Actractorguy Forum Posts (2,089)

RE: massive earthquake iN Christchurch

There was another one also.

Latest Info from the USGS



Earthquake Details

* This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.

Magnitude 5.6
Date-Time

* Tuesday, February 22, 2011 at 00:04:18 UTC
* Tuesday, February 22, 2011 at 01:04:18 PM at epicenter
* Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location 43.580°S, 172.798°E
Depth 6.7 km (4.2 miles)
Region SOUTH ISLAND OF NEW ZEALAND
Distances 10 km (5 miles) ESE of Christchurch, New Zealand
225 km (140 miles) SSE of Westport, New Zealand
300 km (185 miles) SSW of WELLINGTON, New Zealand
315 km (195 miles) NE of Dunedin, New Zealand
Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 13 km (8.1 miles); depth +/- 0.2 km (0.1 miles)
Parameters NST=102, Nph=102, Dmin=18.9 km, Rmss=0.95 sec, Gp= 43°,
M-type=body wave magnitude (Mb), Version=5
Source

* USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)

Event ID usb0001igz

All recent earthquakes for the world.


All recent US earthquakes.


Original one.

Earthquake Details

* This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.

Magnitude 6.3
Date-Time

* Monday, February 21, 2011 at 23:51:43 UTC
* Tuesday, February 22, 2011 at 12:51:43 PM at epicenter
* Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location 43.600°S, 172.710°E
Depth 5 km (3.1 miles)
Region SOUTH ISLAND OF NEW ZEALAND
Distances NEAR Christchurch, New Zealand
225 km (140 miles) SSE of Westport, New Zealand
305 km (190 miles) SSW of WELLINGTON, New Zealand
310 km (190 miles) NE of Dunedin, New Zealand
Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 12.2 km (7.6 miles); depth +/- 0.6 km (0.4 miles)
Parameters Nph= 0, Dmin=0 km, Rmss=0.98 sec, Gp= 0,
M-type="moment" magnitude from initial P wave (tsuboi method) (Mi/Mwp), Version=D
Source

* Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences, Lower Hutt, New Zealand

Event ID usb0001igm

RE: massive earthquake iN Christchurch

Your all in our thoughts and prayers.

RE: New Zealand Earthquake

Latest Info from the USGS



Earthquake Details

* This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.

Magnitude 5.6
Date-Time

* Tuesday, February 22, 2011 at 00:04:18 UTC
* Tuesday, February 22, 2011 at 01:04:18 PM at epicenter
* Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location 43.580°S, 172.798°E
Depth 6.7 km (4.2 miles)
Region SOUTH ISLAND OF NEW ZEALAND
Distances 10 km (5 miles) ESE of Christchurch, New Zealand
225 km (140 miles) SSE of Westport, New Zealand
300 km (185 miles) SSW of WELLINGTON, New Zealand
315 km (195 miles) NE of Dunedin, New Zealand
Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 13 km (8.1 miles); depth +/- 0.2 km (0.1 miles)
Parameters NST=102, Nph=102, Dmin=18.9 km, Rmss=0.95 sec, Gp= 43°,
M-type=body wave magnitude (Mb), Version=5
Source

* USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)

Event ID usb0001igz

All recent earthquakes for the world.


All recent US earthquakes.

RE: gaddafi flees libya? military sympathises with protesters.

Doing fine. Hope the same for you.

RE: gaddafi flees libya? military sympathises with protesters.

Maybe they will then they can move the UN headquarters there since Gaddafi said they could relocate there and he can foot the bill also.

RE: Gulf Oil Spill

If you count being alone worth it then yes.

RE: Gulf Oil Spill

Been there done that.

RE: Hello

I was there once It' about 5' taller than the rest of OK.


Hello hazelangeleyes .

RE: LAST WEEK I LOST SOMEONE I LOVE....."Turn, Turn"..........

Again I was saddened by the loss of yours. Your family is in my prayers. Glad to see you back and looking forward.

RE: Obama is going ot win the presidency in 2012!

Better get your bike fixed after the accident Dude. Might want to go to the doc also. May have a concussion.

Pirates! What's your take? What should we do?

