Saturday Morning Funnies

Photobomb - slang. (v) - to drop in a photo unexpectedly...to hop in a picture right before it is taken; (n) - an otherwise normal photo that has been ruined or spoiled by someone (or some thing) who was not supposed to be in the photograph. (Urban Dictionary).

The following are examples of a Photobomb (Images courtesy of COED.com). Some are just outright rude and very wrong, while others tend to look a bit Photoshopped. .....One even became a popular poster....

Notes From All Over

Georgia Family Gets Facebook Glitch Surprise

A Georgia mother and her two daughters logged onto Facebook from mobile phones last weekend and wound up in a startling place: strangers' accounts with full access to troves of private information. The glitch - the result of a routing problem at the family's wireless carrier, AT&T - revealed a little known security flaw with far reaching implications for everyone on the Internet, not just Facebook users.

In each case, the Internet lost track of who was who, putting the women into the wrong accounts. It doesn't appear the users could have done anything to stop it. The problem adds a dimension to researchers' warnings that there are many ways online information - from mundane data to dark secrets - can go awry.

Several security experts said they had not heard of a case like this, in which the wrong person was shown a Web page whose user name and password had been entered by someone else. It's not clear whether such episodes are rare or simply not reported. But experts said such flaws could occur on e-mail services, for instance, and that something similar could happen on a PC, not just a phone.

"The fact that it did happen is proof that it could potentially happen again and with something a lot more important than Facebook," said Nathan Hamiel, founder of the Hexagon Security Group, a research organization.

AT&T spokesman Michael Coe said its wireless customers have landed in the wrong Facebook pages in "a limited number of instances" and that a network problem behind those episodes is being fixed.

8-Year-Old Cub Scout On Terror Watch List

Travel is a hassle for an 8-year-old Cub Scout from New Jersey. That's because Mikey Hicks shares the same name of a person who has drawn the suspicion of the Homeland Security Department.

His mother told The New York Times she sensed trouble when her son was a baby and she couldn't get a seat for him at a Florida airport. She says airline officials explained his name "was on the list." He was patted down as a 2-year-old at Newark Liberty International Airport.

The newspaper says the boy's name appears to be among 13,500 on the "selectee" list, which sets off a high level of security screening. Transportation Security Administration spokesman James Fotenos says the agency will cross-check names with birth dates and gender in the coming months.

Haiti: Where Will All The Money Go?

How difficult will it be for the United States and other donors to track the millions of dollars in earthquake aid headed to Haiti? U.S. government auditors pulled out of the country years ago after concerns over kidnappings and other crimes scuttled their efforts to monitor Haiti's spending of $45 million in U.S. aid after storms there killed thousands.

Corruption, theft, violence and other security problems and Haiti's sheer shortage of fundamentals - reliable roads, telephone and power lines and a sound financial system - will add to the challenges of making sure aid is spent properly as foreign governments and charities try not only to help Haiti recover from this week's devastating earthquake but to pull itself out of abject poverty.

Past efforts haven't been easy. The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, faced problems on a smaller scale in 2005 and 2006 as auditors tried to review the use of roughly $45 million in aid the U.S. provided after Tropical Storm Jeanne struck Haiti in September 2004, killing more than 2,000 people, injuring more than 2,600 and affecting an estimated 300,000 others.

The inspectors wanted to visit projects funded with the money to measure progress. But after an initial fact-finding trip to Haiti, it was considered too dangerous for them to go back. They could visit only projects deemed safe as destinations. In summer 2005, many employees of the Agency for International Development - which is coordinating the current U.S. response to the earthquake - were temporarily pulled out of Haiti, according to government reports.

Haiti is one of the poorest places on Earth. Most basic public services are lacking, people typically live on less than $2 a day, nearly half the population is illiterate and the government has a history of instability. The public has little opportunity to be sure that aid to the government is used honestly and well. Nor is following the money easy for donors, including the United States, 700 miles away and one of the country's biggest helpers.

Just last month, a private group, the Heritage Foundation for Haiti, urged Haiti's government to complete an audit of a $197 million emergency disaster program to respond to corruption allegations over how the money was handled. Haiti's senate cited the allegations when it removed Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis in November and replaced her with Jean-Max Bellerive.

The U.S. has promised at least $100 million in earthquake aid. That comes on top of substantial spending by the United States in Haiti in recent years for economic development such as the country's textile industry, humanitarian assistance, environmental programs, and law enforcement, including trying to stop the use of Haiti as a pass-through point for narcotics en route to the United States.

Apart from earthquake relief, senators working on the next annual foreign assistance budget have proposed at least $282 million for Haiti; the House proposal would provide at least $165 million. Much of the U.S. government's aid to Haiti comes through the Agency for International Development, which has provided at least $800 million from budget years 2004 through 2008, agency figures show.

At least $700 million more was pledged to Haiti by governments, international givers and charities at an April 2009 donors conference. Former President Bill Clinton, a United Nations special envoy to the country, told the U.N. Security Council in September that he was "100 percent committed to delivering tangible results to the U.N. and most importantly the people of Haiti."

The Haitian government relies on foreign aid to keep itself and its economy operating. In a December 2008 Gallup survey, 60 percent of Haitians interviewed said there had been times that year when they didn't have enough money to buy food, and 51 percent said there were times when they couldn't afford shelter.

