A blog for all seasons; A blog for one; A blog for all. As the 11th most informative blog on the planet, I have a seared memory of throwing my Time 2006 Man of the Year Award over the railing at Time Warner Center.
Justice. Only Justice Shall Thou Pursue
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has fled Libya to Zimbabwe on a jet provided by Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, it was claimed today, as rebels began the march on his home town.
President Mugabe's political opponents claim their spies saw Gaddafi arrive in the country on a Zimbabwe Air Force jet in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
They say the Libyan dictator was taken to a mansion in Harare's Gunninghill suburb, where agents from his all-female bodyguard were apparently seen patrolling the grounds.
It's time to settle in and watch the weather come in to the NYC metro area. I've gone and cleared out the roof valleys, secured the grill and lawn chairs, and cleared items off the basement floor (just in case). In fact, everything is just in case of a worst case scenario.
Irene is still a mean bitch, and she's got a bite to her. The storm surge is a big concern, as is the tremendous rain she's likely to put down.
The storm is a slow moving giant, which means it's got the potential to drop flooding rains and with even moderate winds, power outages are all but likely.
BULLETIN
HURRICANE IRENE INTERMEDIATE ADVISORY NUMBER 29A...CORRECTED
NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL092011l
200 PM EDT SAT AUG 27 2011
CORRECTED FORWARD SPEED IN THE SUMMARY SECTION
...IRENE MOVING ACROSS EASTERN NORTH CAROLINA...
SUMMARY OF 200 PM EDT...1800 UTC...INFORMATION
----------------------------------------------
LOCATION...35.5N 76.3W
ABOUT 45 MI...70 KM WNW OF CAPE HATTERAS NORTH CAROLINA
ABOUT 95 MI...155 KM S OF NORFOLK VIRGINIA
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...85 MPH...140 KM/H
PRESENT MOVEMENT...NNE OR 15 DEGREES AT 13 MPH...20 KM/H
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...950 MB...28.05 INCHES
First announced in 2008 and endorsed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the massive offshore wind farm was set to start spinning by 2015. Currently, it is sputtering.
Jonathan Foster, the vice chairman of the New York Power Authority, whose chief executive officer just resigned, said the project is not at the top of the agency's priority list.
"At this point, with our leadership somewhat in flux and having also announced two other major projects, the Hudson Transmission Project and also Recharge New York, we've got a full plate," said Foster.
It has been more than a year since the Power Authority got approval to apply for a federal lease on the ocean floor, but they have yet to apply.
The authority also just withdrew a key application with the state's independent power operator.
A spokesperson could not give a timeline for the project and called the application premature, and said environmental and economic studies are ongoing.
Large-scale offshore wind projects have had trouble gaining traction in the United States. Advocates say it has mostly to do with economics and a lack of enthusiasm for wind power.
New Jersey has several proposed projects in the works, and it will be interesting to see if the impending hurricane changes minds - for or against.
Yes, we're going to get hammered with a lot of rain - most areas around here should expect 4-8 inches, with some areas seeing 12+, which will cause flooding and the usual areas are likely to flood. Some storm tracks are pushing the storm well inland - GFDL for example - which would reduce wind speeds, but increase the rain totals and flooding (that would put it in the Hurricane Floyd situation locally). Most of the others are putting the storm to hug the coast - meaning that Long Island is in the bullseye. The consensus model track has the eye of the storm essentially coming in directly over New York City - so areas to the North and East of the eye will see heaviest damage (strongest rains, winds, and storm surge). That means the Rockaways, Long Beach, Atlantic Beach, Lido Beach, down through Jones Beach and the barrier islands under the gun.
NYC has issued notifications to nursing homes and hospitals in A zones to evacuate patients and otherwise prepare for shutdown to avoid being caught with patients during the height of the storm. Residents in those A zones are also being told to seek higher ground.
NYC has canceled or postponed numerous weekend events due to Irene, including US Open tennis tournament, Yankees/Orioles game, and the Dave Matthews Band shows on Governors Island.
The City is preparing for the storm as though it could be a major catastrophe, and that's the right call; a direct hit with the strongest tidal surges and strongest winds could result in multibillion dollars worth of damage and the potential for mass casualties. Nate Silver runs the numbers on potential damage depending on the strength of the storm and its proximity to Manhattan.
It's one reason that the City is taking no chances, and putting lessons learned from the botched blizzard response to good use. They're going to make sure that transit is secure and out of flood prone areas and preparing for a systemwide shutdown once winds reach tropical storm strength (39+ mph).
BTW, would it be a bad time to point out that the NYC government website is down (probably b/c of traffic). http://www.nyc.gov/
502 Bad Gateway
The requested URL could not be retrieved
Meanwhile, the NYC MTA has gone to a stripped down page for hurricane information. That's the way to do it.
New York and New Jersey have already issued states of emergency, activating the National Guard and preparing for the worst case scenario; it also enables the states to call upon federal resources and obtain disaster declarations faster (another lesson learned from Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf Coast response).