Hey Katt. I would post my opinion but most people would not like it. Hence the reason for asking others.

RE: Trouble in Wisconsin Unions yea or nay

Yep; But all public Servants need to be placed in a different category. If your a public servant then you should be subject to dismissal if you don't meet the performance requirements of the position period. No union clauses to prevent firing.

Just an example not singling out.

Annals of Education
The Rubber Room
The battle over New York City’s worst teachers.

Read more

In a windowless room in a shabby office building at Seventh Avenue and Twenty-eighth Street, in Manhattan, a poster is taped to a wall, whose message could easily be the mission statement for a day-care center: “Children are fragile. Handle with care.” It’s a June morning, and there are fifteen people in the room, four of them fast asleep, their heads lying on a card table. Three are playing a board game. Most of the others stand around chatting. Two are arguing over one of the folding chairs. But there are no children here. The inhabitants are all New York City schoolteachers who have been sent to what is officially called a Temporary Reassignment Center but which everyone calls the Rubber Room.

These fifteen teachers, along with about six hundred others, in six larger Rubber Rooms in the city’s five boroughs, have been accused of misconduct, such as hitting or molesting a student, or, in some cases, of incompetence, in a system that rarely calls anyone incompetent.

The teachers have been in the Rubber Room for an average of about three years, doing the same thing every day—which is pretty much nothing at all. Watched over by two private security guards and two city Department of Education supervisors, they punch a time clock for the same hours that they would have kept at school—typically, eight-fifteen to three-fifteen. Like all teachers, they have the summer off. The city’s contract with their union, the United Federation of Teachers, requires that charges against them be heard by an arbitrator, and until the charges are resolved—the process is often endless—they will continue to draw their salaries and accrue pensions and other benefits.

“You can never appreciate how irrational the system is until you’ve lived with it,” says Joel Klein, the city’s schools chancellor, who was appointed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg seven years ago.

Read more

Pirates! What's your take? What should we do?

UN: Somali Pirates Capture 4 Americans
February 19, 2011
Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS -- Somalia's U.N. Mission said Friday that pirates hijacked a yacht carrying four U.S. citizens in the Indian Ocean off the Somali coast.

Omar Jamal, first secretary at the Somali mission, identified the yacht as the S/V Quest.

He said the mission is calling for the immediate release of the hostages and all other captives who are in the hands of the pirates.

Jamal said the hijacking raises "serious concern" as it follows the sentencing in New York on Thursday of a Somali pirate who kidnapped and brutalized the captain of a U.S.-flagged merchant ship off the coast of Africa in 2009. Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse was sentenced to 33 years in prison.

A website chronicling the voyage of a yacht named S/V Quest describes it as being the home of Jean and Scott Adam. The couple has been sailing around the world since December 2004, according to the website. "This is planned to be an eight or ten year voyage," it states.

The Adams run a Bible ministry, according to their website, and have been distributing Bibles to schools and churches in remote villages in areas including the Fiji Islands, Alaska, New Zealand, Central America and French Polynesia.

The couple are members of the Marina del Rey Yacht Club in Marina del Rey, California, according to the website. A woman who answered the phone there Friday night would not confirm that the couple are members and said the club could not release any information.

Earlier on Friday, The European Union's anti-piracy task force said it appeared that Somali pirates had hijacked a separate vessel, the Alfardous, and its eight crew members in the Gulf of Aden. The force said it had no more details about the vessel since it was seized Sunday.

Somalia hasn't had a functioning government since 1991, and piracy has flourished off its coast. The pirates earn multimillion dollar ransoms from the hijackings. They were holding 29 ships and roughly 660 hostages before the latest seizures.

Jamal said the mission again appeals to the international community to help curb the ever increasing acts of piracy.

Also Friday, Interpol said it will help seven African nations better fight piracy off the coast of Somalia.

The program is expected to cost $2.17 million (euro1.6 million), said Pierre Saint Hilaire, the assistant director of the Interpol's maritime piracy task force.

