This blog is entitled "Save the planet movement" because it is - as it says. All the contents of this blogsite is intended to serve the needed knowledge required by anyone concerned in doing his part in saving the planet.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Gulf Coast oil spill could eclipse Exxon Valdez


An Ocean of FirePlay VideoABC News  – An Ocean of Fire

VENICE, La. – An oil spill that threatened to eclipse even the Exxon Valdez disaster spread out of control with a faint sheen washing ashore along the Gulf Coast Thursday night as fishermen rushed to scoop up shrimp and crews spread floating barriers around marshes.
The spill was bigger than imagined — five times more than first estimated — and closer. Faint fingers of oily sheen were reaching theMississippi River delta, lapping the Louisiana shoreline in long, thin lines.
"It is of grave concern," David Kennedy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told The Associated Press. "I am frightened. This is a very, very big thing. And the efforts that are going to be required to do anything about it, especially if it continues on, are just mind-boggling."
The oil slick could become the nation's worst environmental disaster in decades, threatening hundreds of species of fish, birds and other wildlife along the Gulf Coast, one of the world's richest seafood grounds, teeming with shrimp, oysters and other marine life. Thicker oil was in waters south and east of the Mississippi delta about five miles offshore.
The leak from the ocean floor proved to be far bigger than initially reported, contributing to a growing sense among many in Louisianathat the government failed them again, just as it did during Hurricane KatrinaPresident Barack Obama dispatched Cabinet officials to deal with the crisis.
Cade Thomas, a fishing guide in Venice, worried that his livelihood will be destroyed. He said he did not know whether to blame the Coast Guard, the federal government or oil company BP PLC.
"They lied to us. They came out and said it was leaking 1,000 barrels when I think they knew it was more. And they weren't proactive," he said. "As soon as it blew up, they should have started wrapping it with booms."
The Coast Guard worked with BP, which operated the oil rig that exploded and sank last week, to deploy floating booms, skimmers and chemical dispersants, and set controlled fires to burn the oil off the water's surface.
The company has requested more resources from the Defense Department, especially underwater equipment that might be better than what is commercially available. A BP executive said the corporation would "take help from anyone."
Government officials said the blown-out well 40 miles offshore is spewing five times as much oil into the water as originally estimated — about 5,000 barrels, or 200,000 gallons, a day.
At that rate, the spill could eclipse the worst oil spill in U.S. history — the 11 million gallons that leaked from the grounded tanker Exxon Valdez in Alaska's Prince William Sound in 1989 — in the three months it could take to drill a relief well and plug the gushing well 5,000 feet underwater on the sea floor.
Ultimately, the spill could grow much larger than the Valdez because Gulf of Mexico wells tap deposits that hold many times more oil than a single tanker.
Doug Suttles, chief operating officer for BP Exploration and Production, had initially disputed the government's larger estimate. But he later acknowledged on NBC's "Today" show that the leak may be as bad as federal officials say. He said there was no way to measure the flow at the seabed, so estimates have to come from how much oil rises to the surface.
Mike Brewer, 40, who lost his oil spill response company in the devastation of Hurricane Katrina nearly five years ago, said the area was accustomed to the occasional minor spill. But he feared the scale of the escaping oil was beyond the capacity of existing resources.
"You're pumping out a massive amount of oil. There is no way to stop it," he said.
An emergency shrimping season was opened to allow shrimpers to scoop up their catch before it is fouled by oil. Cannons were to be used to scare off birds. And shrimpers were being lined up to use their boats as makeshift skimmers in the shallows.
This murky water and the oysters in it have provided a livelihood for three generations of Frank and Mitch Jurisich's family in Empire, La.
Now, on the open water just beyond the marshes, they can smell the oil that threatens everything they know and love.
"Just smelling it, it puts more of a sense of urgency, a sense of fear," Frank Jurisich said.
The brothers hope to get all the oysters they can sell before the oil washes ashore. They filled more than 100 burlap sacks Thursday and stopped to eat some oysters. "This might be our last day," Mitch Jurisich said.
Without the fishing industry, Frank Jurisich said the family "would be lost. This is who we are and what we do."
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency Thursday so officials could begin preparing for the oil's impact. He said at least 10 wildlife management areas and refuges in his state and neighboringMississippi are in the oil plume's path.
The declaration also noted that billions of dollars have been invested in coastal restoration projects that may be at risk. He also asked the federal government if he could call up 6,000 National Guard troops to help.
As dawn broke Thursday in the oil industry hub of Venice, about 75 miles from New Orleans and not far from the mouth of the Mississippi River, crews loaded an orange oil boom aboard a supply boat at Bud's Boat Launch. There, local officials expressed frustration with the pace of the government's response and the communication they were getting from the Coast Guard and BP officials.
"We're not doing everything we can do," said Billy Nungesser, president of Plaquemines Parish, which straddles the Mississippi River at the tip of Louisiana.
Tension was growing in towns like Port Sulphur and Empire along Louisiana Highway 23, which runs south of New Orleans along the Mississippi River into prime oyster and shrimping waters.
Companies like Chevron and ConocoPhillips have facilities nearby, and some residents are hesitant to criticize BP or the federal government, knowing the oil industry is as much a staple here as fishing.
"I don't think there's a lot of blame going around here. People are just concerned about their livelihoods," said Sullivan Vullo, who owns La Casa Cafe in Port Sulphur.
A federal class-action lawsuit was filed late Wednesday on behalf of two commercial shrimpers from Louisiana, Acy J. Cooper Jr. and Ronnie Louis Anderson.
The suit seeks at least $5 million in compensatory damages plus an unspecified amount of punitive damages against Transocean, BP, Halliburton Energy Services Inc. and Cameron International Corp.
In Buras, La., where Hurricane Katrina made landfall in 2005, the owner of the Black Velvet Oyster Bar & Grill couldn't keep his eyes off the television. News and weather shows were making projections that oil would soon inundate the coastal wetlands where his family has worked since the 1860s.
It was as though a hurricane was approaching, maybe worse.
"A hurricane is like closing your bank account for a few days, but this here has the capacity to destroy our bank accounts," said Byron Marinovitch, 47.
"We're really disgusted," he added. "We don't believe anything coming out of BP's mouth."
Signs of the 2005 hurricane are still apparent here: There are schools, homes, churches and restaurants operating out of trailers, and across from Marinovitch's bar is a wood frame house abandoned since the storm.
A fleet of boats working under an oil industry consortium has been using booms to corral and then skim oil from the surface.
BP conducted a test burn on Wednesday, but abandoned a plan to set fire to more oil after weather conditions deteriorated. The attempt to burn some of the oil came after crews operating submersible robots failed to activate a shut-off device that would halt the flow.
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was briefed Thursday on the issue, said his spokesman, Capt. John Kirby. But Kirby said the Defense Department has received no request for help, nor is it doing any detailed planning for any mission on the oil spill.
Obama dispatched Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar andEnvironmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson to help with the spill. The president said theWhite House would use "every single available resource" to respond.
Obama has directed officials to aggressively confront the spill, but the cost of the cleanup will fall on BP,White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said.
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Mohr reported from Jackson, Miss. Associated Press writers Janet McConnaughey, Kevin McGill, Michael Kunzelman and Brett Martel in New Orleans, and Melinda Deslatte in Baton Rouge also contributed to this report.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Soaring meteor lights up skies across the Midwest





