30 April 2009
massive fire; opposite end of region from me :(
The fire as seen from across the Northwest Arm on Thursday. (Submitted by Will Sommerville)
A major forest fire in the Spryfield area, at the south end of Halifax forced people to flee their homes Thursday afternoon.
Halifax Regional Fire Services confirmed that it has been evacuating homes in a section of Spryfield where firefighters were battling a major fire.
"There is an evacuation currently on the Purcell's Cove Road on the outside around 800 block and any side streets off that," fire services spokesman Lloyd Currie told CBC News on Thursday afternoon.
"What it means is the fire is moving very rapidly.
"There is two helicopters in the air right now and multiple apparatuses and firefighters on the scene right now."
Currie added the situation has been changing all afternoon.
"The fire right now is paralleling Purcell's Cove Road, and in some sections it's crossed," Currie said.
"I can't say the size of the fire right now, but it's very large and moving very quickly."
Currie advised anyone living in the area to leave as well as those who are on their way home to the area to stay away.
A CBC-TV crew was forced to flee an area along Aarons Way just off Purcell's Cove Road when the wind shifted and sent flames directly their way.
Residents fled their homes while several houses were reported to be on fire.
A huge plume of smoke can be seen over the south end of the Halifax Regional Municipality.
So far, 12 homes have been confirmed as destroyed by fire.*****************************************************************
Massive brush fire destroys at least 12 homes near Halifax...
A massive "out of control" forest fire is burning within the city limits of Halifax, has already destroyed a number of houses and is threatening more.
30/04/2009
 Smoke billows above a heavily forested area of western Halifax on Thursday, 30 April 2009. |
CTV.ca News Staff
Mayor Peter Kelly said 12 homes have been completely destroyed in the Spryfield area, four along Herring Cove Road and eight on Purcell's Cove Road.
More than 100 firefighters, and 25 emergency response vehicles, have responded to the scene, Kelly said.
The fire is burning on the southwest side of the Halifax harbour, within the limits of Halifax Regional Municipality.
As of 6 p.m. local time, Kelly said there were no reports of injuries or missing persons.
The fire is quickly moving south and residents in the area have been evacuated, and the roads closed.
People whose homes are affected are being asked to go to a facility in nearby Chocolate Lake.
Officials are going door-to-door to notify residents of the evacuation order.
New Brunswick is sending two water bombers to help with the fire, CTV Atlantic's Rick Grant reported.
A Department of Natural Resources helicopter is already on scene.
The fire started yesterday but was thought to be under control, until winds picked up Thursday afternoon.
A huge blanket of smoke is billowing over the skyline of downtown Halifax, a 15-minute drive away from the fire.
The area the fire is threatening has a number of new subdivisions, featuring a number of very exclusive houses.
Local musician, Brett Ryan, told CTV Atlantic he thought his home, along with a number of his neighbors', were destroyed in the Fortress Drive subdivision.
Recent fires near Halifax have been partially blamed on the aftermath of 2003's Hurricane Juan, which knocked down many trees, leaving forests with a thick underbelly of kindling wood.
There was another massive fire within the HRM last year, and Kelly defended his administration's response to clearing Juan's debris.
"Again that's an issue we need to deal with the province but that point, right now, we need to get people to make sure they are safe and fire crews have the resources they need to get this job done," Kelly told CTV Atlantic.
************************************************************8[i live in the north west, and am not in harm's way]
award... [thank you, linda]
***
Thank you, Linda!
( [ca] linda in my sidebar )
Thank you, Linda!( [ca] linda in my sidebar )
Award rules:
1. you must brag about this award
2. you must include the name of the blogger who bestowed the award on you
3. you must choose a minimum of seven [7] blogs you find brilliant, in content or design
4. you must show their names and links and leave a comment informing them they were prized with the Honest Weblog award
5. you must list at least ten [10] honest things about yourself, then pass this on, with instructions intact
Linda chose to bestow this SUPER award upon my 'loopy lair', and i humbly accept the honor, even if much of what i post i'd call 'honest crap', i suppose it can be construed as 'scrap', too
as for honest things about me:
1. my username, 'laughingwolf', i discovered after using it for some six or seven years [thought i'd created an original] is, in fact, a native american creature, who, among other things 'teaches through trickery'... since that suits me to a 't', i was thrilled to learn of it
2. i'm a single father of three great children, the oldest of whom just completed her master's degree, convocation on 26 may... the other two say they want to go on to college or university in the next year or two
3. some two months ago i had microscopic surgery to both eyes, and while it has helped my vision in some ways, in others not so much... i'm able to drive better without my old glasses, so in another two months will need a new prescription, once the eyes are fully healed
4. the car i drive is 10 years old, made in germany, and i'm very happy with it... it's a 4-cylinder with superdrive, so though not a road burner, it moves fast enough for my tastes, i've tried it out up to 180 kilometres per hour, which is more than 100 mph... speedo says 260 kph as top speed, but i'll never attempt that
5. i graduated from three different colleges, in three diverse disciplines, but that's me... eclectic... and i've dabbled in a number of other studies as well, including videography, sound production, lighting, script writing, computer animation, psychology of color... to name a few
6. my ethnic background is a mixed bag, too... celt [scot] on mother's side and finno-ugric [estonian] on dad's... likely a lot more there as well
7. i have a hard time being civil to arrogant know-it-alls and bullies... i want to punch their lights out, but know once they recover nothing has changed but their lumps... and my incarceration
8. over the years i've had more female friends than male
9. perhaps because i'm a rocktober baby, fall/autumn is my favorite season, especially after a killer frost has taken out those nasty, blood-sucking insects
10. there is no way i can choose just seven blogs to bequeath this award to, there are far too many i think are special, so must break that rule and offer it up to anyone who reads this and is brave enough to reveal a bit of their inner soul to blogland
...continued blessings to all
***
dread...
