Sunday, April 26, 2015

Experts had warned for decades that Nepal was vulnerable to a killer quake [feedly]



Just as seismologists have also warned that the Northwest, including Salem, is overdue for a massive 9.0+ quake caused by a slip of the Cascadia Subduction Zone, the place offshore where two plates meet and one slides below the other.

The smart play -- and therefore, nearly unthinkable to the pampered princes and princesses of the sprawl lobby, whose only concern is profiting from reckless expansion -- would be a moratorium on new roads, bridges, buildings, hospitals, schools, power plants, power lines, and all the other things that make modern life modern, with all the unspent effort directed toward improving the existing infrastructure's ability to either withstand or fail gently in the quake such that it could be restored rapidly and cheaply.

Meanwhile, with its existing two bridges already structurally deficient, Salem officials occupying the spots where we need leaders ignore the quake warnings and fiddle merrily while Salem pours $60,000+ per month into the black hole of "planning" for a gigantic unnecessary new highway bridge to be routed over vast area of ready-to-liquefy soil, the sole function of said bridge being simply to funnel more profits to the sprawl lobby and try to pump more dollars to developers before the dying of the automobile dominance era becomes undeniable.

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Experts had warned for decades that Nepal was vulnerable to a killer quake
// washingtonpost.com - Today's Highlights

A massive block of Earth's crust, roughly 75 miles long and 37 miles wide, lurched 10 feet to the south Saturday over the course of 30 seconds. Riding atop this block of the planet was the capital of Nepal — Kathmandu — and millions of Nepalese.Read full article >>

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"Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay."

There's scientific consensus on guns -- and the NRA won't like it - LA Times [feedly]

There's scientific consensus on guns -- and the NRA won't like it - LA Times
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-hemenway-guns-20150423-story.html
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"Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay."