russia
gregladen | September 22, 2017To understand the Trump-Russia scandal, I believe it is necessary to step way back and take the very long view. I'm not talking about going back to early 2016, or even the year before. Much farther.
I'm not going to make a claim in this post as to what happened and who did what. Rather, I'd like to present a hypothesis, a single interpretation of events, that may or may not be correct, but that is based on this long view.
Whatever did actually happen, it did involve, or somehow exclude, Donald Trump and a number of individuals with whom he has had long term relationships, and Vladimir Putin…
gregladen | September 20, 2017From the Washington Post:
The special counsel investigating Russian election meddling has requested extensive records and email correspondence from the White House, covering everything from the president’s private discussions about firing his FBI director to his White House’s handling of a warning that President Trump’s then-national security adviser was under investigation, according to two people briefed on the requests.
White House lawyers are now working to turn over internal documents that span 13 categories investigators for the special counsel have identified as critical to their…
gregladen | September 6, 2017It is very rare that I find myself yelling at the TV when Rachel Maddow is on. She is very good at historically contextualized nuanced well informed analyses. But when I watched a segment of last night's show (on the Internet, I have no cable) I was shocked to see that she missed something really important. If, that is, it is real.
In the segment below, she makes the point that there are two "clear through lines" in the whole Trump thing. One is the love of Russia and Putin by Trump, his unwavering stance that Russia and Putin can do no wrong. The other is the consistent "vehement antipathy…
catdynamics | January 22, 2017I've been puzzling over the rationale for some recent events...
Exxon has a large contract to develop oil and natural gas resources in the Russia.
This can only go forward if sanctions on Russia are lifted, which seems likely to happen in the near future.
But, there is too much oil and capacity to surge produce more oil and gas on the market. If nothing else, the US has well developed capacity which is idling.
The problem, as it has been for the last few decades, is that Saudi Arabia can squeeze new producers out of the market, by increasing production and sharply dropping prices, for a while…
gregladen | January 12, 2017He's trying, in the hearings, to not let it look this way, but the truth is that he and Exxon Mobile stand to benefit a great deal from a Tillerson SOC. Also, Russia will benefit a great deal.
Putting it a slightly different way, Tillerson's appointment makes the most sense of you replace "Trump" with "Putin" in sentences that refer to who the leader of the United States is.
The composite graphic above explains this. The context for those graphics is here:
gregladen | January 11, 2017It has been suggested that President Elect Trump has been compromised by Vladimir Putin and/or the Russian Intelligence agency. This allegation suggests that Putin and/or the FSB have information, including video of unsavory sexual activities of some sort (loosely defined) and documentation of inappropriate business activities, that could be used to blackmail the future United States President. Since this is something I have been saying for weeks that we would eventually learn, I'm compelled to make a few comments.
What did we sort of know and when did we sort of know it?
In the weeks…
gregladen | December 16, 2016Putin probably owns Trump. In the past, Trump has spent enough high profile time traveling in and out of Russia, that any smart intelligence agency would have long ago gotten the goods on such a sloppy self absorbed person. Assume there are movies. Young girls. Whatever. Putin probably owns Trump. The ex KGB officer probably owns a lot of people, a lot of foreign rich or influential individuals. That's how these things work.
Trump is a man that relies on the image of great personal wealth. But, if he has great personal wealth it is a mere couple of billion or so. Alternatively, he may…
gregladen | October 11, 2016There has been a lot of talk about Trump and Russia and Putin. I think most people watching this see some sort of connections. Some go so far as to say that Trump is literally a Russian agent. Here is an interesting perspective from intelligence expert Malcolm Nance, author of The Plot to Hack America: How Putin’s Cyberspies and WikiLeaks Tried to Steal the 2016 Election ...
About Nance's book:
In April 2016, computer technicians at the Democratic National Committee discovered that someone had accessed the organization’s computer servers and conducted a theft that is best described as…
catdynamics | February 15, 2013Earth Impact Calculator
Ok, that was close, and I don't mean the zip by of li'l old 2012 DA14 this evening.
The Chelyabinsk meteor looks to have been on the high end of the range of quick and dirty estimates, with impact energy of maybe 300 kTon equivalent. This is a size impact we'd expect every few decades, maybe, quite a bit smaller than Tunguska, but larger than anything we know of in the last 20 years.
Meteors come in with speeds ranging from 10-70 km/sec.
This one appears to have had a speed of ~ 20 km/sec, which gives it kinetic energy of 2*108 J/kg
As you know, the handy unit here…
esiegel | February 15, 2013“Don't wake me for the end of the world unless it has very good special effects.” -Roger Zelazny
It's always the ones you least expect that get you the worst, it seems. I went to bed last night excited that Asteroid 2012 DA14, a 200,000 ton asteroid, was going to pass within just 28,000 km (or 17,000 miles) of Earth's surface, which would make it the closest pass of an asteroid that large that we've ever observed.
Image credit: NASA / JPL Near-Earth Object Program Office.
I thought that would be the best way to celebrate today, which would be Galileo's 449th birthday. After all, it was…
gregladen | February 15, 2013UPDATE: Somebody found a hole in some ice.
This is a meteor streaking across the sky in the vicinity of the Urals:
Numerous additional films of that event and some analysis are on Phil Plait's blog, here.
