Category: Networks

The state of Washington has some pretty nasty pollution, what with coal-fired power plants, stinky paper mills, and the King County Democratic Party. But the identity of the number one polluter is probably a surprise:

But right now, the biggest single source of air pollution in Washington isn’t a power plant, pulp mill or anything else created by man.

It’s a volcano.

Since Mount St. Helens started erupting in early October, it has been pumping out between 50 and 250 tons a day of sulfur dioxide, the lung-stinging gas that causes acid rain and contributes to haze.

I say we slap some fines on that bitch.

Here’s a little bit of good economic news:

The price of oil dropped $3.64 a barrel to $45.49 in trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration reported that commercial stocks of distillates, which include heating oil, rose 2.3 million barrels to 117.9 million barrels for the week ended Nov. 26.

That’s a good start, but we aren’t done yet.

Wonkette’s bogus exit poll numbers affected the stock market:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks reversed course suddenly on Tuesday and drifted lower as chatter on the Internet speculated that early exit polls had Sen. John Kerry leading the presidential election in key swing states.

So why hasn’t anybody been arrested?

Link via Wonkette’s employer, the former Financial Times writer Nick Denton.

Yankees choke! Continue reading “Aha.”

If you haven’t been watching the MLB playoffs this year, I feel sorry for you. The first round (we call that the “division series”) was 100% excellent, with all the good guys defeating the bad guys (except the Yankees squeaked through, but they’re supposed to) and one full five-game series between the heroic Astros and those bastards from Atlanta.

The League Championship Series has featured one great game after another, with dynamite slugging in the early games of each series followed by killer pitching in the later games. The Bostons were behind the Evil Yankees 0 games to 3 when they turned things around in a manner that would make a 12-stepper proud. They lost a game 19-8 and then came back to win three in a row after all their pitchers were hurt or shot and their most consistent hitters couldn’t find the ball. In tonight’s game in New York the umps reversed two blown calls, which has to be an even greater miracle than the Bostons rallying to tie the series at 3 games apiece. Wednesday night is the rubber match, one game to decide who represents the American League in the World Series.

Over in St. Louis, the Astros have a 3-2 game lead over the Cards in the National League Series after winning three in a row at home behind the pitchers of Christmas Past, Present, and Future and the superior closing of unhittable Brad Lidge. Houston only has to win one of the next two games, so they’re starting a rookie pitcher in order to have The Rocket on full rest for Game 7 if it happens. Carlos Beltran of the Astros is the next Barry Bonds, but without the attitude and many of the drugs, so it’s worth the price of a TV show just to see him.

Baseball is the national pastime, but it was bordering on boring until TiVo came along and rescued it, much to America’s benefit. And Japan’s too, actually. Not to mention civilization’s as a whole.

The opening day of the baseball playoffs was great, as Truth, Goodness, Sweetness, and Light triumphed decisively over Greed, Sloth, Indolence, Hollywood and New York: The Twins shutout the Evil Empire, and Hollywood’s twin demons were soundly defeated by the generally hapless Red Sox and America’s Team, the Cardinals.

I don’t know that the Twins can win two more, as they lack depth in the pitching department, but the Yankees are weaker than they’ve been in years so there’s hope. The Dodgers are actually a very deserving team from the standpoint of management and staff, but their fans are so obnoxious they have to lose. The Cards will dispatch them easily and the world will be a better place.

The ironically named Angels are more of a challenge, as their evil genius manager Mike Sciosia is generally a step ahead of the opposition. He used his throw-away starter for game 1, quite sensible given that the cursed ones had Mr. Schilling on the mound and he wasn’t to be denied. It’s a five game series and he’s got some tricks up his sleeve.

Most of the matchups at this point pit teams who wear red against teams who wear blue; red teams and blue teams. It would be funny if all the red teams won, including the Astros but not including Anaheim. Funny and weird.

That’s some real baseball insight, isn’t it?