RE: Trouble in Wisconsin Unions yea or nay

Saturday, February 19, 2011
Milwaukee Teachers Earn Over $100,000 a Year
The Wisconsin teacher strike has ignited another debate about America's supposedly underpaid teachers.

Let's talk reality here.

According to the MacIver Institute total teacher compensation in Milwaukee is $100,005 a year. Salaries average $56,500 and benefits are $43,505. It's a strange salary to benefit ratio, but unions have been pushing benefits over salaries for decades. It was their choice to do this.

Teachers work less than 37 weeks a year. They get 10 weeks off in the summer, 1 week at Christmas, 1 week for mid-winter break, 1 week for spring break, and 11 holidays. The leaves 1472 hours for work. $100,005 / 1472 hours is $68 an hour.

Over the last couple of years, I ran a little consulting firm. When I needed people, I brought them in as 1099 subcontractors at a straight hourly rate. No benefits whatsoever. Over the last two years, the average hourly rate I've paid is $65. That's less than the Milwaukee teachers make.

There are three important differences as well:

First, I live on the west coast, where the cost of living is much higher that it is in Wisconsin. Computer programmer rates are much lower in the Midwest than they are in Seattle. The average teacher in Wisconsin makes significantly more per hour than the average contract programmer.

Second, I hire people who have quantitative college degrees, like Computer Science where they go through 4 semesters of calculus, linear algebra, and statistics. I don't hire people who have worthless teaching certificates or degrees in "Phys Ed".

Third, if the people I employ don't do a great job, my customers won't pay me. They certainly won't bring me back to do more work. On the other hand, teachers get "tenure", which makes it impossible to terminate them no matter how screwed up their product (your kids) become.

The sad fact is that America's poorly performing public school system has little to do with lack of funding or poor teacher compensation. The schools don't perform because the unions care more about their own power than they care about our kids. That's the bottom line.

RE: Here is one to ponder.

I don't know how you determine peaceful but I don't think it was a peaceful as one would like. I would call it a failure at being peaceful.


Around 365 dead in Egypt protests: health ministry

CAIRO - AROUND 365 people were killed and about 5,500 wounded in protests across Egypt that led to the overthrow of strongman Hosni Mubarak, the health ministry said on Wednesday.

'The total number of deaths in the events witnessed by Egypt is around 365 ... and 5,500 were treated for injuries,' Health Minister Sameh Farid said in statement carried by the official Mena new agency.

Mr Farid said the ministry was still awaiting reports from several hospitals and health offices. Demonstrations erupted on January 25 demanding Mr Mubarak's immediate resignation and calling for political and economic reforms.

The protests saw fierce clashes between demonstrators and security forces, and later between supporters and foes of the 82-year old Mr Mubarak. On his departure on February 11, Mr Mubarak handed power to a military council, which vowed to pave the way for democratic reforms.

But hundreds are still missing after the protests, rights groups said.

Gamal Eid, a lawyer who heads the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, said: 'There are hundreds of detained, but information on their numbers is still not complete ... The army was holding detainees.' -- AFP

RE: Obama is going ot win the presidency in 2012!

Yes by all means let's have ditch diggers and burger flippers be required to have a bachelors degree.

RE: Iraqi "defector" admits lying about having weapons of mass destruction.

The US is not a Democracy. It is a Representative Republic.
Too bad you bought the Lie that has been going on for so long.



Well past is the past. And yes I am a vet. GW1 and prior. My first trip to the Gulf was 87'



According to the UN resolution it was our job. Remember the UN gave permission. Don't just blame it on the US.



Then by all means tell the rest of the world to stop asking for our help.



Not for this thread been hashed out in previous threads and not gonna go to it here.

RE: which came 1st the egg or the chicken :)

If it's hot you can.

RE: which came 1st the egg or the chicken :)

Not enough info. No proof in favor of or not.

RE: Trouble in Wisconsin Unions yea or nay

Right to work is better. Have the union but do not force a person to join just to have a job. Want to work work and let the person decide.

JMO

RE: which came 1st the egg or the chicken :)

Nature through natural selection and evolution.

RE: which came 1st the egg or the chicken :)

Right.

Sunny side up well I'm sure you know that.

