Possibly the best screen capture ever!

I haven't had any time to blog, and I had some other ideas for blog posts I don't have time for, but this won't take much time and just can't wait.

Via TBogg, who has demonstrated an uncanny skill in the art of screen capture, possibly the best portrait of Michelle Malkin ever taken. From a certain point of view. Expressing, as all good portraits must, the essential nature of the individual.

Note especially the caption and screen crawl, essential elements of the entire, um, composition of the artistic work. Oh heck, let me spell it out. "Michelle Malkin, author of the book "Unhinged", is also suspected of killing the baby girl's mother." There. And look at her expression! The best screen capture ever!

Earthquake!

You've probably heard about the earthquake in Hawaii today. I had some ideas for a blog post today, but they have been preempted. Big things happen early Sunday mornings in Hawaii. At least the earthquake didn't happen on December 7th.

A little after 7 am Hawaii time a magnitude 6.6 earthquake struck off the Kona coast of the big island of Hawaii. The word from emergency services was that no tsunami was generated. That turns out to have been incorrect, but the tsunami was only 4 inches high, so no big deal.

There was a lot of damage on the big island, but no serious injuries. Considerably less damage on the other islands, and again no serious injuries. But electricity was knocked out pretty much statewide for most of the day. So no blogging for most of the day.

No major damage on Oahu. The shaking lasted for almost a minute, but to the earthquake experienced it was obviously not close by. Enough to be really scarey for the earthquake-inexperienced. Having lived most of my life in California on or near the San Andreas and Hayward faults, I've been through enough to tell. It felt to me like about a 4.4-ish quake. I was a little concerned because I've never been through a quake in the building we're living in, but it's a wood-frame structure, and they're generally pretty good in quakes.

It shook for a while after the quake was over. A little disquieting but not unexpected. But the worst was no electricity, which meant no coffee and no computer. So no internet, no news, no blogging. We tuned the little hand-crank emergency radio to a working station for our news.

Your basic earthquake has two major shaking components: the p-wave and the s-wave. The p-wave travels faster, but looses strength more quickly. The s-wave travels more slowly and holds its strength longer. So if you're really close to the epicenter, they both arrive at about the same time. If you're further away, the p-wave gets there first, then the s-wave. Far enough away they arrive separately, and you can tell the difference. The p-wave is vertical: it lifts you up, then drops back down, sometimes sharply. The s-wave is the horizontal , with the shaking most people associate with an earthquake. Even further away, the p-wave is too weak to feel, and you only get the s-wave. That's what we had when the earthquake struck us.

So it was obviously not too close. A reassuring thought when the first aftershock hit a few minutes later. There was a reportedly a third aftershock soon after as well but we didn't feel it. Nor any of the other later aftershocks.

Now you know how to tell how close you are to an earthquake epicenter from the way the earthquake feels. And remember, if you are able to pay attention to those details, it's probably not a serious earthquake where you are (although it could be serious somewhere else).

There was no significant surf today, but it wasn't really a beach day anyway. Before and after the earthquake, it was overcast, rainy, windy at times, and just to add extra incentive to avoid the beach, a box jellyfish warning also in effect.

Death in Iraq

So. Experts in the subject using a standard, proven technique survey a large sample of households in Iraq. Their samples are taken from around the country except for two regions which are too dangerous to visit.

Their conclusion is that a huge number of "excess deaths" have occurred since the U.S. invasion, between 400,000 and 800,000 with the most probable value at about 655,000.

Widespread responses from those who favored going to war say that result is far too high. Implausibly high, in fact. Even though they were unable to sample parts of the country that were too dangerous to visit.

The people conducting the survey are experts in the field. They are using proven techniques approved and supported by the U.S. government. At least in places other than Iraq. They know what they are doing. Their work was not suspect in Bosnia, nor in Sudan. And in Sudan the data are probably less reliable. And it's quite possible, even likely, that in Bosnia and in Sudan there were places that could not be surveyed because they were too dangerous to visit. Yet results from those places have not generated any outcry, nor have they been disputed. Quite the opposite. The results of surveys in Sudan are cited as reason for international intervention in the region.

So here's a question. If a study of this sort leaves out places that are too dangerous to visit, doesn't that mean the results of the study are more likely to be too low? I mean really, if there are places that are too dangerous to visit, it's because those places have a higher than normal death rate.