This black and white photo from a rooftop webcam ...

Fireball passed over Madison, Wis., Wednesday ...

This black and white photo from a rooftop webcam released Thursday, April 15, 2010, by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences shows a fireball as it passed over Madison, Wis., Wednesday night. National Weather Service meteorologist David Sheets in Davenport, Iowa, says a meteor soared past about 10 p.m. local and appears to have disintegrated as it reached southwest Wisconsin. The meteor, also seen in Missouri, Illinois and Iowa, apparently didn't cause any damage. (AP Photo/University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences) MANDATORY CREDIT

MILWAUKEE – A large meteor streaked across the Midwestern sky momentarily turning night into day, rattling houses and causing trees and the ground to shake, authorities said Thursday. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
Witnesses say the meteor lit up the sky Wednesday about 10:10 p.m. National Weather Service officesacross the Midwest said it was visible from southwestern Wisconsin and northern Iowa to central Missouri.
Radar information suggests the meteor landed in the southwest corner of Wisconsin, either Grant or Lafayette counties, said Ashley Sears, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Milwaukee office. Officials in both counties said no one reported seeing a meteorite or crater.
Lafayette County Sheriff Scott Pedley said his office received multiple reports of a very bright light in the skyfollowed by houses and the ground shaking.
"There were reports of four to five minutes of explosions or rumbling," he said. He couldn't say what the sound was but speculated it may have been a sonic boom if the meteor broke the sound barrier.
A dashboard camera in the squad car of a Howard County sheriff's deputy in Iowa caught a glimpse of the fireball. In the video, the object streaks toward the ground, then swells and brightens in an apparent explosion before disappearing behind a distant clump of trees.
As large as the halo seems, history suggests the object might only be the size of a softball or basketball, said James Lattis, the director of the University of Wisconsin Space Place in Madison.
"These things are surprisingly small," Lattis said. He noted meteor showers can produce streaks visible from miles away even though the objects that are burning up might be the size of a grain of sand.
Lattis said because Wednesday's meteor apparently exploded, it's possible it will never be recovered. Unless the fragments landed on a rooftop, car, yard or other prominent place, they could be virtually indistinguishable from other rocks and pebbles on the ground.
"In that case it will just be luck if anyone happens to recognize it," he said.
Lattis said there's even a chance the sighting wasn't a meteor, noting an object such as a broken satellite part could create a similar effect. A message seeking comment was left with NASA.
Sean Thompson was watching television in his Iowa City, Iowa, apartment when a bright light caught his eye for about 10 seconds before it disappeared.
"It was somewhat alarming to me," Thompson said. "I've seen shooting stars, but I've never seen something jetting across the sky with flames shooting off it."
Some initially speculated the object was part of a two-week-long meteor shower currently under way. But Lattis said it most likely wasn't part of the Gamma Virginids shower because it came from the opposite direction.
The Gamma Virginids shower began April 4 and is expected to last through April 21. Thursday is expected to be the second straight day of peak activity.
Meteors are caused by bits of space debris, such as that left by a comet. Dust and debris burn up in the atmosphere and create streaks of light. Unlike other celestial sightings that require a telescope or binoculars, the best way to watch a meteor shower is with the naked eye.
___
Associated Press Writer Molly Hottle in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.
___
Dinesh Ramde can be reached at dramde(at)ap.org.