Statistics about Haiti, as gathered by the U.S. government, chronicle a grim standard of living. According to the CIA and State Department, 1 in 8 children in Haiti dies before age 5. The life expectancy is 59 to 62 years. Malaria, typhoid and dengue fevers and other life-threatening illnesses long ago wiped out in the industrialized world still plague Haiti.

Thousands View Solar Eclipse In Africa And Asia

Thousands of people in Africa and Asia viewed an eclipse Friday as the moon crossed the sun's path blocking everything but a narrow, blazing rim of light. The path of the eclipse began in Africa - passing through Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Kenya and Somalia before crossing the Indian Ocean, where it reached its peak, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Web site.

The path then continued into Asia where the eclipse could be seen in Maldives, southern India, parts of Sri Lanka, Myanmar and China. Clouds obscured the partial solar eclipse in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, disappointing residents who were up early to catch a glimpse.

The eclipse is known as an annular eclipse because the moon doesn't block the sun completely. Annular eclipses, which are considered far less important to astronomers than total eclipses of the sun, occur about 66 times a century and can only be viewed by people in the narrow band along its path.

In Uganda, locals refer to an eclipse as a war between the sun and moon.

Friday's eclipse was visible from a 190-mile-wide path that passes through half the globe, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Web site.

Hundreds gathered to view the phenomenon in southern India's Dhanushkodi, a tiny town at the tip of a rocky strip of land jutting out into the ocean, where the eclipse could be seen for about 10 minutes. In the southern Indian city of Bangalore, hundreds went to a planetarium to see it. But others in India were gripped by fear and refused to come outdoors. Hindu mythology states an eclipse is caused when a dragon-demon swallows the sun, while another myth says the sun's rays during an eclipse can harm unborn children.

In northern India's Haridwar town, hosting the Kumbh Mela - touted as the world's largest religious gathering - thousands of devout Hindus were expected to mark the eclipse by taking a dip in the frigid waters of the sacred Ganges river. The eclipse could also be viewed in Indian capital New Delhi and Mumbai, the financial hub.

In Male, capital of Maldives, hundreds of people watched the eclipse with special glasses in an open field as it reached its peak.

The last total eclipse of the sun was on July 22, 2009, when it was visible in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, China and some Japanese islands.

Associated Press writers Sinan Hussain in Male, Maldives; Aijaz Rahi in Bangalore, India; Godfrey Olukya in Kampala, Uganda and Ronald Bera in Nairobi, Kenya contributed to this report.

360 Degrees: Blog Sponsor Ad - January 10

360 In-Depth: Super Quake - U.S. East, Midwest Are Vulnerable

As you watch the pictures flow in on television and in print this week - terrible, gut-wrenching scenes of rubble and destruction entombing tens of thousands of fellow human beings - try to grasp the fact that such pictures could just as easily be coming from an American city, and not necessarily Los Angeles.

Certainly San Francisco is also a likely candidate for such destruction, as is Salt Lake City, and now even the cities of the Pacific Northwest. The Seattle/Tacoma and Portland areas are, we have just discovered, subject to 9.2 subduction-zone earthquakes equal in magnitude to the monster that mauled Alaska in 1964.

Yet the most physically vulnerable American communities of all lie to the east of the Rocky Mountains. Atlanta, Boston, New York, Charleston, Memphis, St. Louis, Chicago and many other metropolitan hubs sit naked and exposed before the certainty that major earthquakes will soon shake the eastern half of the United States.

Indeed, Dr. Robert Ketter, director of the National Center for Earthquake Engineering Research in Buffalo, N.Y., made that point a few years ago, warning that we will almost certainly have a large Eastern quake - a quake targeted on cities filled with people and political leaders who refuse to believe the existence of the problem.

Of all those communities, only Boston has provisions in its building codes to require some physical resistance to quakes (and those are inadequate). Through the rest of the Midwestern and Eastern United States runs an unbroken horror story: hundreds of thousands of unreinforced-masonry buildings of cinder block and brick, used for homes, offices and high-rise apartments. And laced throughout the region are undependable dams, aging bridges barely attached at each end, questionably sited nuclear-power plants, vulnerable gas, electric, water and sewer lifelines and hazardous chemical-storage facilities sitting tenuously on potentially shaky ground. Stephen King could hardly set up a more terrifying scenario.

Los Angeles can expect to be mightily damaged by movement on the San Andreas Fault, or the Newport-Inglewood or other neighboring faults, most probably within the next 25 years. But the Eastern and Midwestern states also face ground-shaking of colossal proportions, repetitions of such known upheavals as the 1886 Charleston, S.C., quake, the 1755 Boston quake, the Jamaica Bay quake hundreds of years ago on New York's Long Island.

There is no doubt that great quakes roiled the American wilderness before recorded history. Today that wilderness is home to hundreds of thousands of occupied buildings held together only by the grace of undisturbed gravity, brittle constructions based on 100 years of erroneous assumptions that America's heartland cannot shake, rattle or roll.

Throughout the East and Midwest there are cracks in the bedrock that we can't see, under strains that we can't calculate. Exactly when they will produce cataclysmic earth-shaking cannot yet be predicted. But because it could happen as soon as next year or next decade, we should at least alter the standards by which we construct new buildings. (A process of applying well-understood engineering techniques would add, on the average, less than 10% to building costs.) If we live and work in properly designed buildings, our ability to withstand large quakes and emerge with our businesses, our economy, our families and ourselves intact can be boosted from the dubious to the realm of near-certainty.