Philip Alcabes on fear...
(via onegoodmove)
Philip Alcabes was just on the Daily Show, and talked about how our fear gets the better of us.
We fear things less real than the real dangers that we are exposed to every day. Here is the interview:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M - Th 11p / 10c | |||
| Philip Alcabes | ||||
| ||||
His book is Dread: How fear and Fantasy have Fueled Epidemics from the Black Death to the Avian Flu. Here is the description.
The average individual is far more likely to die in a car accident than from a communicable disease…yet we are still much more fearful of the epidemic.
Even at our most level-headed, the thought of an epidemic can inspire terror.
As Philip Alcabes persuasively argues in Dread, our anxieties about epidemics are created not so much by the germ or microbe in question—or the actual risks of contagion—but by the unknown, the undesirable, and the misunderstood.
Alcabes examines epidemics through history to show how they reflect the particular social and cultural anxieties of their times.
From Typhoid Mary to bioterrorism, as new outbreaks are unleashed or imagined, new fears surface, new enemies are born, and new behaviors emerge.
'Dread' dissects the fascinating story of the imagined epidemic: the one that we think is happening, or might happen; the one that disguises moral judgments and political agendas, the one that ultimately expresses our deepest fears.
Sounds like some insight can be gleaned from this book on the debate over GE crops?
What hidden political agendas are behind the frankenfood fears, and how real is it compared to other dangers.
Jeffrey Smith, for example, calls genetic engineering “one of history’s greatest man-made health and environmental threats.”
Case in point?
Mini 85...
***
1084...
Ramonaa had been tortured and abused, as a prisoner of the Slan, for more than two years.
Branded a slave, she'd nearly lost all hope of ever being free again.
Vladini wanted the young blonde for herself, as breeding stock for her future warrior horde.
Though grateful for her release, Ramonaa had her own plans.
~2009 laughingwolf
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death ...
Death, and the Unfortunate [*]
A poor unfortunate, from day to day,Called Death to take him from this world away.
"O Deathe," he said, "to me how fair your form!
"Come quick, and end for me life's cruel storm."
Death heard, and with a ghastly grin,
Knocked at his door, and entered in
"Take out this object from my sight!"
The poor man loudly cried.
"Its dreadful looks I can't abide;
"O stay him, stay him" let him come no nigher;
"O Death! O Death! I pray you to retire!"
A gentleman of note
In Rome, Maecenas,[#] somewhere wrote:
"Make me the poorest wretch that begs,
"Sore, hungry, crippled, clothed in rags,
"In hopeless impotence of arms and legs;
"Provided, after all, you give
"The one sweet liberty to live:
"I'll ask of Death no greater favor
"Than just to stay away... for ever."
[*] Aesop.
[#] Maecenas.—Seneca's Epistles, 101.
~Jean de la Fontaine
***
new space find...
28 Apr '09
The fading infrared afterglow of GRB 090423 appears in the center of this false-color image taken with the Gemini North Telescope in Hawaii in this undated photograph.
The burst is the farthest cosmic explosion yet seen. Astronomers tracking a mysterious blast of energy called a gamma ray burst said on 28 April 2009, they had snapped a photograph of the most distant object in the universe -- a smudge 13 billion light-years away. REUTERS/Gemini Observatory/NSF/AURA, D. Fox and A. Cucchiara/Penn State University and E. Berger/Harvard University/ Handout
Telescope snaps most distant object...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Astronomers tracking a mysterious blast of energy called a gamma ray burst said on Tuesday they had snapped a photograph of the most distant object in the universe -- a smudge 13 billion light-years away.
Hawaii's Gemini Observatory caught the image earlier this month after a satellite first detected the burst.
"Our infrared observations from Gemini immediately suggested that this was an unusually distant burst, these images were the smoking gun," said Edo Berger of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
Distortions in the light signature of the object show it is 13 billion years old -- at the speed of light, 13 billion light-years away.
A light-year is 6 trillion miles (10 trillion km).
This makes it easily the most distant object ever seen by humanity, Berger said.
Gamma-ray bursts are luminous explosions that mostly occur when massive stars run out of fuel and begin collapsing into either a black hole or a neutron star.
"I have been chasing gamma-ray bursts for a decade, trying to find such a spectacular event," said Berger.