Also, here's hoping that the Port Authority has stashed emergency generators and pumps to be able to keep Ground Zero dry - or at least capable of pumping out expected flood waters. The site isn't completely waterproofed, and much of the museum is below street level, increasing the chances for flooding.
The transit system will take several hours to completely shut down - buses/trains will begin their final run at noon, which means that events like the Mets-Braves (possibly moved up to 1pm) should be canceled in light of lack of transit options. Other events are already canceled or rescheduled.
UPDATE:
NY Governor Cuomo orders NYC bridges to shut down if winds exceed 60 MPH, including the George Washington and Tappan Zee bridges - Reuters. It also means that if you're on Staten Island and plan on evacuating to the mainland, you'd best be doing so today or early tomorrow at the latest.
UPDATE: Mayor Bloomberg has ordered mandatory evacuations from A zones in NYC; those would be low-lying areas including Battery Park City in Manhattan, parts of Southern Brooklyn, Rockaway Queens, and Southern Staten Island. This is an unprecedented move by New York City's emergency officials.
UPDATE:
In light of the city's shutdown and evacuations, the NY Mets have finally decided to cancel the weekend games: The Saturday game will be part of a doubleheader on the 10th, but no makeup date has been given for the Sunday game. Saturday's tickets will give access for both games on the 10th.
As weather forecasts continue to put the New York City metro area in the bullseye for landfall for Hurricane Irene, construction sites around the region are buckling down. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
None are more exposed to the winds than at Ground Zero, which is site to more than a dozen tower cranes and other jumbo cranes, plus two of the tallest buildings in Manhattan under construction.
10 rockets, mortal shells explode in Ehskol, Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Councils, Asheklon; no injuries; Erez border crossing damaged; 2 Islamic Jihad members killed, Palestinian report says.
A ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza seemed distant Thursday evening as the violence in the south of the country continued with at least 15 rockets and mortar shells exploding in Israeli territory, and Israeli air strikes that reportedly left two Islamic Jihad members dead.
The Code Red siren was heard throughout the Eshkol and Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Councils and in Ashkelon as 15 rockets and mortar shells fell throughout those areas, the IDF Spokesman's Office said in a statement.
There hasn't been so much a lull in the rockets as a pregnant pause because the terrorists are simply trying to coordinate activities among themselves to claim responsibility and to find new ways to blame Israel for a resumption of hostilities that began with the terrorist attack against Israel in Eilat.
Since then, Israel's response has been quite limited, even as more than 100 rockets, mortars, and missiles have been launched towards Israel causing deaths and injuries along the way.
Put another way:
But for the Palestinian terror attack, Israel would not have carried out airstrikes against PRC terrorists.
But for the PRC and Islamic Jihad reprisal attacks for those Israeli airstrikes, Israel would not have carried out further airstrikes.
But for the Gazan missile barrages, Israel would not have carried out still more airstrikes.
Simply put, but for the Palestinian terror attacks, Israel would not have had any reason to carry out defensive measures to eliminate terrorists attacking Israel and there would have been no casualties on either side.
From the Palestinian terrorist perspective, all this comes into sharp relief and focus: But for Israel's existence, we would not need to carry out terror attacks against Israel.
There would be no Palestinian casualties from any kind of Israeli airstrikes had the terrorists not carried out their attacks from the first. All these casualties lay at the feet of the terrorists in PRC, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad and their spinoffs who refuse to recognize Israel's right to exist and refuse to live in peace alongside Israel.
Mayor Bloomberg lost a battle with the Department of Agriculture over trying to convince the Department to approve a pilot project to toss soda from being eligible for purchase with food stamps as a way to curb obesity. But that hasn't stopped the Bloomberg Administration from trying to make the case that soda is responsible for the obesity epidemic.
Except is it really soda consumption or something else - like say a sedentary lifestyle?
Assemblyman Jeff Dinowitz (D-Bronx), who represents the Riverdale section of The Bronx, called the Bloomberg administration's food-stamp proposal a logical step to try to break the city's soda habit.
"I don't always agree with Mayor Bloomberg," he said. "On this issue, I think he was right and the federal government wrong. I don't see how there's a downside to it. Soda is not only not nutritional, it's harmful."
Records show that 31.6 percent of Dinowitz's constituents in Riverdale and Kingsbridge down at least one soda a day.
The citywide average is 32 percent, down 12 percent between 2007 and 2009.
So, soda consumption has dropped 12%, but obesity continues rising. That would tend to suggest something else is at play for the obesity problem among Americans.
Soda is the go-to bad food of choice for the moment, but it isn't the only bad food. In fact most food can be seen as bad food choices when not taken in moderation.
It's all about moderation and exercise as part of a balanced diet. If you don't have a balanced diet, complete with portion control, and exercise, then you have an excess of calories and the weight gain ensues. Most Americans don't have a balanced diet - and while some people attribute this to food deserts (the inability to find fresh fruits/vegetables at a reasonable price compared to junk foods), it comes down to bad choices.