The New Madrid Fault and the Quakes of the 1800s

The New Madrid Seismic Zone, sometimes called the New Madrid Fault Line, (pronounced New MAD-rid) is a major seismic zone and a prolific source of intraplate earthquakes (earthquakes within a tectonic plate) in the Southern and Midwestern United States stretching to the southwest from New Madrid, Missouri (hence the name). Other intraplate earthquakes include those not only New Madrid, Missouri (1811-1812), but also at Cape Ann, Massachusetts (1755).. Earthquakes occurring along boundaries of plates (e.g., San Francisco, 1906) are well understood in terms of plate tectonics, but those occurring within plates are not similarly understood. This problem still is being studied more than 100 years after the earthquake.

The granddaddy of them all was the1811-12 series of three great quakes on the New Madrid Fault (halfway between St. Louis and Memphis beneath the Mississippi), which shook the entire United States. The next time the New Madrid Fault produces such a quake, it is estimated that 60% of Memphis will be devastated, leaving $50 billion in damage and thousands of dead in its wake. Memphis, you see - like Armenia or Haiti - has looked down the barrel of a cocked and loaded seismic gun for decades, but has done virtually nothing to move out of the crosshairs.

Since the New Madrid fault system was responsible for the 1811–12 New Madrid Earthquakes, it may have the potential to produce large earthquakes in the future. Since 1812 frequent smaller earthquakes were recorded for the area.

Earthquakes that occur there potentially threaten parts of nine U.S. states: Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia.

...a serious earthquake in the New Madrid

Seismic Zone could result in

"the highest economic losses due

to a natural disaster in the United States,"

further predicting "widespread and catastrophic"

damage across Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia,

Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri

and particularly Tennessee...

- November 2008 FEMA Report

The zone had four of the largest North American earthquakes in recorded history, with moment magnitudes estimated to be greater than 8.0, all occurring within a 3 month period between December of 1811 and February of 1812. Many of the published accounts describe the cumulative effects of all the earthquakes (known as the New Madrid Sequence); thus finding the individual effects of each quake can be difficult. Magnitude estimates and epicenters are based on interpretations of historical accounts and may vary.

These earthquakes were felt in cities as far away as New York and Boston, where ground motion caused church bells to ring.

Hundreds of aftershocks followed over a period of several years. Aftershocks strong enough to be felt occurred until the year 1817. The largest earthquakes to have occurred since then were on January 4, 1843, and October 31, 1895, with magnitude estimates of 6.0 and 6.2 respectively.

This series of earthquakes caused permanent changes in the course of the Mississippi River, giving the illusion that it was flowing backward.

Charleston, South Carolina
September 1, 1886, 2:51 am (local August 31)
Magnitude 7.3

This is the most damaging earthquake to occur in the Southeast United States and one of the largest historic shocks in Eastern North America. It damaged or destroyed many buildings in the old city of Charleston and killed 60 people. Hardly a structure there was undamaged, and only a few escaped serious damage. Property damage was estimated at $5-$6 million. Structural damage was reported several hundred kilometers from Charleston (including Georgia, central Alabama, central Ohio, eastern Kentucky, southern Virginia, and western West Virginia), and long-period effects were observed at distances exceeding 1,000 kilometers.

Effects in the epicentral region included about 80 kilometers of severely damaged railroad track and more than 1,300 square kilometers of extensive cratering and fissuring. Damage to railroad tracks, about 6 kilometers northwest of Charleston, included lateral and vertical displacement of tracks, formation of S-shaped curves and longitudinal movement.

The formation of sand craterlets and the ejection of sand were widespread in the epicentral area, but surface faulting was not observed. Many acres of ground were overflowed with sand, and craterlets as much as 6.4 meters across were formed. In a few locations, water from the craterlets spouted to heights of about 4.5 to 6 meters. Fissures 1 meter wide extended parallel to canal and stream banks. A series of wide cracks opened parallel to the Ashley River, and several large trees were uprooted when the bank slid into the river.

At Summerville, a small town of 2,000 population, 25 kilometers northwest of Charleston, many houses settled in an inclined position or were displaced as much as 5 centimeters. Chimneys constructed independently of the houses commonly had the part above the roofline thrown to the ground. Many chimneys were crushed at their bases, allowing the whole chimney to sink down through the floors. The absence of overturning in piered structures and the nature of the damage to chimneys have been interpreted as evidence that the predominant motion was vertical.

The meizoseismal area of MM intensity X effects is an elliptical area, roughly 35 by 50 kilometers, trending northeast between Charleston and Jedburg and including Summerville. Middleton Place, about in the center of this ellipse, is at the southeast end of a zone (perhaps 15 kilometers long) of microearthquake activity that still continues today. This seismic activity may be a continuation of the 1886 aftershock series.

The intraplate epicenter of this major shock is not unique for large earthquakes in the Eastern and Central United States. This earthquake was reported from distant places such as Boston, Massachusetts; Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Chicago, Illinois; Cuba and Bermuda.

Today and Beyond

In a report filed in November 2008, The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency warned that a serious earthquake in the New Madrid Seismic Zone could result in "the highest economic losses due to a natural disaster in the United States," further predicting "widespread and catastrophic" damage across Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and particularly Tennessee, where a 7.7 magnitude quake or greater would cause damage to tens of thousands of structures affecting water distribution, transportation system and other vital infrastructure.

