Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
25 Dead, 4 Missing After W.Va. Coal Mine Blast
Rescuers in West Virginia hoped to renew efforts to reach four missing coal miners Tuesday following a massive underground explosion that killed 25 people in the worst U.S. mining disaster in decades.
Search teams were deep in the Upper Big Branch mine at about 2 a.m. when they were forced back by intolerable levels of highly combustible methane and toxic carbon monoxide gases. Crews planned to bore holes more than 1,000 feet through the coal seams to vent the gases that have built up after the blast Monday afternoon.
"We're hoping that they lived through the initial explosion and were able to get to a refuge chamber," said Kevin Stricklin, the head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration.
The cause of the explosion is still not known, but safety officials say the Massey Energy Co.'s mine in the town of Montcoal, about 30 miles south of Charleston, has been cited in the past for failing to properly vent methane. Three people have died since 1998 in accidents at the mine, which produced 1.2 million tons of coal last year.
West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin said at a news conference early Tuesday that it could take up to 12 hours before the first hole is finished and rescuers can determine whether the mine is safe to enter.
Manchin said he's hoping for a miracle — that the miners will be found alive.
"It's going to be a long day, and we're not going to have a lot of information until we can get the first hole through," the governor said.
Nine rescue teams were at work trying to extract the miners. Each chamber in the mine is supposed to be equipped with rescue breathing equipment and stocked with enough food and water to last for four days.
Stricklin said regulators believe a buildup of methane caused the explosion. The concentration of the gas makes it impossible to continue the search.
"We have seen the gas concentrations ... go down," he said. "As I said, we're focused on getting in there as quickly as possible."
Stricklin acknowledged that the chances are slim that the four miners will be found alive but said he is not giving up hope. Asked exactly where in the mine the explosion took place, he said, "That's not something that we're looking at right now. We're focused on a rescue operation."
President Obama on Tuesday offered his condolences to the families of the miners killed and praised rescuers who he said are "searching tirelessly and courageously."
"The federal government stands willing to offer any assistance necessary," Obama said.
Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV) said the people of his state are "strong and united in prayer."
A total of 31 miners were in the area during a shift change when the blast occurred. Stricklin said some may have died in the blast and others may have perished after breathing the gas-filled air. Manchin said 11 bodies had been recovered and identified, but the remaining 14 have not.
"Everybody's just heartbroken over this and the impact on these families," said mine safety director Joe Main, who was headed to West Virginia.
In a statement early Tuesday, Massey Chairman and CEO Don Blankenship offered his condolences to the families of the dead miners.
"Tonight we mourn the deaths of our members at Massey Energy," Blankenship said.
Davitt McAteer, who led the MSHA under President Clinton, said Tuesday that "we're not doing enough" to make the nation's mines safe. Most coal mines, he said, don't have adequate communications systems and don't take proper precautions against methane buildup.
The West Virginia disaster is the nation's worst mine accident since 27 people were killed in a Utah mine in 1984.
In 2006, 12 miners died after an explosion in the Sago Mine in Tallmansville, W.Va. The following year, six miners and three rescue workers were killed when a wall collapsed in the Crandall Canyon Mine in Emery County, Utah.
NPR's Brian Naylor reported from Montcoal, W.Va.; Erica Peterson of West Virginia Public Radioreported from Charleston, W.Va.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125613229
why women should smile?
Here are the top reasons why men ask tell order women to smile, in no particular order.
- Many men have difficulty distinguishing women from things like potted hyacinth and framed prints of Monet's "Water Lilies" - inexpensive, disposable, and interchangeable bits of color that can be used to brighten any room. Like the hyacinth, sometimes women are scented! Art,such as the "Water Lilies", decorates a room. The Mona Lisa is art, and she is smiling. Women who aren't smiling just aren't as decorative.
- Many men are confused by women who do not smile. You see, women are made of sugar and spice and everything nice. They are supposed to smile. Smiles are gender normative on women. Non-smiling women are confusing for men.
- Many men suffer from fixer-itis. It takes more muscles to frown than to smile! A smile lowers your blood pressure! You will feel better if you smile! We all feel better when we see someone smile! I am just trying to help!
- Many men have trouble managing their own emotions. By "managing", in this case, we of course mean "suppressing", which is what they have been taught to do with just about any emotion since childhood (except anger and rage, which are manly and appropriate). Smiling women reassure them that everything is a-okay and they can go on about whatever manly business they are conducting in the world.
- Many men confuse women in the workplace with their mothers. Mom always (or never) smiled at them at home, and so it is of utmost importance that the secretary, or the flight attendant, or the person ringing up their groceries, or lecturing at them from the front of the classroom, beam beatifically at them as a veritable Madonna. In this way, even though they were forced to separate from mom and not be such a baby and grow a pair and be a man and not cry like a girl and man up and not be gay and like football and be a hardass, they can still feel mother love in every woman's smile, no matter who the hell she is.
