Tsunami terror

This amazing footage shows exactly what the terror of the Tsunami feels like as yachts stumble over the beach line, and water starts pouring onto roadways. It is well shot, with good sound by someone who must have survived along with the beach-side property it was shot from.

Full article including a theory for increased seismic activity

Nuclear threat

"There are now problems at the number three reactor - the concern is that it is overheating. They're trying to pump sea water through it at the moment. That's an unusual, somewhat innovative solution to the problem. But the fact that they're prepared to consider unusual solutions like that gives you a hint of just how serious the problem is." - Chris Hogg - BBC

Stopping the Tsunami

The Tsunami

Theories as to what causes Earthquakes are well established. The Earth has a group of tectonic plates which move gradually. This causes continental drift and parts of the world that are more likely to get volcanoes and earthquakes. There are a few countries that are more likely to get seismic activity due to their location and indeed origin as land masses drawn out of the Earth's mantle, the product of volcanic activity.

• Tectonic plates

Examine the plate map around the Ring of Fire - the edges of the Pacific plate. Japan and New Zealand are both dissected by subduction zones, where the plates are pushing towards each other. So is Iceland (although the Atlantic plates are moving apart. Other trouble zones are evident around the Pacific rim, Indonesia and north of the Indian Plate. Mutual subduction results in mountain ranges and continental drift takes these land deposits and slowly but certainly reorders them. So New Zealand and Japan, in Geological time, are likely to both increase in land mass. The water in the atmosphere and sea and the fuming vents of the Earth appear to have interdependent roles in the maintenance of the conditions of life.

Tsunami

A Tsunami arises from the sudden upward thrust of one plate, the friction causes the earthquake and the land mass suddenly moving up creates a powerful wave that radiates rapidly. The displacement of large amounts of water is carried on the waves and move like a rapid tide. The laws of gravity counterbalance the effects of these waves, and the tide is drawn back out to sea. This has disastrous consequences for shorelines close to the wave and certain types of shoreline that may be distant but have a "line of sight" to the event.

Preventing a Tsunami

A Tsunami can not be stopped from our current technological options. Ideas are listed below of theoretical means by which a tsunami could be stopped or prevented from causing remote damage.

Ideas to Stop a Tsunami

• a tractor beam wall from a network of satellites protecting coastlines near faults that can be switched on when an earthquake is detected
• offshore barriers or baffles close to the fault line that absorb the energy of the wave
• giant fans that blow the waves away on potentially hazardous coastline
• underground plumbing
• hoping it will never happen again

Poetry

The Tsunami (poetry)

The Vote

Cameron is going to have to come up with some better arguments about the alternative vote if he wants to win the argument. In his speech he used this analogy:

Imagine it's the Olympics, London 2012. We're all watching the 100 metres. Usain Bolt powers home over the line. But then he gets to the podium, it's the guy who came third who gets the gold. We wouldn't put up with this in the Olympics. We shouldn't put up with it in our democracy.

If Cameron carries on like this, he's going to have to hand back that Oxford PPE first. An Olympic final is designed to establish who can run the fastest. An election is designed to establish who can govern with consent.

from The Guardian

The UK is about to vote between First Past the Post and AV (the system used in Australia).

AV? Alternative Vote means that you do not vote for one candidate but exercise a sort of "internal democracy" apportioning a diminishing vote from your first to last choice of candidates. In this way, a tie can be broken by a third vote that is marginally larger, who receives a large majority of second votes. By allowing the preference vote to cover more than just the first three or five selections, it becomes an exercise in democratic ignorance for most, most of us are not familiar with every point of view on offer nor should be be over concerned for the opinions of those we find philosophically untenable to be significant.

The attraction of FPP is that history can be blamed on the proportionality of the sub legislature, by which is meant that constituencies are not "equal" in that they may encompass populations that have no chance in overturning a local majority due to the established conservatism of the very wealthy (who in turn consider that social immobility is of value), or where the enterprising have no chance for a political voice because of a dominance of the more frequently occupied seats of economic fortune in the council estates of cities.

The constituency system has its illusion of traditional democratic choice. But it is more likely to express a government that slowly swings harshly to the left or right. A coalition government where significant minority voices are at least able to express policy options does not seek to divide peoples only by where they live.

A real democracy is enriched by the input of many voices. Nick Clegg has not a shit show of selling AV over Cameron backing the more decisive and "intelligent choice" or whatever soapsuds he will manage to briefly enchant the voter with until they wake up.

More ideas for progress are available if no regard to artificial "original" values are ascribed to them. Egalitarian societies would be a fortunate but unlikely result of Cameron's philosophy. What he hopes to foster is unfortunately coloured by an increased perceived imbalance, a widening so sharp one can not help but view this Big Society as something very unpleasant that can also be subject to whitewash as well as swallow it as necessary punishment.