freeman said. Investigators were trying to determine the cause, he said.
Another fire broke out Saturday morning in San Diego County near the town of Ramona and was 40 percent contained after burning 50 acres, said Roxanne Provanik, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Power lines blown down by fierce winds caused last month's 4,565-acre Canyon Fire in Malibu that destroyed six homes, two businesses and a church. That blaze was part of siege of more than 15 Santa Ana-stoked wildfires that destroyed more than 2,000 homes, killed 14 people and blackened a total of 809 square miles between Los Angeles County and the U.S.-Mexico border.
Santa Anas, triggered by high pressure over the Great Basin, blow into Southern California from the north and northeast, racing down through the canyons and passes of the region's east-west mountain ranges and out to sea, pushing back the normal flow of moist ocean air.
Malibu, with homes tucked into deep and narrow canyons along 27 miles of coast on the southern foot of the Santa Monica Mountains, is prone to Santa Ana-driven wildfires. Among them was a 1993 blaze that destroyed 388 structures, including 268 homes, and killed three people.
Saturday's fire burned to the west of the portions of Malibu that burned in October.
Neighbors alerted one another, while authorities drove through Corral Canyon, a neighborhood of about 350 homes, telling people to leave.
Meredith Lobel-Angel, 51, and her husband, Frank Angel, 54, said they had 15 minutes to leave their split-level home and managed to take little other than some clothes and their laptops.
"I ran out on the deck and I just saw a little fire and smoke up the canyon on the ridge (about a mile away)," Frank Angel said. "By the time we evacuated it was already over the ridge. It spread faster than I've ever seen it."
Carol Stoddard, 48, was told by firefighters that her home was probably gone. The 3,500-square-foot, seven-level home was worth $2 million.
Stoddard, a freelance videographer and photographer, captured some of the fire's destruction as trees beside her home and her collection of 12 uninsured cars burned.
"I stayed there until I couldn't breathe and the embers were flying everywhere," she said. "It was dark and I was standing around my house. I couldn't see. I couldn't grab enough stuff that was of importance like my passport."
As a precaution, officials at Pepperdine University told its students to move to a campus shelter, although the school remained largely empty because of the holiday weekend.
"Prior to the Thanksgiving holiday I was told the weather conditions was Santa Ana winds and we all know what that means," said university spokesman Jerry Derloshon.
Stoddard was philosophical about the probability that her house was gone and said she was determined to stay in Malibu no matter what the conditions.
"I'll maybe live in a tepee," she said.
___
Associated Press writer Noaki Schwartz in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
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