But politicians can't force people to exercise or make better choices for themselves, so they're attacking the food chain instead - and fixating on soda because it is seen as extraneous and empty calories. You don't see these same politicians offering to levy taxes on steak portions over 12oz., even though such oversized portions would have many times the caloric intake of a carbonated beverage and are laden with artery clogging fats.
Masked gunmen dragged Syria's best-known political cartoonist from his car before dawn Thursday, beat him severely and broke both his hands as a warning to stop drawing just days after he compared Syria's president to Moammar Gadhafi, a relative and activists said. Hospitalized with serious injuries, 60-year-old Ali Ferzat has become the most famous victim of the repression of Syria's five-month uprising. The attack on him was a stark reminder that no Syrian is immune to the crackdown.
"This is just a warning," the gunmen told Ferzat, according to a relative who asked that her name not be used for fear of reprisals. "We will break your hands so that you'll stop drawing."
I say that they're Assad's goons/loyalists, but the article doesn't make that connection even though it's the logical conclusion. This kind of violence isn't going to happen unless it's sanctioned by Assad to get the point across to the opposition.
It should come as no surprise at all that Assad and his followers would engage in this kind of violence. Intimidation and violence are how they stay in power.
Also Thursday, U.S.-based Human Rights Watch released a new report on Syria called "Setting the Record Straight.'' The report challenges the Syrian regime's accounts of the current state of the crackdown.
The organization sought to debunk the impression that the Syrian authorities have ended the military crackdown since Aug. 17, when Assad pledged to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon that "military and policing operations had stopped.”
The report claimed that at least 49 people have been killed in operations across Syria since that phone call.
"That same day, and in the days that followed, Syrian forces attacked peaceful protesters in Homs, Latakia, towns in the governorate of Daraa, and suburbs of Damascus," said the report. "On August 19 alone, 31 protesters were killed by Syrian security forces, including 3 children, according to local activists."
Assad keeps claiming that obscure terror groups are responsible, but defecting Syrian troops tell a different tale, including reports that soldiers that refuse to follow orders to crack down on protesters are shot.
In other words, it is plausible that many of those soldiers that Assad claims were killed by insurgents were actually killed by loyalists instead to cull security forces of troops that might refuse orders to crack down on protesters.
The various models are showing that Hurricane Irene may pass close to the NYC metro area, with more than a few models putting the eye over Long Island.
That would mean that the damage path would be on the East End of Long Island, but the entire region could see heavy rains and damaging winds.
New York City and Long Island are each alerting local residents. So too is New Jersey's local communities.
New York City has a hurricane preparedness pamphlet, and they have an evacuation map based on potential for flooding due to storm surges, though I think most people will find trying to evacuate to be quite difficult and/or consider living in apartment buildings to be sufficient to protect against wind and storm surge damage.
Here's a good guide for hurricane preparedness - and stocking up on water, canned goods, batteries, radios, and candles are a good idea, as is having a go-bag in case the situation turns dire or you are required to evacuate on a moment's notice.
Also, in advance of a hurricane, it's a good idea to secure loose items in yards to prevent them from being turned into projectiles that can damage property.
Homeland Security and Preparedness Director Charlie McKenna told New Jersey residents to put gas in their cars, have cash on hand and get a hand-cranked radio, first aid kit and any necessary medicine.
He recommended getting a gallon of water per person and canned goods.
"No one should underestimate this storm at all," McKenna said.
Current forecast guidance suggests Hurricane Irene will turn northward today and tomorrow as it approaches the North Carolina coast. The National Hurricane Center said it appears a trough will form along the east coast, providing an alleyway for the cyclone to travel northward rather than curl out to sea.
Hurricane Watches were issued along the North Carolina coast this morning, and tropical storm watches extend further south along South Carolina and Georgia. At this time, it appears the greatest impacts from Irene would be felt in New Jersey overnight Saturday through about midday Sunday, according to NWS Mount Holly.
Libyan commandos fighting Muammar Gaddafi came close to capturing the toppled leader on Wednesday when they raided a private home in Tripoli where he appeared to have been hiding, Paris Match magazine said on Thursday.
Citing a source in a unit which it said was coordinating among intelligence services from Arab states and Libyan rebels, the French weekly said on its website that these services believed Gaddafi was still somewhere in the Libyan capital.
Gaddafi was gone from the unassuming safe house in central Tripoli when agents arrived about 10 a.m. (4 a.m. EDT) on Wednesday after a tip-off from a credible source. But, the magazine said, they found evidence that he had spent at least one night there -- though it did not say how recently that was.
While some people might think to track down his all-girl bodyguard brigade, I think rebels will likely look for him in and around his hometown of Sirte.
Regardless of Khadafi's whereabouts, Tripoli is not fully in rebel hands, and there are pockets of resistance elsewhere in the country even as rebels celebrate their new-found freedom:
Mahmoud Jibril spoke after meeting Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who said Rome had begun unfreezing 350 million euros ($504.3 million) of Libyan funds in Italian banks to help the rebel movement govern Libya.
Berlusconi said the unfreezing marked a first step in a broader effort to unblock all of the North African country's assets in Italy, the former colonial power.
