Ann Coulter banned from NBC

Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics--

Journalists should:
--Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable.
--Be free of obligation to any interest other than the public's right to know.

That was then. This is reality:

"The nation's top selling conservative author has been banned from appearing on NBC, insiders tell the DRUDGE REPORT."

"We are just not interested in anyone so highly critical of President-elect Obama, right now," a TODAY insider reveals. "It's such a downer. It's just not the time, and it's not what our audience wants, either."

Being critical of Obama isn't the downer, honey.

2008, Year of Disasters

Huge Year for Natural Disasters

"The past year has been one of the most devastating ever in terms of natural disasters, one of the world''s biggest re-insurance companies has said. Munich Re said the impact of the disasters was greater than in 2007 in both human and economic terms."

Earthquakes in diverse places: a response to those who say "But we have always had earthquakes. It's not the end times." In one hundred and eight years of record keeping: data shows a dramatic increase in number of earthquakes the last two years:


I wonder how the Hurricane Ike victims are doing...we haven't heard a news story out of Texas since Ike's winds wisped away.

Yellowstone situation update: quakes are stronger today!

Situation [culled from various sources]

At 11:32 this morning a 3.5 magnitude earthquake was reported 38 miles east southeast of West Yellowstone, Mont., in Yellowstone National Park — the latest in a swarm of earthquakes that has hit the area in the past week. The 3.5 tremor was followed this afternoon by a 3.2 magnitude quake at 12:40 and a 3.0 at 1:15. The swarm of tremors is the largest series of back-to-back quakes to hit the area in years, according to scientists. Today's quakes came on the heels of a series of tremors on New Year's Day, including a 3.0 at 6:30 p.m. and a 3.1 at 6:21 p.m. "The December 2008 earthquake sequence is the most intense in this area for some years," said the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.

The observatory said the National Park Service in Yellowstone is being fully informed of the ongoing seismic activity by the University of Utah and the U.S. Geological Survey. The Wyoming Office of Homeland Security is reviewing Earthquake Response Plans and also monitoring the seismic activity that has been felt by Park Service employees and guests at the park.

Over the past two days, more than 37 temors have shaken the earth below Yellowstone Lake, causing scientists to speculate on the cause and field questions on whether the quakes were a prelude to an eruption of the park’s super volcano.

“It’s an energetic earthquake swarm,” said Mike Stickney, director of the earthquake studies office for the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology. “I’m hearing reports that people in the park have been feeling some of them.”

Stickney said mild earthquakes swarms are relatively common for the Yellowstone region. This round of quakes, however, may be more vigorous than in recent years, though the cause is just as puzzling.

“There have been two other swarms this fall that come to mind,” said Stickney. “But they weren’t as many and they weren’t as large as what we’re seeing now.”

webicorder data:
http://www.seis.utah.edu/helicorder/heli/yellowstone/index.html
http://www.henrysforkcountry.com/atf.php?sid=198

Yellowstone: eq swarm continues. A precursor?

This reporter at US News & World Report has posted five articles exploring the quicksand data under the boiling cauldron that is the equation of eq swarm/eruption. Bad puns to be sure, but the data is both solid and quicksand because though USGS and Utah Univ collect a lot of data, they have no context for understanding if all this activity is a precursor or not. And there the issue boils, as many thousands of people across the globe attempt to understand what has happening this past week at Yellowstone and what it may mean for the future of mankind.

As an indicator of worldwide interest, my blog normally gets 100 hits a day. When I posted about Obama being our "First Non-Christian President" on Nov 22, I got 1000 hits. But these past two days the hits have blown the charts away.

With these successive posts by the US News reporter, it seems that there is a dividing line between the public go-to guy, Dr. Jacob Lowenstern, and other scientists. That divergence becomes obvious with this latest update from the US NEws reporter. In other words, it seems like the reporter just ain't buying the "nothing to see here" routine from Dr. Lowenstern any more:

Yellowstone Earthquakes: Supervolcano Update

January 02, 2009 03:31 PM ET
BY James Pethokoukis

A Yellowstone earthquake update:

1) The rumbling continues, including 3.5, 3.0 and 3.2 quakes just today2) Here is some more Jake Lowenstern (the Yellowstone volcano scientist) analysis (via TIME):

Jake Lowenstern, Ph.D.,YVO's chief scientist, who also is part of the USGS Volcano Hazards Team, told TIME that it doesn't appear a supervolcano event is imminent. "We don't think the amount of magma exists that would create one of these large eruptions of the past," he said. "It is still possible to have a volcanic eruption comparable to other volcanoes. But we would expect to see more and larger quakes, deformation and precursory explosions out of the lake. We don't believe that anything strange is happening right now." Last summer, YVO installed new instrumentation in boreholes 500 to 600 feet deep to better detect ground deformation. Says Lowenstern: "We have a lot more ability to look at all the data now.

