Huge ‘New Zealand swell’ hitting California
NEW ZEALAND SWELL: A beach goer takes photos of surfers and body boarders as a large swell hits California beaches.
Massive waves slamming into California’s coast – killing at least one person and causing millions of dollars in damage – are being labelled the “New Zealand surf” because of where they are coming from.
In a rare event, a big weather system between New Zealand and Antarctica has generated a heavy Pacific wide swell, bringing the waves to California.
Sean Collins, chief forecaster and president of Surfline, told news website Patch.com he warned Californian authorities over the swell.
“Extra caution is urged to keep the public aware and safe from these large waves and associated rip currents.”
He said it was one of the biggest swells to hit with some waves coming ashore at six to seven metres.
Collins said southern hemisphere storms routinely produced waves in California, but this latest one was in the top 10 percent of known waves.
The US National Weather Service has warned beachgoers were Read more…
Texas: From droughts to extreme heat to blazing fires
Winds fuel flare-ups in Palo Pinto County, across state
Strong north winds fueled wildfire flare-ups around Possum Kingdom Lake on Sunday and firefighters managed to contain most of them, but the rest of Texas wasn’t as lucky as thousands of acres and hundreds of homes burned in another day of the worst wildfire season in the state’s history.
A wildfire estimated to be 16 miles long near the Austin suburb of Bastrop charred about 14,000 acres Sunday, destroying or damaging an estimated 300 homes.
“It’s catastrophic,” Mark Stanford, fire chief of the Texas Forest Service, said Sunday. “It’s a major natural disaster.”
More than 40 new wildfires were reported to the Texas Forest Service on Sunday as strong winds, low humidity and very dry vegetation left firefighters scrambling to extinguish blazes throughout the state.
“We’re very stretched right now,” Tom Berglund of the Texas Forest Service said Sunday.
As of Sunday afternoon, firefighters Read more…
New green compliant 60-watt LED bulb to cost $15
When the US federal government begins to unlawfully rip away Americans’ freedom to purchase the light bulbs of their choice beginning on January 1, 2012, the only available choices will be poisonous compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs, which are loaded with toxic mercury, or expensive light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs, which a recent CNET article explains will cost roughly $15 a piece for the 60-watt variety — and that is on the inexpensive end of the spectrum.
According to the report, Lighting Science Group and Dixon Technologies India have developed an omnidirectional LED bulb that emits light at the equivalent brightness of a 60 watt incandescent, and that will be priced just below $15. Since 60-watt equivalent LEDs have typically been priced at Read more…
Libyan rebels round up black Africans
Men suspected of being mercenaries for Moammar Gadhafi, are held in a district sports center next to the medina, set up as provisory jail in Tripoli, Libya, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2011. Libyan rebels are demanding that Algeria return Moammar Gadhafi's wife and three of his children for trial after they fled, raising tensions between the neighboring countries. Algeria's decision to host members of the Gadhafi clan is an "aggressive act against the Libyan people's wish," said Mahmoud Shammam, information minister in the rebels' interim government.(AP Photo/Francois Mori)
TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Rebel forces and armed civilians are rounding up thousands of black Libyans and migrants from sub-Sahara Africa, accusing them of fighting for ousted strongman Moammar Gadhafi and holding them in makeshift jails across the capital.
Virtually all of the detainees say they are innocent migrant workers, and in most cases there is no evidence that they are lying. But that is not stopping the rebels from placing the men in facilities like the Gate of the Sea sports club, where about 200 detainees — all black — clustered on a soccer field this week, bunching against a high wall to avoid the scorching sun.
Handling the prisoners is one of the first major tests for the rebel leaders, who are scrambling to set up a government that they Read more…
Why This Gold Boom Will Be So Much Bigger Than The Last One
As I mentioned in The Wrap last night, the gold market was comatose until shortly before the London open…and the rest, as they say, is history.
There was another spike up shortly after London opened…and from 9:00 a.m. in London, until the Comex open at 8:20 a.m. Eastern time, the gold price tacked on an additional ten bucks.
As soon as Comex trading began…and the jobs numbers were made public at 8:30 a.m…the gold price added another twenty bucks…and by 9:00 a.m. Eastern time, gold was up about $55 from Thursday’s close. The price slid a hair from that point until just a few minutes before the Comex trading session closed at 1:30 p.m…but tacked on over ten dollars in the electronic trading session that followed, closing the day virtually on its high…up $58.80 spot. Volume was surprisingly light.
The Read more…
Russia Tests Aging Missile with New Warhead
MOSCOW – Russia on Saturday successfully tested its Topol strategic missile with a new warhead designed to breach missile shields, Russian news agencies reported, citing the defense ministry.
“The experimental warhead of the missile hit the designated target with high precision at the testing site on Kamchatka peninsula,” a spokesman for the strategic rocket forces told the Interfax news agency.
The Topol intercontinental missile used has been operational for 23 years and was being tested to check its durability in extended use, the spokesman said. The missile was fired from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in the northwestern Arkhangelsk region to its target area around 3,730 miles to the east.
7.0 Magnitude Quake Shakes Vanuatu
According to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, no Pacific-wide tsunami threat exists after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck near Vanuatu Saturday afternoon.The epicenter of the quake was roughly 78 miles south-southeast of Isangel, Vanuatu. It struck just after 12:55 p.m. Hawaii Standard Time.A scientist at the Warning Center said the deepness of the quake contributed to there being no threat of tsunami. The quake was measured at a depth of 82.3 miles. Read more…
‘March of the Million’: Over 460,000 protest across country
Demonstrators in Tel Aviv’s Kikar Hamedina take part in huge rally demanding social justice; Student Union chair to PM: “Let us live in this country”; Large demonstrations in J’lem, Haifa, Afula.
An estimated 460,000 people gathered across the country on Saturday evening to protest for social change as part of the “March of the Million,” Channel 10 news reported.
Over 300,000 people were in Kikar Hamedina in Tel Aviv where a huge rally was taking place after a march through the streets of the city.
Student Union Chairman Itzik Shmueli called on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to “Let us live in this country,” during a speech at the rally in Kikar Hamedina.
“Mr. Prime Minister, take a good look at us: We’re the new Israelis,” he told the hundreds of thousands of people who Read more…
New Orleans braces for Tropical Storm Lee
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – New Orleans, devastated by Hurricane Katrina six years ago, faced a new threat on Saturday from Tropical Storm Lee, which was set to challenge the city’s flood defenses with an onslaught of heavy rain.The storm was expected to bring up to 20 inches of rain to southeast Louisiana over the next few days, including to low-lying New Orleans, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
Lee’s tidal surge could spur coastal flooding in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama before drenching a large swath of the Southeast and Appalachian regions next week.
The slow-moving storm has bedeviled forecasters. Lee’s winds weakened on Saturday night as it Read more…
Wikileaks Discloses The Reason(s) Behind China’s Shadow Gold Buying Spree
Wondering why gold at $1850 is cheap, or why gold at double that price will also be cheap, or frankly at any price? Because, as the following leaked cable explains, gold is, to China at least, nothing but the opportunity cost of destroying the dollar’s reserve status. Putting that into dollar terms is, therefore, impractical at best, and illogical at worst. We have a suspicion that the following cable from the US embassy in China is about to go not viral but very much global, and prompt all those mutual fund managers who are on the golden sidelines to dip a toe in the 24 karat pool. The only thing that matters from China’s perspective is that “suppressing the price of gold is very beneficial for the U.S. in maintaining the U.S. dollar’s role as the Read more…
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