Italy, once Libya's closest ally in the West, froze around $8 billion of Libyan assets as part of sanctions against Muammar Gaddafi, whose 42 years in power appeared at an end this week.
"The biggest destabilising element would be the failure of the (rebel) National Transitional Council to deliver the necessary services and pay the salaries of the people who have not been paid for months," Jibril told a news conference in Milan. "Our priorities cannot be carried out by the government without having the necessary money immediately."
Here's a time lapse video showing the WTC memorial and museum under construction from 2004 through 2011:
The memorial will be open to the public beginning September 12 but requires obtaining a free timed pass because the grounds are hard to access due to the ongoing construction around the entire site.
It contains some 400 still photographs and hours of video clips. It will be free to the public between September 1 and September 12 (mark your calendar) and can be purchased for $9.95 thereafter.
And it will be available exclusively on the Apple iPad.
“The app lays it out in clear bold chunks—here’s the story before, when the World Trade Center was being built, and then after it was built, and the day of the attacks, and what’s happened since,” noted writer-director Steve Rosenbaum.
A documentary film producer and web developer, Mr. Rosenbaum has been chronicling the goings on at Ground Zero since the day the Towers fell. Shortly after 9/11, he placed an ad in the Village Voice asking for photos and videos documenting the event. He eventually assembled a collection of some 500 hours of footage, which became the CameraPlanet archive. Some of the best material wound up in his 2002 documentary, 7 Days in September, which the Times called “almost unbearably powerful.” Mr. Rosenbaum rightly points out, “If you watch it, there are things in the film that I protected, images and stories that were never going to be seen by my children’s children if I hadn’t rescued them.”
As for the new project, while it includes a few chilling clips of the attacks, it is largely concerned with the creation of Michael Arad’s memorial and the 9/11 Museum.
The IDF Spokesperson' Office said that the terrorist "was involved in smuggling weapons and sought to advance military operations in Sinai." The army added that "lately there have been several attempts by Gaza terrorists to carry out attacks in Sinai and that was what this operative was involved in."
Several hours after the strike, two mortar shells exploded in the Western Negev causing no injuries or damage.
The offensive prompted a senior member of the organization in Gaza, Ahmad al-Mudallal, to threaten retaliation and declare that "this crime was meant to underline that Israel only understands the language of blood and terror."
"We will take action against the enemy in a language that it understands, the language of blood," he added. "We will not ignore the crimes it commits against our people."
Also overnight, an IAF jet targeted two terrorists in Gaza after they were spotted attempting to fire rockets at southern Israel from two different locations.
Of course, Islamic Jihad had no problems firing new rockets at Israel, and one of the rockets fired at Israel instead landed in Egypt, injuring a woman.
Videos shot from the aircraft show that the troops intentionally diverted fire from the Egyptian all-terrain vehicles and soldiers towards open areas near the border base, from which the terrorist sniper fire originated.
The terrorists, who positioned themselves a few dozen meters from the Egyptian military post, launched an RPG rocket at one of the helicopters, and directed machine gun fire at it.
In addition, an examination of the bodies of the terrorists killed by the IDF clearly showed that at least three of them were Egyptian citizens. One was a member of a radical Egyptian group who was tried in the country.
Mirroring how Hizbullah launched attacks against Israel from within the vicinity of UNIFIL positions so as to result in counterbattery attacks falling on UNIFIL, so too did the Gazan terrorists use the Egyptian forces as human shields.
The terrorists purposefully used the Egyptian positions to attack Israel - firing from within those areas so as to maximize the casualties and potentially bring Israel into a shooting conflict with Egyptian security forces - raising the stakes for all involved.
What the terrorists didn't count on was the tremendous restraint shown by both the Israelis and Egyptian security forces.
The hunt for Mumar Khadafi continues. Mumar Khadafi was nowhere to be seen in the capital of Tripoli or in his overrun compound, but he apparently issued an audio recording calling on his supporters to fight to the bitter end. He also vowed to fight to victory or death. Rebels ransacked Khadafi's compound, which included all kinds of valuables, including some of the uniforms and costumes Khadafi wore in public, statues to himself, and other assorted items.
I think the Libyans will oblige him on the latter bit. Khadafi's now incapable of winning; his forces were routed from key areas around the country and his area of operations keeps shrinking. It's wishful thinking for the loyalists to think they can stem the tide of history.
Khadafi can't be seen out in the public and his son Saif could only show himself during a few minutes during the overnight to repute claims he had been captured by rebel forces.
None of this means that the country is safe by any stretch. Journalists holed up in the Rixos hotel are effectively prisoners to Khadafi's loyalists; they aren't allowed to leave, which means that the few journalists who opted not to stay in the hotel are going to get the scoops of a lifetime. The fighting continues as pockets of resistance are dealt with by the rebel forces, and artillery and gunfire continues to ricochet around the capital.
The concern is that like Saddam Hussein, did Khadafi plot the disappearance of his key forces so as to carry on an insurgency against the rebel groups.