"We now have the first direct proof that the young universe was teeming with exploding stars and newly-born black holes only a few hundred million years after the Big Bang," he said.
(Reporting by Maggie Fox; Editing by Bill Trott)
Copyright © 2009 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
29 April 2009
Qs. . .
A little girl and her mother are out for a walk.
Out of the blue, the girl asks, "Mommy, how old are you?"
The mother responds, "Honey, women don't talk about their age.
You'll learn this as you get older."
The girl then asked, "Mommy, how much do you weigh?"
Her mother responded again, "That's another thing women don't talk about.
"You'll learn this, too, as you grow up."
The girl, still wanting to know about her mother, then fired off another question, "Mommy, why did you and Daddy get a divorce?"
The mother, a little annoyed by the questions, responded, "Honey, that is a subject that hurts me very much, and I don't want to talk about it now."
The little girl, frustrated, sulked until she was dropped off at a friend's house to play.
She consulted with her girlfriend about her and her mother's conversation.
The girlfriend said, "All you have to do is sneak a look at your mother's driver's license.
"It's just a like a report card from school.
"It tells you everything."
Later, the little girl and her mother were out and about again.
The little girl started off with, "Mommy, Mommy, I know how old you are.
"I know how old you are.
"You're 32 years old."
The mother was very shocked.
She asked, "Sweetheart, how do you know that?"
The little girl shrugged and said, "I just know.
"And I know how much you weigh.
"You weigh 130 pounds."
"Where did you learn that?"
The little girl said, "I just know.
"And I know why you and Daddy got a divorce.
"You got an 'F'... in sex."
red tape kills...
Toronto woman, flown back from Mexico, dies...
29 Apr '09
A critically ill Toronto woman, brought back to Canada after suffering a severe asthma attack and cardiac arrest while on vacation in Mexico, has died.
Victoria George-Pazzano, 29, died Tuesday night at the Peterborough Regional Health Centre, her husband Dylan Pazzano confirmed to CBC News.
Pazzano said he was told no bed could be found in the intensive care unit of any Ontario hospital to accommodate his wife.
The woman's family said they believed her return from Mexico was delayed because of concerns over swine flu.
The Ontario Health Ministry has denied those charges.
George-Pazzano was taken to Peterborough by ambulance, after arriving in Toronto on Tuesday, because the couple's insurance company said there were no other open intensive care beds in Ontario.
Copyright © 2009 CBC
saved...
Calgary shuttle bus driver saves dog cowering under truck as coyotes circle...
29 Apr '09
By Shannon Montgomery, The Canadian Press
CALGARY - Duke the dog's first bus ride came after the biggest fright of his young life.
The pooch, cowering under a truck as two coyotes circled, was picked up on the side of the road Tuesday morning by a Calgary transit bus driver.
Duke's problems began when he was out for his early-morning walk, with his owner, Hugh Magill, and another dog.
The canines spotted a coyote, and raced after it.
The older animal came back, but Duke, an energetic Australian cattle dog, who is only 16 months old, headed back for the safety of Magill's truck, and was soon out of sight.
Bus driver Dawn Hagel spied the coyotes preying on Duke as she headed down a hill on her 6:30 a.m. route.
"Undoubtedly, unequivocally, they were after the dog.
"The dog was breakfast," she said.
As she pulled closer, the pair of coyotes skittered away, and Duke poked his sand-colored head out from under the truck.
"He came out as I was coming down the hill.
"It was like, 'You're coming to save me."'
Hagel told her passengers to get ready to welcome "a non-paying passenger", and one man prepared to jump off to help coax the dog aboard.
But that wasn't necessary.
"Opening the door was all it really required.
"The dog was in the bus in a heartbeat," she said.
"As strange as it was with all these people looking at him, he knew that was a better fate than having those two coyotes that were trying to get him out from under that pickup truck."
Friendly passengers at the back of the bus looked after Duke, while Hagel called animal control and continued on her route.
The dog had a license, and was safely returned to a worried Magill, who said he was heartsick at the thought of losing him.
The coyote he saw was easily half again as big as Duke, Magill said, and he was sure the dog wouldn't stand a chance.
"He did have a couple of bites on his back leg, puncture wounds, so the fact he'd already been bitten twice, and the two of them were circling the truck, I think they might have got him if the transit driver hadn't stopped."
Duke was adopted from an animal shelter, and is often shy and skittish around strangers, his owner said.
"It's pretty brave of him to get on a bus - he's never been on a bus.
"I guess he made his choice that it was better the bus than the coyotes."
The City of Calgary doesn't get many calls about fights between dogs and coyotes, but Duke's story is cautionary, said Bill Piasta, an officer with animal bylaw services.
Even in off-leash areas, it's a good idea to keep dogs under tight control, he said.
"Coyotes are pack breeds, so there are always two or three at a time," he said.
"They can take a dog down pretty quickly."
Magill said he definitely plans to keep Duke on a leash from now on.
"But he added the pooch has probably learned his lesson about straying far from his owner.
"He was extremely relieved to be back home.
"He was pretty scared."
Copyright © 2009 Canadian Press
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