The potential for the recurrence of large earthquakes and their impact today on densely populated cities in and around the seismic zone has generated much research devoted to understanding in the New Madrid Seismic Zone. By studying evidence of past quakes and closely monitoring ground motion and current earthquake activity, scientists attempt to understand their causes and recurrence intervals.

However, as recent as last year, a study showed something different. ScienceDaily in their May 20, 2009 edition reported the New Madrid fault system does not behave as earthquake hazard models assume and may be in the process of shutting down. A team from Purdue and Northwestern universities analyzed the fault motion for eight years using global positioning system measurements and found that it is much less than expected given the 500- to 1,000-year repeat cycle for major earthquakes on that fault. They say last large earthquakes in the New Madrid seismic zone were magnitude 7-7.5 events in 1811 and 1812.

Estimating an accurate earthquake threat for the area, which includes parts of Illinois, Indiana, Tennessee, Arkansas and Kentucky, is crucial for the communities potentially affected, said Eric Calais, the Purdue researcher who led the study.

However, eight years doesn't seem to be enough time to make such a prediction of a fault zone that has been active (and acting up) for thousands, if not millions of years.

Analysis

We know that Americans take a back seat to no one when it comes to finger-pointing after a disaster. We know exactly what the national outcry will be if one of our communities suffers a seismic catastrophe next week or next year, especially on the East Coast: Why were building codes inadequate? Why did the dams, the bridges, the apartments collapse? Why were so many killed and maimed? Why didn't Washington protect us when the resulting national financial catastrophe was so predictable? Why weren't we prepared? Doesn't it make more sense to ask those questions - and find the answers - now?

Links: 1886 Charleston, S.C. Quake photos

Sources: USGS Earthquake data; http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/usgspubs/ofr/ofr95241; John J. Nance - On Shaky Ground, an Invitation to Disaster; Seismicity of the United States, 1568-1989 (Revised), by Carl W. Stover and Jerry L. Coffman, U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1527, United States Government Printing Office, Washington: 1993.

Haiti and Natural Disasters

When it comes to natural disasters, Haiti seems to have a bull's-eye on it, and not because God has it in for people.

It's because of a killer combination of geography, poverty, social problems, slipshod building standards and bad luck, experts say. The list of catastrophes is mind-numbing: This week's devastating earthquake. Four tropical storms or hurricanes that killed about 800 people in 2008. Killer storms in 2005 and 2004. Floods in 2007, 2006, 2003 (twice) and 2002. And that's just the 21st Century run-down.

"If you want to put the worst case scenario together in the Western hemisphere (for disasters), it's Haiti," said Richard Olson, a professor at Florida International University who directs the Disaster Risk Reduction in the Americas project."There's a whole bunch of things working against Haiti. One is the hurricane track. The second is tectonics. Then you have the environmental degradation and the poverty," he said.

This is the 15th disaster since 2001 in which the U.S. Agency for International Development has sent money and help to Haiti. Some 3,000 people have been killed and millions of people displaced in the disasters that preceded this week's earthquake. Since the turn of this century the U.S. has sent more than $16 million in disaster aid to Haiti.

While the causes of individual disasters are natural, more than anything what makes Haiti a constant site of catastrophe is its heart-tugging social ills, disaster experts say. It starts with poverty, includes deforestation, unstable governments, poor building standards, low literacy rates and then comes back to poverty.

This week's devastating quake comes as Haiti is still trying to recover from 2008, when it was hit four times by tropical storms and hurricanes, said Kathleen Tierney, director of the University of Colorado's Natural Hazard Center.

And while there is bad luck involved, former top FEMA official Mark Merritt, president of the disaster consulting firm James Lee Witt Associates, says, "It's an economic issue. It's one of those things that feeds on each other."

Every factor that disaster experts look for in terms of vulnerability is the worst it can be for Haiti, said Dennis Mileti, a seismic safety commissioner for the state of California and author of the book "Disasters by Design." Add to that the high population density in the capital, many of them migrants from the countryside who live in shantytowns scattered throughout Port-au-Prince.

"It doesn't get any worse," said Mileti, a retired University of Colorado professor. "I fear this may go down in history as the largest disaster ever, or pretty close to it."

For this to be the deadliest quake on record, the death toll will have to top the 2004 Asian tsunami that killed more than 227,000 and a 1976 earthquake in China that killed 255,000, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

"It's because they're so vulnerable,

any event tips the balance...

They don't have the kind of resiliency

that other nations have.

It doesn't take much to tip the balance."

- Susan Cutter, University of South Carolina's

Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute

While nobody knows the complete death toll in Haiti, a leading senator, Youri Latortue, told the Associated Press recently that as many as 500,000 could be dead. "Whether it comes in as No. 1, No. 2 or No. 3, only time will tell," Mileti said. "This is a major cataclysm."

Vulnerability to natural disasters is almost a direct function of poverty, said Debarati Guha Sapir, director of the World Health Organization's Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters.

"Impacts are not natural nor is there a divine hand or ill fate," Sapir said. "People will also die now of lack of follow-up medical care. In other words, those who survived the quake may not survive for long due to the lack of adequate medical care."