With Gaddafi and son Saif al-Islam still nowhere to be found, it is likely that the family slipped out of the capital at the last moment, along with their die-hard supporters, according to one Libyan who has had contact with regime supporters during the conflict. He says he was told last month by tribal officials allied to Gaddafi that they had been carefully crafting a retreat, as the regime increasingly became aware that it was unlikely to survive. "It is obvious that everything is ready for them," says Noman Benotman, former head of an armed militant Libyan group who is now senior analyst for the London think tank Quilliam. "The way he evacuated Tripoli was all part of the plan." (See pictures of the lengthy battle for Libya.)
In a crackling audio address from his hideout in the early hours of Wednesday, Gaddafi said he had made a "tactical retreat" from Tripoli. Of the rebel fighters, he said: "They are evil incarnate. We should fight them." His words were broadcast on a new pro-Gaddafi web-television channel seemingly designed to replace the national propaganda network the leader has just lost. The address was widely dismissed by Libyans as the desperate words of a defeated tyrant. But they might hold some other meaning, according to Benotman. He claims to have met officials last month from a "very significant, large tribe" supportive of the regime, who told him that they had made a "pact" to support the regime's holdouts if Gaddafi's rule collapsed — even if the Colonel himself was captured or killed. Benotman believes that Gaddafi might have retreated to Al-Jufra, a military base south of the leader's hometown of Sirte, and that Saif al-Islam likely slipped out of Tripoli early Tuesday, shortly after dropping by the Rixos Hotel, where about 35 foreign journalists have been besieged since last weekend.
While Khadafi purportedly claims to still be inside Tripoli somewhere, I think he's slipped out of the city and moved towards Sirte, which is his hometown. I just can't picture him leading this fight from the front and he's much more likely to be caught wearing a burkha or costume to avoid being captured than wearing a military uniform.
UPDATE:
The number of regimes and countries still considering Khadafi (or Gathafi as his passport apparently shows) is shrinking. Burkina Faso and Chad, two nations which received large amounts of aid from Libya under Col Gaddafi, have now joined the list of more than 40 countries recognising the rebels' NTC as Libya's legitimate authority. Burkina Faso says it will offer Col Gaddafi exile if he requests it. From what Khadafi has been saying, I doubt Burkina Faso will have to worry about putting him up. The BBC also reports that there are more defections.
Phil Plait put together this video showing the propagation of the seismic waves from today's Virginia 5.9 earthquake as it raced across the US. The movement being detected is less than the width of a hair.
What you’re seeing here are vertical displacement measurements from an array of detectors that are part of the USArray/EarthScope facility (you can read more about the array and the animation on the IRIS website). These are very sensitive instruments; note the scale on the lower graph showing the motion is only about 40 microns top-to-bottom! That’s less than the thickness of a human hair.
Red dots represent upward motion, and blue downward. The intensity of the color represents the amplitude (height) of the wave. Animations like this make it very easy to see the waves moving across the country; the arc even gives you a rough idea of where the epicenter was.
While most of the national monuments remained intact after the quake, the Washington Monument apparently suffered some damage that was discovered during a secondary survey of the tallest structure in the District of Columbia.
The National Cathedral also suffered damage and will be closed until further notice.
A window blew out on the Pfizer headquarters in Manhattan, and a chimney partially collapsed on an apartment building in Red Hook, Brooklyn.
Damage was also reported in Tysons Corner, Virginia, where there was a partial wall collapse, damaging a number of cars. Other videos are showing the contents of stores being thrown to the ground and the quake rumbled through.
Although this was a moderate quake, it has a significant reach due to the nature of the geology under the Eastern United States.
In the NYC metro area, some had flashbacks to the reactions of 9/11 - and the need to flee buildings when the rumbling began. But between those who felt the quake and fled, others needed to be told that a quake actually occurred because they didn't feel a thing. I fall in that latter category since I didn't feel it. It was only after others told me that they thought they felt a quake that I went online to the USGS site to learn that a quake occurred - down in Virginia.
There are evacuations at the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill.
It's rather unusual to see earthquakes of this magnitude in Virginia, and the largest earthquake in the state's history was back on May 31, 1897, when a 5.9 hit. That quake seemed to be felt much more locally than today's quake, which was felt up here in the NYC metro area.
I can't say that I felt it personally, but Mrs. Lawhawk and others in her office felt it. Some local offices have been evacuated as a precaution.
UPDATE:
The USGS has apparently upgraded the quake to a magnitude 5.9 upon further review. The quake was felt as far away as parts of Canada.
All NJ TRANSIT rail, bus and light rail services are operating. Customers may experience some delays because of crowding conditions and speed restrictions due to this afternoon's earthquake. Systemwide cross-honoring is in effect. Check back for updates.
From local traffic reports:
NYC BULLETIN - 6-10 m delay - HUDSON RIVER CROSSINGS: INBOUND HOLLAND TUNNEL REOPENED // OUTBOUND REOPENED.
2:46 PM
NYC BULLETIN - 1-5 m delay - JOHN F KENNEDY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT CLOSED ON ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES DUE TO EATHQUAKE.