3) Here is a passage on the Yellowstone supervolcano from "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson. He interviews a Yellowstone geologist, Paul Doss. I don't find it reassuring:

I asked him what caused Yellowstone to blow when it did.

"Don't know. Nobody knows. Volcanoes are strange things. We really don't understand them at all. Vesuvius, in Italy, was active for three hundred years until an eruption in 1944 and then it just stopped. It's been silent ever since. Some volcanologists think that it is recharging in a big way, which is a little worrying because two million people live on or around it. But nobody knows."

"And how much warning would you get if Yellowstone was going to go?"
He shrugged. "Nobody was around the last time it blew, so nobody knows what the warning signs are. Probably you would have swarms of earthquakes and some surface uplift and possibly some changes in the patterns of behavior of the geysers and steam vents, but nobody really knows."

"So it could just blow without warning?"

He nodded thoughtfully. The trouble, he explained, is that nearly all the things that would constitute warning signs already exist in some measure at Yellowstone. "Earthquakes are generally a precursor of volcanic eruptions, but the park already has lots of earthquakes-1,260 of them last year. Most of them are too small to be felt, but they are earthquakes nonetheless."

A change in the pattern of geyser eruptions might also be taken as a clue, he said, but these too vary unpredictably. Once the most famous geyser in the park was Excelsior Geyser. It used to erupt regularly and spectacularly to heights of three hundred feet, but in 1888 it just stopped. Then in 1985 it erupted again, though only to a height of eighty feet. Steamboat Geyser is the biggest geyser in the world when it blows, shooting water four hundred feet into the air, but the intervals between its eruptions have ranged from as little as four days to almost fifty years. "If it blew today and again next week, that wouldn't tell us anything at all about what it might do the following week or the week after or twenty years from now," Doss says. "The whole park is so volatile that it's essentially impossible to draw conclusions from almost anything that happens."

Evacuating Yellowstone would never be easy. The park gets some three million visitors a year, mostly in the three peak months of summer. The park's roads are comparatively few and they are kept intentionally narrow, partly to slow traffic, partly to preserve an air of picturesqueness, and partly because of topographical constraints. At the height of summer, it can easily take half a day to cross the park and hours to get anywhere within it. "Whenever people see animals, they just stop, wherever they are," Doss says. "We get bear jams. We get bison jams. We get wolf jams."

In the autumn of 2000, representatives from the U.S. Geological Survey and National Park Service, along with some academics, met and formed something called the Yellowstone Volcanic Observatory. Four such bodies were in existence already-in Hawaii, California, Alaska, and Washington-but oddly none in the largest volcanic zone in the world. The YVO is not actually a thing, but more an idea-an agreement to coordinate efforts at studying and analyzing the park's diverse geology. One of their first tasks, Doss told me, was to draw up an "earthquake and volcano hazards plan"-a plan of action in the event of a crisis.

"There isn't one already?" I said.
"No. Afraid not. But there will be soon."
"Isn't that just a little tardy?"
He smiled. "Well, let's just say that it's not any too soon."

Chicago Homicides Exceed U.S. Iraq Deaths. It's not news though

According to a tally by The Associated Press, at least 314 U.S. soldiers died in Iraq in 2008, down from 904 in the previous year.

And the Chicago Tribune reported today:
Chicago closed out the year with 509 homicides, an increase of about 15 percent over 2007. . .

Hope N Change, yes we can!

As a matter of fact the Green Zone in Iraq is being passed to the Iraqis but this isn't being published either because the news outlets are pulling their reporters out.

Is your bank safe and sound?

There have been five north GA banks that have failed last quarter or are on the problem list with cease and desist orders

• Freedom Bank, Commerce, has entered into a “cease and desist order” with state and federal regulators to overhaul the bank’s operations, December 27, 2008
• Haven Trust Bank, Duluth, GA, December 12, 2008
• First Georgia Community Bank, Jackson, GA, December 5, 2008
• The Community Bank, Loganville, GA, November 21, 2008
• Alpha Bank & Trust, Alpharetta, GA, October 24, 2008

The FDIC maintains a list of failed banks here. They also maintain a "watchlist" but refuse to make that list public but say that there are about 117 banks on the list of problems.