University of South Carolina's Susan Cutter, who maps out social vulnerability to disaster by county in the United States, said Haiti's poverty makes smaller disasters there worse.

"It's because they're so vulnerable, any event tips the balance," said Cutter, director of the school's Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute. "They don't have the kind of resiliency that other nations have. It doesn't take much to tip the balance."

A magnitude 7 earthquake is devastating wherever it hits, Cutter said. But it's even worse in a place like Haiti.

One problem is the poor quality of buildings, Merritt said. Haiti doesn't have building codes and even if it did, people who make on average $2 a day can't afford to build something that can withstand earthquakes and hurricanes, he said. Poverty often is a major reason for poor infrastructure, Tierney said.

Then there's the deforestation that leads to mudslides and flooding because Haiti leads the hemisphere in tree-clearing, Merritt and others said. That causes erosion which worsens flooding. The trees are cut down mostly for cooking because of the poverty, Merritt said.

Another problem is the inability to prepare for and cope with disaster, said Merritt, who last fall started work to help train Haitians to prepare for disasters, including creating emergency response teams in a country that only has a couple of fire stations. It involved Haiti's small disaster bureau, the United Nations, Red Cross and other relief agencies and governments. The training manuals were still being translated from English to Creole when the earthquake hit, he said.

"If you look at neighboring Cuba, they have a very good emergency management infrastructure," Tierney said. "That's partly because of the way they organize the country from the block upward."

Another issue is that Haiti has been hurricane focused because quakes have been so rare in its history.

Until about a decade ago, scientists thought the north coast of Hispaniola was more prone to earthquakes. But work by Tim Dixon of the University of Miami found the southern fault zone, where Tuesday's quake occurred, was equally likely to produce temblors.

Scientists have known about the seismic threat for a while now, but Dixon said that doesn't help the Haitian government, which lacks the resources to quake-proof buildings and structures.

"This was not that huge of an earthquake, but there's been a lot of damage," he said. "It's the tragedy of a natural disaster superimposed on a poor country."

Haiti shares the island with the relatively richer Dominican Republic, which provides a good contrast when it comes to catastrophes, experts said.

Buildings in the Dominican Republic are stronger and withstand disaster better, Merritt said. Partly that's because it is a richer country with a more stable government.

The damage to Haiti is so devastating, so extensive that it offers a sense of hope in rebuilding, the experts said. Past disasters, including Hurricane Katrina, show that it is easier to put up new buildings than rebuild damaged ones, which is one reason why the wiped-clear Mississippi coast came back faster than New Orleans, Merritt said.

After the killer 1976 earthquake in Guatemala, houses were rebuilt with less vulnerable, lighter roofs and the entire region was designed to be less disaster prone, FIU's Olson said.

"Catastrophic disasters open a window of opportunity to fundamentally change how cities are rebuilt," Olson said. "If it's rebuilt in the same fashion (as it is now), our children are going to have this same conversation."

Associated Press Writer Alicia Chang contributed to this report.

BREAKING - Rescuers Scramble To Get Aid To Quake Survivors

Desperately needed aid from around the world slowly made its way today into Haiti, where supply bottlenecks and a leadership vacuum left rescuers scrambling on their own to save the trapped and injured and get relief supplies into the capital.

The international Red Cross estimated that 45,000 to 50,000 people were killed in Tuesday's magnitude-7.0 earthquake.

President Barack Obama announced that "one of the largest relief efforts in our recent history" is moving toward Haiti, with thousands of troops and a broad array of civilian rescue workers flying or sailing in to aid the stricken country -- backed by more than $100 million in relief funds

"This is much worse than a hurricane..

There's no water. There's nothing.

Thirsty people are going to die."

- Doctor's Assistant Jimitre Coquillon

The nascent flow of rescue workers showed some results: A newly arrived search team pulled a U.N. security worker alive from the organization's collapsed headquarters, where about 100 people are still trapped. He stood, held up a fist in celebration, and was helped to a hospital. Planes from China, France, Spain and the United States landed at Port-au-Prince's airport, carrying searchers and tons of water, food, medicine and other supplies -- with more promised the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation. The international Red Cross estimated 3 million people -- a third of the population -- may need emergency relief.

The Federal Aviation Administration halted all civilian flights from the United States to Port-au-Prince at the request of the Haitian government because there is no room on the ground for more planes and not enough jet fuel for planes to go back, an official at the FAA said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly. It took six hours to unload a Chinese plane due to a lack of equipment -- a hint of possible bottlenecks ahead as a global response brings a stream of aid flights to the quake-damaged airport.

"We don't have enough handling equipment or the people to run it," said U.S. Air Force Col. Ben McMullin, part of the team handling traffic at the airport. "We're trying to control the flow of aircraft."

In Geneva, Red Cross spokesman Jean-Luc Martinage said the Haitian Red Cross estimated 45,000 to 50,000 people were killed, based on reports from its network of volunteers across Port-au-Prince.

There seemed to be little official Haitian presence in much of the capital -- or at the airport. McMullin said about 60 planes carrying 2,000 people had landed since Wednesday, when the airport reopened, and noon Thursday. U.S. military forklift operators helped unload some foreign flights as well as U.S. cargos and Haitian staff were far outnumbered by foreign aid workers and military, and no senior Haitian officials were visible.

