Posts Tagged ‘OK’
Monster tornado devastates Moore, Oklahoma
A woman carries her child through a field near the collapsed Plaza Towers Elementary School
Click to enlarge — AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki
A huge tornado with winds of up to 200 miles per hour tore through the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore on Monday, ripping up at least two schools and leaving a wake of tangled wreckage as a dangerous storm system threatened as many as 10 U.S. states.
Television video showed tracts of homes destroyed, cars tossed about and piled atop one another, and at least one building on fire. Rescue workers were pulling third-graders from a severely damaged elementary school in Moore, a KFOR television reporter said from the scene, and aerial video showed first responders sifting through the rubble left behind…
The National Weather Service assigned the twister a preliminary ranking of EF4 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, meaning the second most powerful category of tornado with winds up to 200 mph.
The massive twister struck at the height of tornado season, and more were forecast. On Sunday, tornadoes killed two people and injured 39 in Oklahoma.
The number of deaths continues to climb. I had to stop watching the TV reporting. Firemen at the elementary school say their work is now “search and recovery” – no longer search and rescue.
Witnesses said Monday’s tornado appeared more fierce than the giant twister that was among the dozens that tore up the region on May 3, 1999, killing more than 40 people and destroying thousands of homes. That tornado ranked as an EF5, meaning it had winds over 200 mph…
The 1999 event ranks as the third-costliest tornado in U.S. history, having caused more than $1 billion in damage at the time, or more than $1.3 billion in today’s dollars. Only the devastating Joplin and Tuscaloosa tornadoes in 2011 were more costly…
Estimates at the scene from those who experienced that 1999 tornado say the affected area was 2 or 3 times larger today. Probably 30 square miles of nothing left in one piece.
I’d like to offer a special note aside from the immediacy of this disaster. Americans who retain a traditional open heart to people in trouble always offer a helping hand. The modern exception being the cruel, heartless fools, the rightwingers in the various Tea Party cells around the country – and in Congress. You know who I mean. The kind of lowlifes who fought against providing aid to victims of Hurricane Sandy unless it was “balanced” by cutting Social Security and Medicare.
That despicable attempt was thwarted in Congress – eventually – by joint resistance from Democrats and a few traditional Republicans who haven’t forgotten how to be Americans. I’d like to note that Tom Cole is the Congressional Republican who represents the people of Moore, Oklahoma – and he was one of the few who joined with Democrats to send federal aid to survivors of that terrible superstorm.
They ain’t all sonsabitches in Washington, DC.
Grocery chain cleared to give horse meat lasagna to homeless
Swedish grocery chain Axfood says it will donate several tons of lasagna containing horsemeat to the homeless in Stockholm.
The food retailer was one of several in Sweden, and of many across Europe and the United Kingdom, forced to pull meat products from shelves after a discovery that products believed to be beef actually were horse meat…
While the tainted food could not be sold to consumers, Sweden’s National Food Agency says the food can be donated.
Axfood will donate about 11,000 pounds of frozen lasagna to the St. Clara church, which will distribute the food to the city’s homeless.
Axfood will be required to remove the products from their packaging and provide an accurate list of ingredients.
I’m certain there will be some semantics whizbang who will say using the word “tainted” isn’t close to correct – and of course it isn’t. Because the meat isn’t tainted. Even adulterated isn’t appropriate. It’s mislabeled, it wrongly identifies the content but, horsemeat in and of itself does nothing negative to human beings – regardless of religious beliefs or the Bambi effect.
Does it suck that homeless folks get discards? You betcha. But, that ain’t the operative ethic here. The chain is taking the same write-off either road. At least they’re providing calories for folks who can use ‘em.
Then you get to face the reality of a wealthy nation that still has homeless people living on the streets – and ask “why”?
Russia set to halt imports of U.S. beef, pork
U.S. pork and beef exports to Russia could come to a halt on Saturday following Moscow’s requirement that the meat be tested and certified free of the feed additive ractopamine…
The move could jeopardize the more than $500 million a year in exports of U.S. beef and pork to Russia…
The United States asked Russia, the sixth-largest market for U.S. beef and pork, to suspend the requirement even as it warned domestic meat companies that Moscow might reject their pork shipments that contained ractopamine and stop buying pork from processing plants that produced pork with the drug.
Ractopamine is used as a feed additive to make meat leaner, but countries such as China have banned its use despite scientific evidence that it is safe…
The U.S. Meat Export Federation told its members by email that since the U.S. Department of Agriculture had no testing and certification program in place for ractopamine, the Russian requirement could effectively halt U.S. pork and beef exports to the country by Saturday…
The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, in a note posted on its website on Friday afternoon, said: “Exporters are cautioned that Russia may reject U.S. pork shipments and delist producing establishments if ractopamine residues are detected in exported product.”
FSIS also said at the moment it was not requiring meat companies for documentation attesting their pork was free of ractopamine before issuing its export certification.
Are there requirements for measuring ractopamine sold for consumption to Americans, eh?
Analysts said the Russian move was linked to the Senate’s passage of the trade bill and blah, blah, blah…
Tyson Foods…a leading U.S. meat company, and agriculture powerhouse Cargill…declined to comment on how a halt in exports would impact them, but both noted the U.S. and Russian governments were in discussions.
Yes, there are 100 countries including the European Union rejecting pork with ractopamine residues. Mother Jones wrote a delightful article in February when Taiwan rejected US shipments – entitled “US Pushes the World to Import Our Dodgy Meat” – and if you’d like some delightful midnight snack reading matter, try this report from the USDA describing the symptoms of some pigs tested with the stuff.
Folks in Oklahoma sue Halliburton for groundwater pollution — since 1965
Halliburton Co faces lawsuits over groundwater pollution near a now-closed facility in Oklahoma that cleaned missile casings for the U.S. Defense Department during the Cold War.
Halliburton, which now specializes in oilfield services, said one of its units cleaned solid fuel from missile casings between 1965 and 1991 at a semi-rural facility on the north side of Duncan, Oklahoma. It was closed in the mid-1990s.
A component of the fuel was ammonium perchlorate, a salt that is highly soluble in water. Halliburton said it had been discovered in the soil and groundwater on its site and in certain residential water wells near the property.
The company said it was determining the extent of that contamination and that it had arranged to supply residents with bottled water and, if needed, a temporary water supply system…
The lawsuits, filed in Oklahoma state and federal courts starting late last month, claim the plaintiffs have suffered health problems such as hypothyroidism, which is associated with exposure to perchlorate over time…
According to Halliburton, the lawsuits claim it knew about the releases into groundwater of ammonium perchlorate and, in a federal lawsuit, nuclear or radioactive waste as well, and that Halliburton did not take corrective actions.
But after conducting soil and groundwater sampling along with the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality, Halliburton said it only found nuclear or radioactive material in soil in a discrete area on the Duncan site, and that it was not present in groundwater.
“The radiological impacts from this discrete area are not believed to present any health risk for off-site exposure,” Halliburton said in the filing.
Rest easy. Folks in Duncan, Oklahoma, don’t really glow in the dark. They’re just poisoned.
Dumb crook of the day
Maybe this is who he was trying to impress?
A suspected thief was taken into custody after allegedly trying to conceal a stolen chainsaw by stuffing it down his pants as one would a candy bar, according to local news reports.
Police say 21-year old Anthony Black was eyeing an Echo chainsaw, but decided that a grab and dash wasn’t in the cards. The man, who police say appeared intoxicated, took the mechanical saw from the wall and put it down the front of his pants instead, according to NBC affiliate KSHB.
While some employees initially thought Black — who by this point was walking with a noticeable waddle — was handicapped, others were suspicious…
“This is a little unique, simply because of how large the item was,” Chickasha Police Assistant Chief Elip Moore explained…
A limping Black was eventually chased from the store, ditching the chainsaw in the process.
A short pursuit ensued, with the suspected thief diving headfirst into a creek, police say. Authorities fished Black from the shallow water, placing him under arrest.
Too bad it didn’t have an electric starter. Could have been startling.
Oklahoma man says wife’s death was sexy accident
Arthur Sedille was up-front with police: He would often put a gun to his wife’s head during fantasy sex play at their Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, home.
But Sedille said he didn’t know the gun was loaded when he pressed it to his wife’s head and pulled the handgun’s slide back during sex on the night of December 21.
Now Sedille, 23, is facing the possibility of a murder charge in Canadian County, Oklahoma, in the death of his wife, 50-year-old Rebecca Sedille — who died when the handgun went off in their bedroom…
Investigators decided to arrest and jail Sedille on suspicion of first-degree murder out of an abundance of caution, said Oklahoma City police Master Sgt. Gary Knight. However, as of Tuesday afternoon, formal charges had not been filed in the investigation, which is ongoing, Knight said.
He declined to comment on investigators’ findings so far.
I have few hangups over sexual and sensual tweaks. However, I am scared blue over guns and nutballs who think they are toys.
UAE Supreme Court rules men can beat wives if no marks left
The Federal Supreme Court in the United Arab Emirates has ruled that a man can beat his wife and young children as long as no marks are left, The National newspaper reported…
“Although the (law) permits the husband to use his right (to discipline), he has to abide by the limits of this right,” it quoted Chief Justice Falah al-Hajeri as having written in a ruling released in a court document on Sunday.
The court ruled that a man who “slapped and kicked his daughter and slapped his wife” violated his “right” under sharia, or Islamic law, to discipline his wife and children, as he beat his wife too severely and his daughter, aged 23, was too old for such discipline, the newspaper said.
The UAE is less conservative than some Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia, where women cannot drive and need a male guardian’s permission to travel.
But Islamic religious law remains a part of the legal framework in the UAE, which also has secular laws.
I’m just posting this for the record. The backwardness of theocracies – and especially those superstitious lands where something as archaic as Shari’a law is practiced – is recognized by most educated adults.
Just one more example of someplace I will never choose to live and work.
Oklahoma county must pay up in Ten Commandments case
The Haskell County, Oklahoma, Commission has 10 years to pay attorneys’ fees of $199,000 after it was forced to remove an 8-foot-tall Ten Commandments monument.
The county has been in litigation with the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma since 2006, after it allowed a resident to pay for and erect the granite monument on the courthouse lawn in Stigler.
After a series of court decisions up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case, the ACLU prevailed. The monument was removed in March, and the attorneys’ fees were settled last week, ACLU attorney Micheal Salem said…
“It’s a very unwelcoming thing for those who do not subscribe to the Judeo (Christian) belief system. The government should not be in the business of showing favoritism or endorsing religion,” ACLU’s Chuck Thornton said. “The ACLU would never have been involved if it was somewhere other than public property. We don’t want to squelch anyone’s rights of free expression.”
Haskell County is a community of more than 12,000 residents southeast of Tulsa.
Let’s see – that’s a bit over $16.58 apiece just to show the world how important their religion must be.
I don’t know about y’all; but, if I had a spare $16 to blow on what I believe – I’d probably spend it on buying someone a meal or supplies for schoolchildren.
Crooks w/screwdrivers + woman w/gun = 1 dead, 1 wounded
Picking up the pieces
The victim of a home invasion fought off two attackers early Thursday by shooting both in the head, killing one, police said.
One of the intruders, Darreon Carter, 18, died in a Tulsa hospital. The other, Daniel Holman, 23, is in critical condition, police said…
Capt. Travis Yates said the woman was walking through a dark parking lot about 3:50 a.m. at the Brighton Park apartments in the 4800 block of South Darlington Avenue after a trip to a fast-food restaurant. As she opened her apartment’s door, the men demanded money and forced their way inside.
The woman initially cooperated, but when one intruder told her to undress, she pulled a snub-nosed revolver from her purse and shot him, police said.
A struggle for the gun broke out, and her boyfriend tried to help, police said.
Although she took blows to her head, the woman was able to shoot the other intruder. She fired five shots in all, Yates said.
“It seemed to be a courageous act, protecting their home and their life,” he said. “They were shaken up, but it was sort of impressive — they weren’t hysterical…”
Medics took both men to St. Francis Hospital, where Carter died. Holman remains in critical condition with bullet wounds to his head and stomach, police said.
We call this castle law in the Rockies. Your home is your castle. Attack at your own risk.
Holler at your Congress-critter to support Bernie Sanders' bill to 