2:46 PM
NYC BULLETIN - 1-5 m delay - NEWARK LIBERTY AIRPORT CLOSED ON ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES DUE TO EARTHQUAKE.
The National Park Service said that all National Mall monuments and memorials are closed and evacuated after the quake.
At Reagan National Airport outside Washington, ceiling tiles fell during a few seconds of shaking. Authorities announced it was an earthquake and all flights were put on hold.
At the Pentagon in northern Virginia, a low rumbling built and built to the point that the building was shaking. People ran into the corridors of the government's biggest building and as the shaking continued there were shouts of "Evacuate! Evacuate!"
In New York, the 26-story federal courthouse in lower Manhattan began swaying and hundreds of people were seen leaving the building. Court officers weren't letting people back in.
UPDATE:
It's once again a good reminder for everyone to make sure that they have their disaster go-plans just in case a more serious tremblor hits.
And they have hit across the East Coast in the past. Many people don't realize that some of the strongest quakes to hit the United States have come not in California, but in New Madrid, MO, and in South Carolina. Other strong quakes have struck in Ontario Canada and across New York, but are often weaker than other quakes even though they are felt over a wider area.
UPDATE:
Looks like the National Cathedral in Washington was damaged by the quake. Its website says that it's closed for the afternoon to inspect for damage, but Washington Post reports:
The tip of the National Cathedral in Washington spire crashed onto the steps on Pilgrim Road. Three of the four pinnacles of the central tower are down and there’s significant damage, said spokesman Richard Weinberg. No injuries were reported.
UPDATE:
Updated the headline to reflect the USGS upgrade of the quake to a 5.9. Also, the Washington Post has a comprehensive roundup of quake news from DC.
Despite reports yesterday claiming that several of Mumar Khadafi's sons were taken into custody by rebel forces in and around Tripoli, it turns out that it wasn't the case. Saif al-Islam made a pretty dramatic entrance and posed for photos among his supporters inside Tripoli.
Chalk that up to the fog of war and overly optimistic reporting/announcements from the rebels. However, the BBC live-blog is reporting that rebel spokesman Hany Hassan Soufrakis relates that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was actually captured but somehow managed to escape from the rebels: "He was captured and apparently he escaped; that's the information we're getting. To be honest, it's an embarrassment," he told the BBC World Service.
It was not clear whether the recent rebel gains were the beginnings of a decisive victory or, rather, the start of potentially prolonged street fighting for control of the capital. NATO officials in Brussels and London said the alliance’s warplanes were flying reconnaissance and other missions over Libya but declined to say whether the planes had bombed the fortified Qaddafi compound in Tripoli.
“Our mission is not over yet,” said Col. Roland Lavoie, a NATO spokesman, at a news conference in Naples, Italy, urging pro-Qaddafi forces to return to their barracks. “Until this is the case we will carry on with our mission.” Asked if the alliance knew where Colonel Qaddafi was, he said: “We don’t know. I don’t have a clue.”
“The situation in Tripoli is still very serious and very dangerous,” Colonel Lavoie said.
He acknowledged that the urban environment in Tripoli, a city of some two million, was “far more complex” for airstrikes, but said the alliance had precision weapons at its disposal to enforce its United Nations Security Council mandate, which is to protect civilians from attack.
The thing is that no one knows where Mumar Khadafi is, and the state television network has finally gone off the air. Typically, state-run television broadcasts reports sympathetic to the regimes in power, so this is a positive development for the rebel forces.
Hours after the Jamahiriya (State of the Masses) channel had broadcast increasingly desperate pleas from Muammar Gaddafi, TV screens airing the station suddenly turned black. Minutes later the network's logo appeared at the bottom right of the screen, but without any picture or sound.
A spokesman for the rebel alliance claimed control of the media group's headquarters: ''The revolutionaries stormed the television building … after killing the soldiers surrounding it. It is now under their control.''
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Rebel forces also claimed to have detained Hala Misrati, the Libyan state TV anchor who famously vowed to die a martyr for Colonel Gaddafi while waving a gun on air on Sunday.
Outside the capital, rebels have been telling AFP that they are pushing towards the oil hub of Ras Lanouf, on the road towards Col Gaddafi's hometown, Sirte. They hope to be in Ras Lanouf by tonight.
Since no one knows where Khadafi's gone, it is possible that he returned to his hometown where he may be able to rely on his connections to sustain the fight for just a while longer (further extending the bloodshed).
That Saif apparently escaped isn't a good sign for the rebels, but his appearance in the dark of night doesn't exactly inspire confidence in what's left of the Khadafi regime either - they can't go out in the open and are on the run.
Rebels have hoisted their flag over Col Gaddafi's home in the Bab al-Aziziya compound, rebel TV reports.
Andy Carvin tweets: Even if opposition gets into compound and Gaddafi is there, there's a huge network of tunnels under the city. Could become cat and mouse.
