New offshore drilling; not in California
The notion of new oil drilling off California was killed Wednesday by the Obama Administration, which announced plans for the greatest expansion in oil drilling in 30 years.
Posts Tagged ‘Obama’
Letters to the Editor Mar. 26, 2010
Letters to the Editor Mar. 26, 2010 [Daily Triplicate]
Obama is a mere public servant who is not listening to us
Congratulations, Obama-crats! You’ve done it! You’ve passed Obama-care!
Well now, this election year, we’re going to do it. We are not going to re-elect you. You will be out of a job. The reason? You did not listen to “We the People,” your bosses.
MARCUS: Thoughts on childhood obesity
Michelle Obama has chosen to grapple with the crisis of childhood obesity. Props to the first lady, as this is a dilemma of historic proportion. In a mere two decades, when we as elderly baby boomers are gobbling up every available resource
Obama urges Democrats to come together for health care
When the U.S. House of Representatives takes a controversial and historic roll-call vote on health care legislation today, North Coast Congressman Mike Thompson, D-St.
YOUR SECURITY: Social Security welcomes your ideas
In support of President Barack Obama’s “Transparency and Open Government” initiative, Social Security has launched a new “Open Government” Web page.
Navy delays plan to increase ocean testing in Northwest
The Obama administration plans to launch a comprehensive study of how the rising noise level in the ocean impacts whales and other marine mammals.
CHILE WIRE: Chile struck by one of strongest earthquakes ever
CHILE WIRE: Chile struck by one of strongest earthquakes ever [Daily Triplicate]
TALCA, Chile (AP) — One of the largest earthquakes ever recorded tore apart houses, bridges and highways in central Chile on Saturday and sent a tsunami racing halfway around the world. Chileans near the epicenter were tossed about as if shaken by a giant, and authorities said at least 214 people were dead.
The magnitude-8.8 quake was felt as far away as Sao Paulo in Brazil — 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) to the east. The full extent of damage remained unclear as scores of aftershocks — one nearly as powerful as Haiti’s devastating Jan. 12 earthquake — shuddered across the disaster-prone Andean nation.
President Michelle Bachelet declared a “state of catastrophe” in central Chile but said the government has not asked for assistance from other countries. If it does, President Barack Obama said, the United States “will be there.” Around the world, leaders echoed his sentiment.
In Chile, newly built apartment buildings slumped and fell. Flames devoured a prison. Millions of people fled into streets darkened by the failure of power lines. The collapse of bridges tossed and crushed cars and trucks, and complicated efforts to reach quake-damaged areas by road.
At least 214 people were killed, according to Interior Minister Edmundo Perez Yoma, and officials said about 1.5 million homes suffered at least some damage.
In Talca, just 65 miles (105 kilometers) from the epicenter, people sleeping in bed suddenly felt like they were flying through major airplane turbulence as their belongings cascaded around them from the shuddering walls at 3:34 a.m. (1:34 a.m. EST, 0634 GMT).
A deafening roar rose from the convulsing earth as buildings groaned and clattered. The sound of screams was confused with the crash of plates and windows.
Then the earth stilled, silence returned and a smell of moist dust rose in the streets, where stunned survivors took refuge.
A journalist emerging into the darkened street scattered with downed power lines saw a man, some of his own bones apparently broken, weeping and caressing the hand of a woman who had died in the collapse of a cafe. Two other victims lay dead a few feet (meters) away.
Also near the epicenter was Concepcion, one of the country’s largest cities, where a 15-story building collapsed, leaving a few floors intact.
“I was on the 8th floor and all of a sudden I was down here,” said Fernando Abarzua, marveling that he escaped with no major injuries. He said a relative was still trapped in the rubble six hours after the quake, “but he keeps shouting, saying he’s OK.”
Chilean state television reported that 209 inmates escaped from prison in the city of Chillan, near the epicenter, after a fire broke out.