In the city, trucks carrying police and U.N. workers or equipment to clear away debris were often stuck in traffic on roads filled with pickup trucks, cars and pedestrians. At many collapsed buildings, neighbors and volunteers dug through rubble -- often with bare hands -- to free trapped residents without help from the government.

Since the earthquake, President Rene Preval has maintained his typical low profile, granting only a couple of media interviews and making few public appearances. His own residences were damaged in the quake and the Parliament building collapsed, along with some other ministries and departments.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the U.S. had been in touch with Preval, and added: "We're not taking over Haiti. We are helping to stabilize Haiti, we're helping to provide them lifesaving support."

The often-chaotic city was surprisingly calm, despite the devastation, though journalists occasionally heard the sound of isolated gunfire. It was not clear if it was aimed at people. Even in normal times, guards sometimes fire shotguns in the air to keep people away from stores. There has been widespread looting of collapsed buildings since the earthquake hit, but rarely of undamaged shops, said Matt Marek, Haiti country representative of the American Red Cross.

"There is no other way to get provisions," he told The Associated Press. "Even if you have money, those resources are going to be exhausted in a few days."

Bodies lay in the street, often covered by a white cloth, in the tropical heat. Some people dragged the dust-covered dead along the roads, trying to reach a hospital where they might leave them. Others tried to carry dead relatives to nearby hills for impromptu burials, prompting Brazil's military -- the biggest continent among U.N. peacekeepers -- to warn the practice could lead to an epidemic. It said it asked authorities to create a new cemetery. The Brazilian military said it also was worried that bodies could be left too long because many Voodoo followers in Haiti do not allow the dead to be touched before all their rituals are concluded.

"This is much worse than a hurricane," said Jimitre Coquillon, a doctor's assistant working at a triage center set up in a hotel parking lot. "There's no water. There's nothing. Thirsty people are going to die."

Aid workers reported confusion over how to cope with the sudden flood of aid from scores of places.

"We don't have enough handling

equipment or the people to run it...

We're trying to control the flow of aircraft."

- U.S. Air Force Col. Ben McMullin

"Donations are coming in to the airport here, but some are coming without notice from very well-meaning groups," said Save the Children spokeswoman Kate Conradt. "There is not yet a system to get it in" to those who need it.

Search and rescue squads from Virginia and Iceland arrived Wednesday and some groups -- from Cuba's government and Doctors Without Borders -- used physicians already in the country to treat victims immediately after the quake.

The U.S. Army said a detachment of more than 100 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division was heading out from Fort Bragg in North Carolina, looking for locations to set up tents and other essentials in preparation for the arrival of another 800 personnel Friday. That's in addition to some 2,200 Marines to be sent, as the military prepares to help with security, search and rescue missions, and the delivery of humanitarian supplies. More than a half-dozen U.S. military ships also are expected to help, with the largest, the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, arriving later today.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that 91 injured French nationals were evacuated to the Caribbean island of Martinique. The acrid smell of drywall and dust that filled the air immediately after the quake has faded, giving way to the usual aromas of Port-au-Prince: flowers and mango trees, with a hint of gasoline and urine. Police officers carried the injured in their pickup trucks. Wisnel Occilus, a 24-year-old student, was wedged between two other survivors in a truck bed headed to a police station. He was in an English class when the quake struck and the building collapsed.

"The professor is dead. Some of the students are dead, too," said Occilus, who suspected he had several broken bones. "Everything hurts." Other survivors carried injured to hospitals in wheelbarrows and on stretchers fashioned from doors.

About 3,000 police and international peacekeepers cleared debris, directed traffic and maintained security in the capital. But law enforcement was stretched thin even before the quake and would be ill-equipped to deal with major unrest. The U.N.'s 9,000-member peacekeeping force sent patrols across the capital's streets while securing the airport, port and main buildings.

The State Department announced one American had died in Haiti, saying that at least 164 U.S. citizens have been evacuated since the quake. Coast Guard C-130 planes have airlifted 42 American officials and their families and another 72 private citizens to safety, Crowley said. Another 370 Americans were awaiting flights out, he said. There were about 45,000 Americans living in Haiti at the time of the earthquake.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it set up a Web site to help Haitians find missing loved ones. Robert Zimmerman, deputy head of the group's tracing unit, said people in Haiti and abroad can register missing relatives on the site.

According to the USGS, the January 12, 2010, Haiti earthquake occurred in the boundary region separating the Caribbean plate and the North America plate. This plate boundary is dominated by left-lateral strike slip motion and compression, and accommodates about 20 mm/y (20 millimeter per year) slip, with the Caribbean plate moving eastward with respect to the North America plate.

Haiti occupies the western part of the island of Hispaniola, one of the Greater Antilles islands, situated between Puerto Rico and Cuba. At the longitude of the January 12 earthquake, motion between the Caribbean and North American plates is partitioned between two major east-west trending, strike-slip fault systems -- the Septentrional fault system in northern Haiti and the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system in southern Haiti.

The location and focal mechanism of the earthquake are consistent with the event having occurred as left-lateral strike slip faulting on the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system. This fault system accommodates about 7 mm/y, nearly half the overall motion between the Caribbean plate and North America plate.

Associated Press contributors to this story: Jonathan Katz and Jennifer Kay in Port-au-Prince; Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations; Frank Jordans and Bradley S. Klapper in Geneva; Jenny Barchfield in Paris; Pauline Jelinek in Washington; Tales Azzoni in Sao Paulo.