Or my all time favorite Mil grade powdered.

RE: Two Suns

Yes it's quite possible. 600 light years it could be a year from now or 600 years or more we won't really know until it shows itself as having exploded.

RE: Obama is going ot win the presidency in 2012!

Wisconsin Democrats could stay away for weeks



MADISON, Wis. – Democrats on the run in Wisconsin avoided state troopers Friday and threatened to stay in hiding for weeks, potentially paralyzing a state government they no longer control.

The party's stand against balancing the state's budget by cutting the pay, benefits and collective bargaining rights of public workers is the boldest action yet by Democrats to push back against last fall's GOP wave.

But the dramatic strategy that's clogged the Capitol with thousands of protesters clashes with one essential truth: Republicans told everyone unions would be a target, and the GOP has more than enough votes to pass its plans once the Legislature can convene.

The 14 Senate Democrats left the state Thursday, delaying action in that chamber on a sweeping anti-union bill. Sen. Jon Erpenbach, who was among those who fled, said Friday that the group was prepared to be away for weeks, although he would like the standoff to end as soon as possible.

"That really, truly is up to the governor," he told The Associated Press in an interview Friday at a downtown Chicago hotel. "It's his responsibility to bring the state together. The state is not unified. It is totally torn part."

Erpenbach (URP'-ehn-bahk) accused new Republican Gov. Scott Walker of trying to rush the legislation, calling the governor's style "dictatorial" at times.


Oops holding the taxpayers hostage is gonna backfire like you have never seen before.

I can see it now. One person calls for special elections for those awol and then it's a full blown republican gov.

Then we'll see real progress.

RE: which came 1st the egg or the chicken :)

Over easy is when you flip it without breaking the yoke but leave it runny.

RE: Obama is going ot win the presidency in 2012!

I said before The Gov. might as well pull a Regan on their asses and fire them all just like the Air Traffic Controllers in the 80's.

RE: I JUST LOVE MEN IN UNIFORM

Although that's the first time someone has ever called me handsome.

RE: Unions In America?

Your welcome I hope the links I provided you help in forming a reasonable conclusion.

RE: Obama is going ot win the presidency in 2012!

U.S. seeks health care clarity



The Justice Department asks a federal judge in Florida to narrow the scope of his sweeping ruling striking down all of the new health care law. It seeks to keep many parts of the law in effect while it appeals.

*The Obama Administration, saying it fears “substantial disruption and hardship” if a federal judge does not narrow the impact of his sweeping ruling against all of the new health care law, formally asked on Thursday for clarification on what is to happen while the government appeals his ruling. First, it asked that the judge pare down the practical impact of the ruling. But, if that option is rejected, it asked the judge to say specifically just what he intended to happen while the government appeal proceeds. The motion and a legal memorandum supporting it are here.

#In effect, the Administration was asking Senior U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson of Pensacola, Fla., to embrace the government’s own view of his ruling. That is, it said, governent officials “do not interpret the Court’s order as requiring them to immediately cease operating programs, implementing Medicare reforms, collecting taxes, extending grants, providing tax credits, and enforcing duties created” by the law for the 26 states that sued, and others who joined in the lawsuit in Judge Vinson’s court. Federal officials, it said, “are proceeding on that basis,” so they are essentially seeking permission to continue to do so.

The approach the new motion took was different from asking the judge to put his entire ruling on hold while a government appeal proceeds. Had the government’s lawyers asked for a stay, that could have been interpreted as a concession that they were bound not to try to enforce any part of the new law unless the judge’s decision were formally blocked. The filing made it clear that officials, as of now, at least, do not feel so bound.

When Judge Vinson struck down the new law’s mandate that virtually every American obtain health insurance by 2014, a mandate that he said exceeded Congress’s powers, the judge concluded that every part of the law had to fall with that mandate. His order thus concluded flatly that the entire 2,700-page law was invalid.

* In other words let us just enforce the collection of fees and taxes and continue to spend as we see fit.

# Please be on our side for the fines and fees because were right and your wrong.

RE: Obama is going ot win the presidency in 2012!

You know he makes those gladiator movies Conrad.