UPDATE:
Libyan kids playing atop a tank belonging to Khadafi's formerly elite military unit:
Libyan rebels inside the Khadafi compound (HT: Killgore Trout):
Still, no one knows where Mumar Khadafi has gone. I think he's gone back to his home town of Sirte, even as his loyalists have reportedly flocked to Tripoli to attempt to thwart the rebel groups. Meanwhile, the rebels appear to be consolidating their gains although the loyalists have again fired Scud missiles towards Misrata.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has announced that Amtrak will spend $450 million to upgrade tracks and power systems in New Jersey that will enable the Acela trains to cruise along at 160 mph, which would be the fastest a passenger train can go in the United States. A total of $745 million will be spent by Amtrak nationally to upgrade services.
Power issues regularly cause massive delays along the entire Northeast Corridor (NEC) and spillover delays affect the LIRR and NJ Transit services. Power problems occur all too frequently and cost commuters billions of dollars over the years in lost opportunity costs and wasted time due to the problems.
Fixing the power issues will resolve a longstanding bottleneck along the NEC and will improve the reliability of Amtrak and NJ Transit.
The next step will be to replace the Portal Bridge, which everyone concedes requires replacement, but which has lacked funding because everyone tries to tie that bridge project together with the Hudson River tunnel projects (the cancelled ARC or the proposed Gateway). The Portal Bridge replacement would further improve reliability (just yesterday trains were delayed 15-20 minutes through the morning commute due to the bridge being opened for river traffic). The replacement bridge would allow higher speed through that segment of the NEC, but it would be a far more reliable component of the NEC than at present.
Meanwhile, a terror group calling itself the Jihadi Resistance has claimed responsibility for the Eilat attacks. I doubt the veracity of those claims and it could just as easily be a spinoff group from any of the major terror groups so as to give those groups plausible deniability over responsibility from the attacks - and an attempt to keep Israel from going after the leadership in the way that Israel eliminated key PRC leadership following Thursday's terror attack.
Hamas terror leaders have gone to ground to hide from the prying eyes of Israeli security forces should Israel launch attacks against the Hamas leadership.
Two Kassam rockets exploded on Monday in open territory in the Ashkelon Coast Regional Council. No injuries were reported but one of the rockets caused a fire to break out.
The rocket fire comes just hours after Taher a-Nunu, spokesman for the Hamas government, said that the factions in the Gaza Strip and Hamas announced that they are willing to comply to truce, if Israel agrees not to carry out more strikes.
Dictators always believe that they're in control, up until the moment they're not. They never quite realize that their perch in power is precarious; someone could sell them out (coup d'etat), they could buy the farm in an airstrike or bombing, or any number of other events that are beyond their control. Khadafi has resisted calls for a peaceful transfer of power, or finding a safe haven in exile.
Instead of stepping down of his own accord and retiring to a peaceful compound surrounded by his female Praetorian guard in some cozy secluded island retreat, he decided to slug it out with anyone and everyone because his ego really is that big. Thousands died because he sought to maintain a firm grip on power, instead of relenting to the people who had finally had enough of Khadafi's reign after coming to power in a coup d'etat 42 years ago.
So now, Khadafi may find out what it's like to be strung up from a lamppost, or tried before a court for all of his crimes against the Libyan people, or may end up getting caught in a rat hole like another rabid dog.
You see, dictators never think it's going to happen to them. It's always going to be the other dumb dictator who doesn't quite play by the Dictator's playbook.
And that should be a lesson to Bashar Assad, but Assad is already claiming that this would never happen to him. Assad has already issued statements showing that he has no fear that such a civil war or revolution could happen to him. Here's hoping that he's sorely mistaken in that conviction.
What does this mean for the rest of the world? Well, some people think that this may lead to a reduction in oil prices as the reliable supply of oil can increase due to the end of another conflict in an oil-rich region. It would probably take some time before the oil flows smoothly from Libya, but expect to see downward pressure on oil prices in the coming days as the situation in Libya sorts itself out:
For the first time in months, witnesses in Tripoli reported heavy fighting across the capital late Saturday night, even as rebel forces claimed to have encircled the city by taking major towns to its east, west and south.
Rebel leaders in Tunis and eastern Libya hailed the beginning of a new uprising in the capital against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s rule. And after months of rebel offenses that crumbled or stalled despite heavy support from a NATO airstrike campaign, it was the first time since the uprising began in February that the rebels threatened Colonel Qaddafi’s ultimate stronghold.
“We are coordinating the attacks inside, and our forces from outside are ready to enter Tripoli,” said Anwar Fekini, a rebel leader from the mountainous region in western Libya, speaking by telephone from Tunis. “If you can call any mobile number in Tripoli, you will hear in the background the beautiful sound of the bullets of freedom.”
Phone calls to several Tripoli residents from different neighborhoods confirmed widespread gunfire and explosions. And there were reports of frequent NATO jet overflights and airstrikes — a common accompaniment to the drumbeat of the rebel advance in the past week.
