Coffee article had me worried for a while there, looks like only people that buy the mass produced crap - I'm looking at you Robert Harris - will be in trouble. Still the price rises are unfortunate.
I enjoy smoking, drinking and my coffee fix all in moderation, however the prices now are going to make me choose which habits to continue. Obviously tobacco will be the first I will quit, but the prices of alcohol here in NZ mean I sometimes can't afford a nice 6 pack of beer to unwind with on my 1 day a week I'm not working.

Finished my first playthrough of borderlands.....and all I can say is WTF!?

Yeah it's pretty anticlimactic Bats.

Far be it from me to criticize the media, but it was Mississippi and to a lesser extent Alabama that suffered the most damage from Hurricane Katrina as in Mississippi multiple cities were wiped from existence. New Orleans suffered a levee failure a couple of days later due to their gross mismanagement of the funds for their levee system.

Briefly: The winds to the east of a hurricane are the ones the f some s up. The closer to the eye, the worse. To the west of the eye, still strong winds, but no where near the strength or intensity of the eastern part. Katrina landed east of New Orleans and caused much less damage because of it. Had she landed on top of New Orleans, well, it would be a much different situation.

The levee breaches were a disaster unto themselves, but an entirely manmade problem. As a Mississippian, it pains me to read that some 20% of New Orleanians haven't returned, but it pains me much more to think that only 25% of the homes on the Mississippi gulf coast have been rebuilt so far.

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Pakistan is in rough shape. There was an article last weekend that pointed out the destruction there was worse than the 04 tsuname, the 05 pak. earthquake and the haitian earthquake from this year combined.

Oddly, while hundreds of dollars were donated per victim for those, only about $16 per victim had been donated this time.

Five years already... Time sure flies by doesn't it?

As a Mississippian, it pains me to read that some 20% of New Orleanians haven't returned, but it pains me much more to think that only 25% of the homes on the Mississippi gulf coast have been rebuilt so far.

Continuing to build a home or city where it will be easily destroyed in a few years by a flood/hurricane or other....is just plain stupid.

The BILLIONS and BILLIONS of dollars being spent to put up levees, rebuild, etc etc etc. Is a waste.

Vulkan wrote on Aug 30, 2010, 01:28:
Five years already... Time sure flies by doesn't it?

Yes.

I was still in college when it happened... I remember my one sociology professor crying in class.

Not oddly, Haiti didn't have nuclear weapons nor openly supported the Taliban. General punishment might be bad and all, but you will never erase that "second thought" people will have when they hear Pakistan no matter how large the disaster.

Although the delayed help will do more damage not only by not helping the affected, but by giving the Taliban time to help and garner sympathies.

Hmm,, so no one should live on the eastern or southern coasts of the country, nor the Kansas area since it's prone to tornados no the entire coast of California because it's subject to earthquakes? No one should build along a river because they might flood. You can't build in any mountains because they might have blizzards. You can't build in New Mexico or Arizona because they have yearly wildfires (most often caused by lightning, natch).

That leaves us with...Tennessee! Let's have all 500 million of us move there since they have fewer natural disasters.

But crap, we forgot about the New Madrid fault that had an earthquake in the 1800s that made the Mississippi River run backwards for a couple of weeks.

I guess we have to pack up and abandon this half of the hemisphere.

You mean this planet - even as it supplies us right now, given proper terraforming there are many planets far superior to this hell hole of a paradise. Storms, Earthquakes, Floods , Tsunamis, Hurricanes, Tornadoes and best of all, poisonous flora and fauna and SALT WATER makes up 90% of its space. And we are surrounded by billions of rocks and each of them could wipe us out even with a scraping hit....

Personally, if i could i would pack up for the nearest space colony on any dead rock, or heck even completely in space, than stay here. Who cares about Nature when Nature tries to kill you every single day?

eRe4s3r wrote on Aug 30, 2010, 13:40:
Personally, if i could i would pack up for the nearest space colony on any dead rock, or heck even completely in space, than stay here. Who cares about Nature when Nature tries to kill you every single day?

Well, space is also nature. And its infinitely less hospitable for your organism than the earth. One of the keys is atmosphere - its not just what you breathe but it also keeps your body from imploding.

btw sodium (salt) is an essential component of organic life

But surely there are planets with less of everything that wants to kill us... Shouldn't we be searching for them than stay content with *this* world and all of its issues and disasters?

But thats an Interesting discussion, i would not regard a space station that is its own biosphere and self-sufficient part of *this* Nature. Even if the elements and concepts are all the same, in a controlled biosphere a tornado or tsunami or earthquake does simply not happen - and while Salt Water is a vital element for the existence of basically ANY life, for us and many land based plants and animals, it is poison.

At least in a space station you are free from any natural disasters - all disasters you could suffer can be avoided by smart engineering and solid construction (and good repair skills ).