Links: More Information and Ways You Can Help

Earthquakes in the last 7 days

Latest info on Quakes

Be Prepared

360 Degrees: Blog Sponsor Ad - January 10

Music Video Wednesday

The Veronicas - "4ever"

The Veronicas grabbed 3 nominations of Best Spankin' New Artist, Video of the Year, and Best Pop Video at the 2006 MTV Australian Video Music Awards, and they seem unstoppable. Also, MTV Australia has just released their top 10 Rising Stars for 2010 - The Veronicas come in at #7. The Veronicas take their name from Archie Comics' character, Veronica Lodge.....

Like The Everly Brothers or K-Ci, The Veronicas is the singing duo which consists of identical twin sisters from Brisbane, Australia named Lisa Marie Origliasso and Jessica Louise Origliasso. Born on December 25, 1984 to Colleen and Joseph Origliasso, the sisters were raised in the suburb of Albany Creek and had already experienced the taste of show business by the time they turned five. Not only have they performed on various TV shows or acted in local productions, but also they have plunged into music industry.

However, the success, which unmistakably catapulted The Veronicas to widespread popularity, was slightly marred when Archie Comics filed a lawsuit for trademark infringement over the band's name. Fortunately, all ended well after both sides reached their settlement and even had worked together for a cross-promotion deal. It was materialized in an issue of Veronica's comic book featuring the group in which fans could find a card with a certain code to download the duo's single in MP3 form for free.

The sisters sang the title song on the short-lived television show Related which had featured songs from their debut album. They appeared as The Veronicas in an episode that aired 6 February 2006. In March 2006, their debut single "4ever" was featured in the Amanda Bynes comedy She's the Man. It was featured in the promotional television spots, the film itself and the soundtrack. The girls have also appeared on The Suite Life of Zack & Cody episode "The Suite Life Goes Hollywood" as guest stars and were the object of good-natured humor about their height - both standing just barely over 5' tall.

The Veronicas have toured Australia showcasing their latest album and performed live at Australian Open 2008, at Melbourne Park to kick start the Men's Final game at Rod Laver Arena. The twins spoke to 360 Degrees when it was on LiveJournal in 2007 about what they had learned from being in the spotlight, with Jess saying, "We've learned that our opinions matter as much as anyone else's. We should stand up and express ourselves at all times."

A New Year, But A Better One?

So, it's a New Year. There will be much anticipation as we dust ourselves off from 2009. For starters, we've kind of revamped some things here. The evidence of that will be more obvious with each new post. However, the respite was nice considering we were chomping at the bit to voice our opinions and point out the vast short-comings of the mass hysteria we call the Fruitcake Left. Our apologies to the Claxton Fruitcake Company of Claxton, Georgia. You have a good product, but you will never have enough nuts to compete with the Left. And while we, as individuals here at 360 and as a group known as Conservatives are very far from perfect with our own foibles and shortcomings, at least we are not the ones driving the economy and the country into the proverbial toilet by totally giving away everything just to make ourselves feel better about being temporary top dog. The Democrats sudden rise to power will be short-lived as we will all see in the 2010 mid-term elections in November. The same kind of grass roots movement that elected Obama will now undo him and those who blindly follow. His recent approval rating is proof of that, no matter what MSNBC says.

Incidentally, we said not long after the election that Obama was sent to Washington because so many we so disillusioned by the Bush Administration, and that it shouldn't be considered an across the board mandate for Obama's (and the really far left-wing creeps who got him there) policies. And if that's so, why are they still squawking about G.W.? Anger, folks. Serious, feudal-type anger, and these days, you're nobody unless your jerked-off about something Their radical lives are so screwed up, they must bitch about something and somebody. The very things that made this country great are the very things they intend to tear down. Of course, this country isn't perfect; neither are we, neither is anyone in this country. But this is the Great Experiment. Did you ever once ponder as to why the pyramid on the back of a dollar bill is unfinished? We're still building, even if it's building despite the tearing down.

The Democrat's sudden rise to
power will be short-lived as we
will all see in the 2010 mid-term
elections in November.
The same kind of grass roots
movement that elected Obama
will now undo him and those
who blindly follow.

But let's just take a break for the moment and explore other things 2010 will have to look forward to. There's the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Tickets to the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympics Winter Games will be sold in phases: www.vancouver2010.com/olympic-tickets.

Also, there's the FIFI World Soccer Cup, legions of pretty sharp movies, slick cars (that only the Obamites will be able to drive), and of course, there's the Census; only this time, ACORN will have no involvement. Thank goodness.

People lie. Unfortunately, it's a fact of life. But to intentionally lie in order to gain a foothold of power, is something else entirely. Every liberal is that way. They manipulate the government and force everyone else to go along with it. The politicians they support keep enacting policies that don't help anyone. They instead, continue to hurt people and make them more dependent on government. While the current administration seems to be making more of the mistakes of the past by building up the deficit, increasing the size of government and massive give-aways, stop looking through the partisan lens for a moment; both parties are screwing you over right now. They are using you. Ignore the R or the D next to their name and start supporting or opposing the politicians in a very different way: Look at what they believe.

We believe the following:

1. In a balanced budget and therefore will vote for a freeze in government spending until that goal is realized.

2. That government should not increase the financial burden on its citizenry during difficult economic times therefore we oppose all tax increases until our economy has rebounded.