Death toll in China earthquake jumps to 1,144


Rescuers carry a man injured in an earthquake in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of YushuReuters – Rescuers carry a man injured in an earthquake in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Yushu, Qinghai …
JIEGU, China – State media says the death toll from Wednesday's earthquake in western China has risen to 1,144.
The Xinhua News Agency says the new death toll is as of early Friday evening — up from 791 reported Friday afternoon.
The report says another 417 people remain missing.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
JIEGU, China (AP) — Tibetan monks prayed over hundreds of bodies Friday at a makeshift morgue next to their monastery after powerful earthquakes destroyed the remote mountain town of Jiegu in western China and left at least 791 people dead.
The official toll was likely to climb further. Gerlai Tenzing, a red-robed monk from the Jiegu Monastery, estimated that about 1,000 bodies had been brought to a hillside clearing in the shadow of the monastery. He said a precise count was difficult because bodies continued to trickle in and some had already been taken away by family members.
Dozens of monks began singing chants, or sutras, late in the afternoon and planned to begin cremating the unclaimed bodies Saturday. Genqiu, a 22-year-old monk, said it was impossible to perform traditional sky burials for all. Tibetan sky burials involve chopping a body into pieces and leaving it on a platform to be devoured by vultures.
"The vultures can't eat them all," said Genqiu, who like many Tibetans goes by one name.
Relief workers estimate that 70 percent to 90 percent of the town's wood-and-mud houses collapsed when the earthquakes hit Yushu county Wednesday morning.
China Central Television reported that a 13-year-old Tibetan girl was pulled from the toppled two-story Minzu Hotel on Friday after a sniffer dog alerted rescuers to her location. The girl, identified as Changli Maomu, was freed after a crane lifted a large concrete block out of the rubble, it said. Her condition was good and she was taken to a medical station for treatment, it said.
The official Xinhua News Agency said a 43-year-old Tibetan woman, Jang La, was also rescued after being trapped for 50 hours with no food or water.
"I thought no one would manage to save us and I lost hope, but as I yelled and yelled for help, they came and rescued us," Xinhua quoted her as saying. The woman's hips were crushed but she was stable, it said.
Xinhua reported Friday afternoon the confirmed death toll had risen to 791, with 294 missing. The report said 11,477 people were injured, 1,174 severely. The strongest of the quakes Wednesday was measured at magnitude 6.9 by the U.S. Geological Survey and 7.1 by China's earthquake administration.
Many survivors shivered through a second night outdoors as they waited for tents to arrive. Hundreds gathered on a plaza around a 50-foot (15-meter) tall statue of the mythical Tibetan King Gesar, wrapped in blankets taken from shattered homes.
Police had to intervene Friday to prevent young men from grabbing tents out of the back of a truck.
"I saw trucks almost attacked by local people because of the lack of food and shelter," said Pierre Deve, a program director at the Yushu-based community development organization Snowland Service Group. "It started yesterday, but you still see some things like this today. It's getting better. Chinese authorities are doing well."
Nonetheless, Deve said his group, which plans to distribute food, medicine, tents, clothes and bedding, was moving out of Jiegu in case things got worse.
"We want to have a place out of the city where we can communicate in a good way, protect the things we need to give to people who need them," he said.
China Central Television reported that about 40,000 tents would be in place by Saturday, enough to accommodate all survivors. Also on the way was more equipment to help probe for signs of life under the debris, it said. The tools include small cameras and microphones attached to poles that can be snaked into crevices as well as heat and motion sensors.
At one collapsed building where people were believed trapped, about 70 civilians, including three dozen Tibetan monks in crimson robes, joined rescue workers.
"One, two, three," the monks chanted as they used wooden beams to try to push away a section of collapsed wall. They later tied ropes to a slab of concrete and dragged it away.
The effort was hampered by the area's altitude, about 13,000 feet (4,000 meters), and Xinhua reported two dozen trained rescuers had to stop working because of altitude sickness. Sniffer dogs were also affected, it said.
Xinhua quoted a local education official as saying 66 children and 10 teachers had died, mostly in three schools, but more remained missing.
Thousands of students died during a massive Sichuan quake in 2008 when their poorly built schools collapsed. But unlike in Sichuan — where schools toppled as other buildings stood — nearly everything fell over in Yushu.
To underline official concern for a Tibetan area that saw anti-government protests two years ago, Premier Wen Jiabao arrived in Yushu county Thursday evening to meet survivors. President Hu Jintao, in Brazil after visiting Washington, canceled scheduled stops in Venezuela and Peru to come home.
Wen, the sympathetic, grandfatherly face of the usually distant Chinese leadership, sought to provide comfort and build trust with the mostly Tibetan victims of the quake.
"The disaster you suffered is our disaster. Your suffering is our suffering. Your loss of loved ones is our loss. We mourn as you do. It breaks our hearts," Wen said in remarks repeatedly broadcast on state TV.
Wen also repeated nearly word for word the promise he made during the Sichuan earthquake: "As long as there's a glimmer of hope, we will spare no effort and never give up."
___
Associated Press writers Gillian Wong and Chi-Chi Zhang and researchers Zhao Liang, Yu Bing and Xi Yue inBeijing contributed to this report.