In addition, since, "[The FDIC is] fully expecting, over the course of the next 12 to 18 months, [that] there is going to be a rash of failures," said Nick Ketcha Jr., a former director of supervision at the FDIC who now serves as a managing director at the New Jersey-based financial services consulting firm FinPro," they are currently advertising for Bank Failure Specialists.

In our neck of the woods, the employment outlook is dim. Unemployment rate increases to 25-year high, so Madison Countians reluctantly asking for government aid.

With all that in mind, how can you be sure your own bank is stable? It is bad enough to have lost an average of 30% in retirement savings, to have lost or may lose a job, worries about the safety of the banking institution you use should not ad fuel to the anxiety fire. Bankrate.com has a Safe & Sound rating system that is widely accepted as a standard for determining if a bank is stable. Five stars is highest.

Merchant's and Farmer's Bank: **** "Sound."
BB&T (Branch Banking and Trust) *** "Performing"
First Madison Bank & Trust: *** "Performing"

The Bankrate system also rates credit unions. I didn't check banks in Athens or Commerce, but they are available to check by either bank name, city, or zip code.

More on Yellowstone: harmonics and duelling scientists

Now the battle of the media truth is on. Who to believe? What is the truth?

Dr. Lowenstern, a top Yellowstone seismographic observer has gone on record in an e-mail interview with a reporter from US News & World Report denying several times that anything unusual is happening at Yellowstone lake:

Dr. Jacob Lowenstern of the U.S. Geological Survey said Monday that the earthquake activity in Yellowstone most likely will continue for weeks, "and then will end without any other related activity."

Well, that's nice, but any vulcanologist around the world will tell you they cannot predict what a volcano is going to do.
------------------------------------------------------
Then, US NEWS & World Report also has received information from another scientist who analysed the data but not the earthquakes:

More on the Yellowstone earthquake swarm at the supervolcano caldera. First, this piece of database analysis from an IT guy at Splunk puts the swarm into scary perspective:

I'm sending you this email with some information I've gleaned from the USGS archives. I'm analyzing the ANSS data (http://www.ncedc.org/cnss/) in an install of Splunk, which is a timeline based search and reporting engine. I have 30 years of data in the system, with about 2M quakes total. It makes doing graphs and adhoc investigations faster than dealing with the USGS limited search forms. Disclaimer: I work for Splunk as their evangelist, and spend a lot of time studying various timeline based textual data and writing interesting apps for the software. I am not an earthquake expert by any means.

Using the ANSS data, I discovered the number of 2.5 or higher quakes in the *general* Yellowstone area for the decade of the 1980s was 128. The number of 2.5 or higher quakes for the region directly around the lake in the *last 4 days* was 30.

Again, for 2.5 mag or greater quakes:
Entire region of Yellowstone for 10 years = 128 quakes
Area just around Yellowstone Lake last 4 Days = 30 quakes

The entire 1980s of 2.5 or higher quakes in the vicinity of the lake was a paltry 4 quakes. Doing a quick back of the envelope calculation using the number of quakes and the intensities, the activity over the last 4 days has released roughly 100x the amount of energy released in the entire 1980s for the same general region. In the last week alone there have been 10 quakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater around the lake, with one as high as 3.8.

And here is yet another link to what are clearly harmonic tremors. Which the USGS denies are happening.

Now, the doom watch could go on for weeks or months or years. Personally I do not think it will blow into an ELE, because I look at the workings of the universe from a biblical perspective and we are simply not that far along the end times/judgment scenarios yet. So I am going to quit focusing on Yellowstone and turn my attention to American Movie Classics (watched Them! and King Kong last night, yeah)

But the bible does say to watch, and there will be signs and that there will be events in which men's hearts fail them for what is coming upon the earth. So any scientific anomaly is of interest to me in these end times because I love quantifiable data (not for me, the bible is quantifiable enough being 100% truth, but to show others).

So there you have a Yellowstone update and the battle of the scientists begins.