But in an audio message broadcast on state television, his second in a week, Colonel Qaddafi rejected claims of rebel gains, saying his forces had beaten back the Tripoli uprising within hours and announcing military successes in the same cities rebels had claimed to seize on Saturday. He gave the date and time several times to confirm that he was speaking as events were unfolding.
UPDATE:
Khadafi's compound may have been breached, but there's no way to know whether he's still in the city, or has been there for any time in the past couple of weeks. One of the major worries is that he fled for the mountains and will attempt to fight a guerrilla campaign. That's even with Khadafi claiming that he'll stay in Tripoli to the last.
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi said Sunday he will stay in Tripoli "until the end" and called on his supporters around the country to help liberate the capital from a rebel offensive.
He said in an audio message played over state television he was "afraid that Tripoli will burn" and he said he would provide weapons to supporters to fight off the rebels.
Earlier, Libyan rebels captured a major military base that defends Gadhafi's stronghold of Tripoli as clashes and protests raged in the streets of the capital on Sunday.
An Associated Press reporter with the rebels rapidly advancing toward Tripoli saw them take over the base of the Khamis Brigade, 16 miles west of the capital. After a brief gunbattle, Gadhafi's forces fled.
If it's turning into a rout in Tripoli, the rebels will likely claim victory over Khadafi's regime despite Khadafi's protestations to the contrary (and on that front, Khadafi may rival Baghdad Bob on handling the truth).
UPDATE:
The end may have come even quicker than anyone could have imagined. There are reports that Khadafi's son has been captured by rebel groups, and there are even reports that Khadafi himself has been shot and killed, or has otherwise fled to Algeria.
According to Palestinian reports, two people were injured in the strike. Shortly before the attack, the Popular Resistance Committees' military wing – the Salah a-Din Brigades – claimed it launched two rockets at Israel.
While Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council bore the brunt of Saturday's barrage, Beersheba seemed to be the terrorists' "favorite" Sunday, suffering rocket fire virtually every hour: One of the rockets hit a high school gym, causing severe damage to the building, which luckily was empty at the time.
The strikes came as rocket fire from the Gaza Strip that killed one man over the weekend continued Sunday morning. At least six Grad rockets were fired at Beersheba, one of which hit an empty school building, and at least one of the other Grads was intercepted by the Iron Dome rocket defense system and two landed in the Egyptian city of Rafah. There were no casualties reported in Sunday morning's attacks.
Earlier Sunday morning, four mortar shells landed in the Eshkol Regional Council area and nine rockets were fired at the Ashkelon Regional Council, one of which damaged a building. No injuries were reported in the attacks.
The Iron Dome rocket defense system also successfully intercepted three rockets fired from Gaza in the direction of Ashkelon.
At least two rockets fired from the Gaza Strip landed in the Egyptian border town of Rafah on Sunday morning, but there was no damage and no one was hurt, an Egyptian security source said.
The source said it appeared the rockets were fired in error.
Since Thursday, more than 100 rockets have been launched at Israel, and that followed the deadly terrorist attack outside Eilat, which killed 7 Israelis. The onus and responsibility for all the carnage that has followed falls entirely on the Palestinian terrorists in Gaza who sought this latest round of fighting.
And once again, it isn't surprising that media outlets have no problem conflating civilian casualties with those of the terrorists responsible for carrying out attacks. It makes Israel appear to be attacking indiscriminately and without regard for civilian casualties, even though the terrorists are the ones who have no regard for any human lives, whether Israeli or Palestinians. The terrorists purposefully hide behind human shields - their fellow Palestinians - because they know if Israel successfully kills terrorists, civilian casualties may well follow and they further know that the media will focus not on the terrorists who were involved in these attacks, but on the civilians. Moreover, the terrorists know that if media outlets see kids injured that will further incite hatred towards Israel.
Yet, several of the rockets that have slammed into Israel have hit yeshivas, homes, and have injured children, including a 9-year old and an infant.
It's all yet another manifestation of the double standard applied to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
And speaking of double standards, it cute how the Arab League blames Israel for escalating the latest violence, when it was on the receiving end of a terror attack that is attributed back to terrorists in Gaza and the terrorists further responded with more than 100 rockets fired at Israel. None of these Arab League countries would ever tolerate any such terror attacks, and none would accept the level of restraint that Israel has shown. After all, in just the past few weeks, Turkey responded to what it called Kurdish terror attacks inside Turkey with a series of airstrikes both inside Turkey and in northern Iraq (another sovereign country). The world yawned at that breach of international peace. The Arab League was silent.
The Arab League ignores the terror attacks against Israel, but focuses on the Israeli response because that's what the Arab League does.
At the same time, Hamas is talking out of both sides of its mouth. It announced it ended the hudna with Israel following Israel's first round of airstrikes following the Eilat attack, but now it wants the UN to take action to thwart Israel's ongoing measures to defend itself from further attacks.
Now, it is possible that Hamas was caught unawares that the PRC was intent upon carrying out attacks and misjudged the swiftness of Israel's response, but Hamas has never ceased in its preparations for renewed conflict with Israel. Its propaganda refuses to recognize Israel's very existence.