So if those regions that were too dangerous to visit had been included, we would expect the actual number of excess deaths to be even higher. Significantly higher, because those regions were too dangerous to visit.

It follows from this reasoning that actual number of excess deaths in Iraq due to the war is much greater.

That is why aggressive, unprovoked war has been considered an international crime since the Nuremberg Trials. And why those who initiate aggressive, unprovoked war are considered international war criminals.

What does that make those who favored an aggressive, unprovoked war in Iraq?

Duck and Cover

The always excellent Digby's Hullabaloo has an excellent post on the October Surprise in North Korea.

I'm sure it's just a coincidence that an administration dominated by oilmen was preoccupied with the hypothetical nuclear threat posed by oil-rich Iran while it resoloutly ignored the actual nuclear threat posed by oil-poor North Korea.

After all, their job is to protect us, isn't it? That's what they keep saying.

Seems unbelievable

Perhaps you've heard of the celebrated ceramic toad of osaka. Which at the height of its power controlled a stock portfolio of over $20 billion. For some reason I was recently reminded of this story. A correspondent for the Financial Times invested some considerable effort in trying to trace the fate of the ceramic amphibian, alas without success.

While I was browsing the web for more information about the toad, I inadvertently discovered the thought-provoking controversy over the existence of Idaho. One of my friends was away fror several years. He claimed to have lived in Idaho during that time. Said he got married, got divorced, and moved back. I accepted the story at the time. Now I'm not so sure.

Tourist Advice

Next time you visit beautiful Hanauma Bay in Hawaii on the island of Oahu - and when you come to the island you really should visit, it has some of the best and easiest snorkling in Hawaii - don't set up your things too close to the hillside. Even though it's shady and there's a lawn, so you don't have to worry about sand being kicked up into your things.

There's nothing wrong with being in the shade on a tropical beach, and there's also nothing wrong with being on the lawn rather than the sand. But if you're too close to the hillside the mongooses will come out while you're in the water, rummage through your belongings, and steal and drag off your snacks. Except for your fritos. For some reason they leave those behind.

The tourist authorities always warn you not to leave stuff in your car to tempt human thieves. They don't warn you about the non-human thieves.

Consider yourselves warned. You'll have a good time anyway, you just won't have as many snacks.

Yesterday's News Tomorrow

With all the hoo-hah over underage pages and torture, a number of items may have slipped under your radar. Here's a quick sampling of some tidbits I've found off-line. I may update with links later when I find them.

Sony continues to have battery recall headaches.

Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev visits the White House. Possibly to give pointers on torture, indefinite detention, and extrajudicial execution, from the leader of one free country to another. He's the one whose opponents end up dead in apparent suicide from multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and head, or kidnapped in groups and executed in remote locations, apparently by contract killers. It's the other guy in Uzbekistan who boils opponents alive.

Amnesty International says the US policy of offering bounties for suspected terrorists has created a black market in abductions in Pakistan. Innocent people are being kidnapped and sold to the US as terrorist suspects. Makes you proud to be an American.

Corrupt deposed Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra missed the grand opening of the new Bangkok International Airport, a signiture project of his reign. Anti-corruption investigators have begun what is expected to be a long, long probe into claims of widespread corruption.

Greek GDP has surged 25% following a revision of national economic output that more fully accounts for growth in the service sector, including formerly overlooked subsectors such as prostitution and money laundering. EU spokesmen were surprised by the revision, which raised some eyebrows. Revisions like this are common in EU member states, but are typically in the 1% to 2% range. If approved the revision will make it easier for Greece to meet the EU budget deficit ceiling of 3%. However, it will also increase the requird contribution to the EU budget, and decrease the greek EU subsidy for poor countries.

A growing belief that the US economy will achieve a "soft landing" has spurred global stock markets to new gains. The Dow closed with a new all-time high, breaking the previous record set in 2000. So if you had invested $1000.00 in the Dow index companies at that time, you'd now have $1000.34. If you more wisely diversified your portfolio using the S&P 500, over the same period, you'd still unfortunatly be about $100 short of breaking even. Financial Times didn't quite put it this way.

Of course there's more. I tried to post this earlier from a mobile device but it ate the post. User error I think. I'm still new at this blogging stuff.