"The Honeymooners" lives

Fifty five years ago the Jackie Gleason show featured short skits ranging from 7 to 13 minutes. They were so popular, it was turned into a 30 minute show, "The Honeymooners." Perpetually grumpy NYC bus driver Ralph Kramden shakes his fist at the world in frustration and in attempts to strike it rich while his weary but loving wife Alice looks on. Friends Ed Norton and wife Trixie complete the quartet.

I had forgotten how funny Art Carney was in the role of Norton. Several times during the marathon shown on channel 11 WGN for New Year's I laughed out loud. He sure was a comic genius, contorting his rubber band-like body while unknowingly aggravating Ralph Kramden...his squashed hat crammed on his head...

Ahhh, G-rated tv. I love it. Check out The Honeymooners on Youtube, especially the famous Suwanee River episode!

Yellowstone animation of eq swarm

Very interesting animation of the eq swarm, from the good folks at the Utah observatory. Wait a few seconds, the animations start Dec 25 but the first of the intense swarm doesn't begin in the lake, until Dec 27. Watch the lake. Cool to watch it pop. No pun intended

Animation here

More on Yellowstone, harmonic tremors

from Scientific American

"Any disaster fiend will tell you that Yellowstone National Park is long overdue for a monster eruption that could leave as much as half the U.S. under a blanket of ash. And there are rumblings the big one could be imminent in the wake of a series of 30-plus mini-earthquakes in the park over the past few days—too weak to be felt by humans for the most part but picked up by the seismometers at the University of Utah."

"After all, the geologic record shows that the giant caldera we affectionately call Yellowstone has blown every 600,000 years or so over the past 2 million years. The last big eruption? About 640,000 years ago when the park spit out about 240 cubic miles worth of rock, dirt, magma and other stuff."

Small earthquake swarms are not indicators of imminent volcanic eruptions, but harmonic tremors are. From USGS visual glossary:

harmonic tremor: Harmonic tremor describes continuous rhythmic earthquakes that can be detected by seismographs. Harmonic tremors often precede or accompany volcanic eruptions. The visual glossary has an example to look at, all the better to compare the harmonic tremors as seen on the University of Utah's seismos, which I posted earlier. Decide for yourself if they are ground quakes or magma tremors.

But here's from Rightpundits:

It should be noted that all the earthquakes have been intense and concentrated in one area, which happens to be above the magma chamber. [ see .gif below ] The scariest part of this story is the “harmonic tremors” that scientists have picked up. They are a low level constant rumbling, which usually indicates magma movement.

Continuing the Scientific American excerpt:

"In recent years, Yellowstone's caldera has been rising thanks to uplifting magma beneath it—leading to more cracks, hot springs and even more frequent eruptions of Steamboat Geysers. Paired with the earthquakes, such magma movement might presage an eruption—either big or small. Unfortunately, scientists can't really predict when the next such eruption will happen, and the range of possibilities is large: from later today to a million years from now."

"How will we know if we should start worrying? The real warning signs will be rapid changes in the shape of the ground as well as volcanic gases leaking from the ground, neither of which have been sighted—yet."

If indeed the supervolcano is getting ready to blow, it does not necessarily have to be a supereruption. It could be a small one or it could by a hydrothermic event. Time will tell. Meanwhile, the unusual swarm continues. And is should be noted that a day and a half ago the USGS started pulling the eq's from their list and have not posted all of them that have occurred, according to other sites that have different seismographs and are noting more activity than USGS is publicly posting.

MAP 2.7 2009/01/01 12:51:24 44.548 -110.361 0.2 (38 mi) ESE of West Yellowstone, MT
MAP 2.4 2009/01/01 10:13:52 44.541 -110.389 0.2 (36 mi) ESE of West Yellowstone, MT
MAP 2.4 2009/01/01 10:12:57 44.325 -110.388 37.0 (42 mi) ESE of West Yellowstone, MT
MAP 2.3 2009/01/01 10:06:51 44.529 -110.370 0.5 (37 mi) ESE of West Yellowstone, MT
MAP 2.3 2009/01/01 10:02:57 44.528 -110.346 0.2 (39 mi) ESE of West Yellowstone, MT
MAP 1.6 2009/01/01 06:59:39 44.504 -110.340 0.9 (39 mi) ESE of West Yellowstone, MT
MAP 2.1 2009/01/01 05:29:09 44.507 -110.309 1.5 (40 mi) SSW of Cooke City-Silver Gate, MT
MAP 2.2 2009/01/01 05:19:51 44.509 -110.350 1.7 (39 mi) ESE of West Yellowstone, MT