Volcano in Iceland Causes Chaos


5 hours ago - ABC News 4:14 | 1005526 views

A 1.5 mile-wide crater wreaks havoc across 1,200-mile area.

Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull's crater is only a mile and a half wide, but the ripple effect of its massive ash cloud is reverberating worldwide and getting worse, experts said.
Flight cancellations expand across Europe.

More Photos
"This could potentially be a problem for weeks to even months," Charles Mandeville, a volcanologist at New York'sAmerican Museum of Natural History, said.
Officials at Eurocontrol, the European air traffic agency, said that of the 29,000 flights that would normally head through European airspace today, only 12,000 to 13,000 will take place and delays are expected to continue at least into Saturday.
Eurocontrol announced that the airspace in nine countries is "currently not available" as well as airspace around major airports in France, Germany and Poland. According to the Polish press office, the funeral for the country's late president might be delayed.
"This is most significant air traffic control event since Sept. 11, and certainly the most significant that's ever hit all of Europe at one time," Brent Bowen, the head of Purdue University's aviation technology department, said Thursday.
According to ABC News aviation consultant John Nance, the cloud is not a direct threat to domestic U.S. flights but has already had an impact on fleet planning.
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FROM BIBLE PROPHESIES REV.13.net

Bible Prophecies: Bible prophecies that mention earthquakes as occurring during the End Times events (King James version):
Revelation 6:12: "And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and lo, there was a great earthquake"
Rev. 16:18: "And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings, and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great."
Matthew 24:6, 7 (the words of Jesus Christ):
6: "ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars..."
7: "For nation shall rise aginst nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be famines and pestilences, and earthquakes in diverse places"


The King James English Bible Code:
Also, see the pages on the 
King James bible code which discuss King James Bible code patterns in matrices I generated on my computer, using Bible Code software. The King James Bible Code matrices on earthquakes, volcanoes, and tidal wave tsunamis in future years:
Possible Giant California Quake in 2010Possible New Madrid Fault Quake in the Central U.S.Possible Major Japan Quake in the futurePossible East Coast Tsunami Tidal Wave from Canary Islands Volcano, and Yellowstone VolcanoQuakes may be related to the CERN LHC Particle accelerator

And also refer to my videos:
This 2006 
video on the King James Version Bible Code and Quakes predicts a possible major quake in California in 2010. 
And my psychic channeling (by Amateur Psychic T. Chase) as shown on the channeling page and videos predicts:
A possible Magnitude 8 Southern California quake in April 2010, and a 7.6 San Francisco quake in May 2010.
Prediction of a possible November 2010 Asian Tsunami.
Possible Japan quakes: August 2010 7.6 and 8.4 and Tsunami Tidal Wave, and November 2010.
Possible Washington State Pacific Tsunami and Tidal Wave and quakes, June, August 2010.
Copyright 1998-2010 by T. Chase. All rights reserved.
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Please link to this web site! To help me spread my message to the world!
This site is:
http://revelation13.net
"Revelation 13: Astrology, Prophecies of the Future, Bible Prophecy, King James version Bible Code"
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I personally do not agree with idolatry or cult personalities - I am merely posting these videos for the worthy educational contents - and I am not endorsing any of the perosnality intending to be idolised or praise or worshipped in these videos. Please stick with the contexts or contents only and discard the unimportant details like superlative titles to individuals.