Here's a FAKE video purported to be a crater formed by a fragment of that meteor BUT IT ISN'T:
From Phil Plait's blog: "Note also lots of hoaxes are turning up, like a video of a flaming crater that's actually a flaming pit in Turkmenistan that's been burning for decades (called "The Door to Hell"). Be cautious and be skeptica"
... apparently the shock wave of the meteor passing over…
sastyk | September 15, 2010Ok, that's not quite the headline at the New York Times, but close enough. Yes, the latest Oxfam figures that came out today say that we're back under 1 billion starving people. But yes, those figures were compiled before the Pakistani Floods, and before the 5% rise in food prices driven by the Russian wheat crisis.
The number of hungry people fell to 925 million from its all-time high of 1.02 billion in 2009, with much of the improvement tied to income growth in the Asia-Pacific region as well as a 40 percent decline in food prices from their 2008 peak.
The hunger number remains "…
eklemetti | August 5, 2010A new Weekly Volcanic Activity Report from the Smithsonian and USGS Global Volcanism Program!
Highlights from this week's report include:
Things are getting a little noisy in Colombia. I mentioned a few weeks ago about a possible explosion at Nevado del Ruiz. Now we have reports of increased seismicity under nearby Cerro MachÃn and ash plumes from Nevado del Huila. After a few centuries of relative quiet, it looks like the volcanoes of the Colombian Andes are looking more lively.
Also in South America, a gas plume was spotted at Chile's Planchon-Peteroa. This is the second time this year that…
stoat | August 3, 2010It looks like the recent hot summer in Russia and the wildfires stuff have caused a volte-face (though probably only temporary) according to Time: Will Russia's Heat Wave End Its Global-Warming Doubts?. Quite a few people have died, though most of them seem to have died of being drunk. Which suggests that adaption may be a useful strategy. And of course climatologically one summer means very little.
Apparently Medvedev has gone from We will not cut our development potential to
practically everything is burning. The weather is anomalously hot... What's happening with the planet's climate…
eklemetti | August 2, 2010Mt. Elbrus in southern Russia, one of the active volcanoes in the Caucasus Mountains. (Note the prominent flow levees sticking out of the snow cover on the dacite lava flow in the middle of the image.)
Most people (including myself) aren't fully aware of the active volcanoes in the Caucasus Mountains, but sure enough, there are volcanoes that have erupted fairly recently (geologically-speaking). One of the active volcanoes in the Caucasus Mountains of Russia is Mt. Elbrus, just north of the border with Georgia, and it has erupted as recently as ~50 A.D., which for a volcano is the blink of an…
eklemetti | July 29, 2010Lots of little pieces of news I've run across ... time to play a little catch up.
Stromboli: A volcano after Don Ho's heart.
Every once in a while, my RSS feeds will dredge up some articles from years gone by ... and this week there were two New York Times pieces that are a few years old, but interesting nevertheless. The first is about research conducted by Dr. Robert Sohn at WHOI on explosive undersea eruptions. The second is work by Corr and Vaughan about finding subglacial volcanism in Antarctica. Both are interesting reads if you missed them (like I did) the first time around.
Yesterday…
eklemetti | July 21, 2010Kilauea lavas on the move near Kalapana. Image taken July 17, courtesy of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.
Some news over the last few days:
The lava flows from Kilauea are moving with a vengeance right now, damaging roads and heading for some structures. The lava flows near Kalapana have moved almost 200 meters since Sunday, closing within 100 yards of homes in the area. The lava is moving to the east along Highway 130 and 137 - and tourists are making it difficult to get around as they park to watch the lava - upwards of 2,000 people! A number of people (and dogs) have had to be evacuated…
eklemetti | July 8, 2010So, I'm a little late with this thanks to a little hiatus, but I thought I would post the latest GVP Weekly Volcanic Activity Report. Thanks again to the Smithsonian, USGS and especially Sally Kuhn Sennert!
Some highlights include:
There were more ash explosions spotted at Ebeko in Kamchatka, producing ~1.8 km (5,900 foot) ash columns. This activity prompted KVERT to raise the Alert Status to Yellow. This goes along with news from a pile of other Kamchatka/Kuril Island volcanoes: Gorely, Tiatia, Karymsky, Kliuchevskoi and Shiveluch.
More activity at Arenal in Costa Rica - its almost always…
eklemetti | July 2, 2010Maybe I should be pleased that in the last Mystery Volcano Photo took a whole five guesses rather than one or two, so I count it as success! The correct guess was made by Dr. Boris Behncke, so that elevates him into a tie for first.
Current Standings:
The Bobs - 3
Don Crain - 3
Boris Behncke - 3
gijs - 2
volcanista - 1
Lockwood - 1
Elizabeth - 1
Ralph - 1
Anne - 1
Cam - 1
gg - 1
Damon Hynes - 1
Marco - 1
Doug C. - 1
Diane - 1
Stephen - 1
The 21st MVP was submitted by Eruptions reader David Tucker, who snapped it while flying over the Kamchatka Peninsula on his way to Japan. The volcano in…
eklemetti | July 1, 2010Just a reminder, if you any questions for Sally Kuhn Sennert of the Smithsonian/USGS Global Volcanism Program - about the Weekly Report, about life at the GVP, about volcanoes - be sure to send them to me soon at .
Now, on to this week's update!
Some highlights (not including Gorely):
Lahars from Tungurahua in Ecuador moved blocks upwards of 2 m in diameter downstream over the last week and ash fall was reported over 20 km from the volcano's vent. For some reason, FoxNews decided to use an image of Tungurahua for an article on stats of natural disasters in 2009 - nice image, but the volcano…