She’s at it again: Yahoo! News – Mount St. Helens Belches More Steam

Unfortunately we have too much haze today for me to get a good view, and I’ve got the best vantage point in the Portland area, on top of Prune Hill in Clark County.

Early in the baseball season, I made some predictions:

AL West: A?s (winner: Hollywood Angels)

AL East: Orioles, Red Sox (winner: Evil Empire, Boston is the wild card)

AL Central: Twins (winner: Twins)

NL West: Giants (winner: Hollywood Dodgers)

NL East: Braves (winner: Braves)

NL Central: Cardinals, Cubs, Astros (winner: Cards, Astros are wild card)

That’s 3 out of 6, and one of the two wild cards as a second place finisher, although I didn’t explicitly identify wild card winners.

Matt Welch did better, getting 4 out of 6, but he cheats. I don’t pick the Yankees, Angels, or Dodgers to win anything because it’s not sporting. They have the highest payrolls in baseball, and they should obviously win so there is no honor in picking them. Ruling out the evil-doers, who were half of his correct picks, I beat Welch by a landslide, and I didn’t coddle the terrorists in the process.

UPDATE: See Scott Eiland’s post-season picks.

Here are mine:

DS:
Yankees over Twins
Sox over Angels

Cards over Dodgers
Astros over Braves

CS:
Yankees over Sox
Cards over Astros

WS:
Cards over Yankees

AL MVP
Doesn’t matter

NL MVP
Barry

AL Cy Young
Johan Santana

NL Cy Young
Randy Johnson

Mt. St. Helens just blew up about two minutes ago, sending up a nice plume of smoke. I’ll post a picture shortly.

UPDATE: Never mind. By the time I got my camera, the plume had disappeared. Looking at the mountain now it’s like nothing happened. This was probably just round 1, and we’ll see what follows.

UPDATE AGAIN: Here are some pictures taken by a helicopter flying overhead at the time of the eruption:

See a video here.

Experts explained the reason the volcano shut down so quickly: Native Americans in the area tossed a virgin into the crater as soon as she blew. As this was the last and only virgin in the State of Washingtin, we’re in for it if she blows again. You can thank Justice Scalia for the shortage of virgins, naturally.

When you step outside my office, Mt. St. Helens is directly in front of you. It’s covered with a nice dusting of snow since the rains we had last week. So I’m not real thrilled by this little piece of news:

Seismic activity at Mount St. Helens has changed significantly during the past 24 hours and the changes make us believe that there is an increased likelihood of a hazardous event, which warrants release of this Notice of Volcanic Unrest. The swarm of very small, shallow earthquakes (less than Magnitude 1) that began on the morning of 23 September peaked about mid-day on 24 September and slowly declined through yesterday morning. However, since then the character of the swarm has changed to include more than ten larger earthquakes (Magnitude 2-2.8), the most in a 24-hr period since the eruption of October 1986. In addition, some of the earthquakes are of a type that suggests the involvement of pressurized fluids (water and steam) or perhaps magma. The events are still occurring at shallow depths (less than one mile) below the lava dome that formed in the crater between 1980 and 1986.

The cause and outcome of the earthquake swarm are uncertain at this time. Several causes are possible, but most point toward an increased probability of explosions from the lava dome if the level of current unrest continues or escalates. During such explosions the dome and crater floor are at greatest risk from ballistic projectiles, but the rim of the crater and flanks of the volcano could also be at risk. Explosions would also be expected to produce ash clouds that drift downwind at altitudes up to several thousand feet above the crater rim. Landslides and debris flows from the crater that are large enough to reach the Pumice Plain are also possible. Such events occurred at Mount St. Helens between 1989 and 1991.

We continue to monitor the situation closely and will issue additional updates as warranted, whether activity escalates or returns to background levels.

Daily updates of earthquake data and other information can be found on the WORLD WIDE WEB at this URL and here.

UPDATE: 09/25/2004 9:30 AM PDT