3. That more than four decades of U.S. dependence on foreign oil is a travesty therefore I will support an energy plan that calls for immediately increasing usage of all domestic resources including nuclear energy, natural gas, and coal as necessary.

4. In the sovereignty and security of our country and therefore will support measures to close our borders except for designated immigration points so we will know who is entering and why and I will vehemently oppose any measure giving another country, the United Nations, or any other entity, power over U.S. citizens.

5. That the United States of America is the greatest country on earth and therefore will not apologize for policies or actions which have served to free more and feed more people around the world than any other nation on the planet.

If your politician doesn't believe, support or reflect these beliefs in their actions (not the little words they say), then they aren't supporting you. More importantly, they aren't supporting, protecting or defending the Constitution and it's time to vote the bums out.

If the truth is to be told, the hypocrites who supported/are supporting Obama, and even Obama himself, are losing their once bright savior-like luster. Gone are the clean garbs of "CHANGE!" and "YES WE CAN!" only to be replaced with the metaphors common to the times Obama was selling crack on the streets of Chicago. And taking every kook with him.

While this administration and the parasites that either came with Obama or the ones just waiting for him to come on board are in office, we are not safe, we will be unfairly taxed, bullied, snowed. Yes, you did, Obamites, but nothing lasts forever.

P.S. We hope you don't think this has now set the tone for all of our posts. While we will be embarrassing some people by calling them out, basically the other features never went away. And neither did we.

Happy Regards.

360 Degrees: Blog Sponsor Ad - January 10

Dangerous Japanese ‘Detergent Suicide’ Technique Creeps Into U.S.

A suicide technique that mixes household chemicals to produce a deadly hydrogen sulfide gas became a grisly fad in Japan last year. Now it’s slowly seeping into the United States over the internet, according to emergency workers, who are alarmed at the potential for innocent causalities.

At least 500 Japanese men, women and children took their lives in the first half of 2008 by following instructions posted on Japanese websites, which describe how to mix bath sulfur with toilet bowl cleaner to create a poisonous gas. One site includes an application to calculate the correct portions of each ingredient based on room volume, along with a PDF download of a ready-made warning sign to alert neighbors and emergency workers to the deadly hazard.

The first sign that the technique was migrating to the United States came in August, when a 23-year-old California man was found dead in his car behind a Pasadena shopping center. The VW Beetle’s doors were locked, the windows rolled up and a warning sign had been posted in one of the windows. Police and firefighters evacuated the shopping crew before a hazmat crew in chemical suits extracted the body and began cleaning up the grisly scene.

Then in December, emergency workers responding to a call at Lake Allatoona in Bartow County, Georgia, found a similar scene. Inside the car — along with the body — were two buckets containing a yellow substance. A note on the window said "Caution" and identified the chemical compound by name.

Nobody connected the cases until last month, when a Texas surgeon realized that a new and dangerous suicide method was making the rounds. Dr. Paul Pepe, chief of emergency medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center, warned emergency workers that they could become innocent casualties of the technique if they’re not careful. Other experts agree.

"The normal response for an EMS, is they’re going to break open the window," says August Vernon, assistant coordinator for the Forsyth County Office of Emergency Management, who was consulted by the Department of Homeland Security on the danger this week. "And that’s a pretty normal call: someone unconscious inside the car. Fortunately, those people left notes, which is pretty unusual and a good thing."

"Eventually," he adds, "someone isn’t going to leave a note."

The American version of the method substitutes a common insecticide for the bath sulfur used in the Japanese recipe; bath sulfur isn’t available in the United States. But the tweak does nothing to make the gas less dangerous for people nearby. In one of the Japanese cases last year, 90 residents in an apartment building were sickened when a 14-year-old girl used hydrogen sulfide (H2S) to take her life.

The so-called "detergent suicides" in Japan sparked considerable and ongoing interest on the Alt.Suicide Usenet groups, where people considering suicide share tips and tricks. This week, one depressed man wrote of his plan to release hydrogen sulfide gas in his car while driving, in the hope that he’ll lose consciousness and crash — making it look like an accident.

"I got the idea to use hydrogen sulfide poisoning by reading of the tremendous success (for lack of a better word) that the Japanese people have had with it," he wrote on Monday. "It is their most common suicide method. I understand that the method smells but I have found the stench of failure in my life as well."

When other newsgroup denizens pointed out the recklessness of his plan, he gave it up as too risky to innocent bystanders. After exploring other techniques, the man announced on Wednesday that he decided he’d rather live.

"With months of research I have discovered that there is no ‘easy’ or ‘painless’ or ‘quick’ way to die," he wrote. "So, from here on out I am going to pick up the pieces to my life! Maybe you should too."

(Top photo: A hazmat team responds to a chemical suicide near a Pasadena shopping center. Courtesy Terry Miller, Beacon Media News; Middle photo: Police officers in protective gear enter an apartment in Konan, southern Japan Thursday, April 24, 2008. A Japanese girl gassed herself to death by mixing laundry detergent with cleanser, releasing fumes that sickened 90
people in her apartment house. AP Photo/Kyodo News)

Read Similar Story

Fox News, The Daily-Tribune, Wired, Beacon Media News contributed to this post.

Happy New Year! It's 2009!