In the capital of Santiago, 200 miles (325 kilometers) to the northeast, a car dangled from a collapsed overpass, the national Fine Arts Museum was badly damaged and an apartment building’s two-story parking lot pancaked, smashing about 50 cars whose alarms rang incessantly.
While most modern buildings survived, a bell tower collapsed on the Nuestra Senora de la Providencia church and several hospitals were evacuated due to damage.
Santiago’s airport was closed, with smashed windows, partially collapsed ceilings and destroyed pedestrian walkways in the passenger terminals. The capital’s subway was shut as well, and transportation was further limited because hundreds of buses were stuck behind a damaged bridge.
Chile’s main seaport, in Valparaiso about 75 miles (120 kilometers) from Santiago, was ordered closed while damage was assessed. The state-run Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer, shut two of its mines, the newspaper La Tercera reported.
The jolt set off a tsunami that swamped San Juan Bautista village on Robinson Crusoe Island off Chile, killing at least five people and leaving 11 missing, said Guillermo de la Masa, head of the government emergency bureau for the Valparaiso region. He said the huge waves also damaged several government buildings on the island.
It then raced across the Pacific, setting off alarm sirens in Hawaii, Polynesia and Tonga and prompting warnings across all 53 nations ringing the vast ocean.
Tsunami waves washed across Hawaii, where little damage was reported. The U.S. Navy moved a half-dozen vessels out of Pearl Harbor as a precaution, Navy spokesman Lt. Myers Vasquez said. Shore-side Hilo International Airport was closed. In California, officials said a 3-foot (1-meter) surge in Ventura Harbor pulled loose several navigational buoys.
About 13 million people live in the area where shaking was strong to severe, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. USGS geophysicist Robert Williams said the Chilean quake was hundreds of times more powerful than Haiti’s magnitude-7 quake, though it was deeper and cost far fewer lives.
More than 50 aftershocks topped magnitude 5, including one of magnitude 6.9.
The largest earthquake ever recorded struck the same area of Chile on May 22, 1960. The magnitude-9.5 quake killed 1,655 people and left 2 million homeless. It caused a tsunami that killed people in Hawaii, Japan and the Philippines and caused damage along the west coast of the United States.
Saturday’s quake matched a 1906 temblor off the Ecuadorean coast as the seventh-strongest ever recorded in the world.
A stimulating question: A look at how $57 million in stimulus funds were spent in Humboldt
If only political spin stimulated the economy. National representatives and the Obama administration spent much of last week weighing in on the first anniversary of the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the
Humboldt County Political Opinion Poll Results Published
Old Glory Radio
Congressman Mike Thompson Votes for Pay-As-You-Go-Act
WASHINGTON (Press Release) – Today Congress passed important legislation that mandates that Congress can’t spend more than it can afford. The Statutory Pay-As-You-Go-Act (H.J. Res. 45) requires Congress to offset all new policies that reduce revenues or expand entitlement spending.
Embattled Obama declares in speech, ‘I don’t quit’
Reaction from Congressman Mike Thompson North Coast Congressman Mike Thompson expressed support for points made in the president’s speech, while calling on President Obama to exert strong leadership on issues like health care.
Obama supporters set to gather in Arcata for speech
Volunteers with Organizing for America (OFA) will gather at the home of Barbara Kellogg in Arcata this evening to watch President Barack Obama deliver his State of the Union address.
Thompson applauds new ‘passenger bill of rights’
The Obama administration took a step Monday toward silencing tarmac horror stories by ordering airlines to let passengers stuck in stranded airplanes get off the plane after three hours of waiting.
‘Forgotten’ Afghan war to forefront
Having served a tour in Afghanistan in 2005 and 2006, Humboldt County Deputy District Attorney Allan Dollison was thrilled Tuesday to hear President Barack Obama announce that he would be sending 30,000 more troops to the war-torn region.
House Dems unveil health bill; Obama, Thompson applaud legislation
Cheered by President Barack Obama, House Democrats rolled out landmark legislation Thursday to extend health care to tens of millions who lack coverage, impose sweeping new restrictions on the insurance industry and create a government-run option