- Most of all, many men like to feel in control. There is often no simpler and quicker way to feel in control of things in a world where nearly everything that matters is completely out of your control than to demand that some random stranger rearrange her facial expressions to suit your preference, on the spot. When she smiles at your command, you know that whatever petty humiliations the world may visit upon your head, you could totally fuck that bitch.
http://scienceblogs.com/thusspakezuska/2010/04/smile_boys_it_would_make_the_w.php
Monday, April 5, 2010
south dakota school of mines
The M.S. program in Paleontology is a unique degree--There is no other paleontology master’s degree in the Unites States. The program emphasizes the opportunity for combining fieldwork in western South Dakota with study of the extensive collections of the Museum of Geology. The program emphasizes vertebrate paleontology of dinosaurs and mammals and draws from faculty strengths in evolutionary biology, biostratigraphy, cladistics, and vertebrate paleontology. Students are involved collection and curation of new and existing fossils in the Museum’s collection of over 300,000 specimens. Opportunities for international research are available through faculty research programs in Turkey, China, Mongolia, Antarctica, Namibia, and other locations.
http://graded.sdsmt.edu/academics/programs/paleo/
Sunday, April 4, 2010
dolphin massacre
The sea is stained in red and currently it's not because of the climate effects of nature.
It's because of the cruelty that the human beings (civilised human) kill hundreds of the famous and intelligent Calderon dolphins.
This happens every year in Feroe Island in Denmark . In this slaughter the main participants are young teens.
WHY?
A celebration, to show that they are adults and mature!
In this big celebration, nothing is missing for the fun. Everyone is participating in one way or the other, killing or looking at the cruelty supporting like a spectator
Is it necessary to mention that the dolphin calderon, like all the other species of dolphins, its near extinction and they get near men to play and interact. In a way of PURE friendship
They dont die instantly; they are cut 1, 2 or 3 times with thick hooks. And at that time the dolphins produce a grim cry like that of a new born child.
But he suffers and theres no compassion while this magnificent creature slowly dies in its own blood
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Boulder, CO
This is a research-oriented department offering individually designed graduate programs. The department does not have a formal program of rigidly defined courses leading to the MS or PhD in geological sciences, but offers the following areas of concentration: past global change, geodynamics of modern and ancient orogens, geomorphology, biogeochemistry, sedimentology, petroleum geology, hydrogeology and water resources, geophysics and seismology, isotope geology and geochemistry, paleobiology, mineralogy and volcanology, and environmental geochemistry.
Museum of Natural History by University of Colorado at Boulder
http://cumuseum.colorado.edu/Research/Paleo/
aragonite
Aragonite is a carbonate mineral, one of the two common, naturally occurring crystal forms of calcium carbonate, CaCO3(The other form is the mineral calcite.) It is formed by biological and physical processes, including precipitation from marine and freshwater environments.
Aragonite's crystal lattice differs from that of calcite, resulting in a different crystal shape, an orthorhombic system with acicular crystals. Repeated twinning results in pseudo-hexagonal forms. Aragonite may be columnar or fibrous, occasionally in branching stalactitic forms called flos-ferri ("flowers of iron") from their association with the ores at the Carthinian iron mines.
The type location for aragonite is Molina de Aragón (Guadalajara, Spain), 25 km outside Aragon. An aragonite cave, the Ochtinská Aragonite Cave, is situated in Slovakia. In the USA, aragonite in the form of stalactites and "cave flowers" (anthodite) is known from Carlsbad Caverns and other caves. Massive deposits of oolitic aragonite are found on the seabed in the Bahamas.
Aragonite forms naturally in almost all mollusk shells, and as the calcareous endoskeleton of warm- and cold-water corals(Scleractinia). Because the mineral deposition in mollusk shells is strongly biologically controlled, some crystal forms are distinctively different from those of inorganic aragonite. In some mollusks, the entire shell is aragonite; in others, aragonite forms only discrete parts of a bimineralic shell (aragonite plus calcite). Aragonite also forms in the ocean and in caves as inorganic precipitates called marine cements and speleothems, respectively. The nacreous layer of the aragonite fossilshells of some extinct ammonites forms an iridescent material called ammolite. Ammolite is primarily aragonite with impurities that make it iridescent and valuable as a gemstone.
Aragonite is metastable and is thus commonly replaced by calcite in fossils. Aragonite older than the Carboniferous is essentially unknown.
Monday, March 29, 2010
the things we do
"the things we do to stay alive"
"the things we do just to keep ourselves alive"
-city and colour, day old hate lyrics
who is really paying?
I recently came across these two maps of the world which pretty much demonstrate much of what’s wrong with the world (original source).
These maps try to show what the world would look like if maps were drawn based on something other than geographic mass.
As you can see, there is a complete disjunction between who pays for war and who gets to die for war.
Map: Military spending per country – 2002 (BEFORE the Iraq War!)
Surprise, surprise, the U.S. takes up approximately 45% of the world’s landmass with everyone else — by far and away comprised mostly of Europe – together making up the remainder.
But when we shift over to see who actually receives the crappy end of this equation, we see more or less the same countries who either are currently or have historically been the stomping grounds for U.S. and European imperialism and colonialism.
Map: Military deaths per country — 2002
So who gets to die?
Colombia.
Democratic Republic of Congo (the big dark red country on the map).
Ethiopia.
Somalia.
All countries the U.S. has long and bloody histories with. And, in the case of Ethiopia and Somalia, the U.S. is even now in the process of funding the Ethiopian slaughter of Somalis as you read this.
Now this may seem like an obvious phenomenon to you, but consider that before the ‘invention’ (if you can call it that) of highly mobile capital, in Ancient Greece, if a given city was under attack, it was the responsibility of the property-owners to defend the city and they would go out and be the ones on the front lines. Now, sure, they could pay some peasants to help them fight, but the fact of the matter is that either killing or dying in warfare was nevertheless married to being wealthy.
I wonder what happens when you completely divorce the unpleasant aspects of war from the ability to bankroll it as we have finally accomplished today?
http://paulitics.wordpress.com/2007/08/
Sunday, March 28, 2010
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