Major earthquake in Arkansas not “if” but “when”

This photo was taken in 1904 in Clay County, Arkansas and shows a fault trench left by the New Madrid Fault Line earthquakes of 1811-1812. Those earthquakes are known as the largest, greatest natural disaster the US has ever known and some say equaled the energy produced by one thousand atom bombs.

David Maxwell, the Director of the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management, predicts that an earthquake of the same magnitude will hit again:

"There will definitely be casualties, and depending on the time of day, we've got studies that run a model that show we would have a substantial fatalities, certainly a large number of people injured.”

Though a major earthquake has yet to hit, more than 500 temblors have occurred since September around Guy, Arkansas. Not new news for the state, but now getting national coverage and attention from CNN. Many question whether the recent increase in frakking for natural gas along the Fayetteville Shale Play, in particular, the practice of injecting drill water back into the earth via disposal wells, is behind the exponential increase in seismic activity.

“I think everyone recognizes that there is an increased number of seismic events occurring in and around this area. If you look at the maps, at least circumstantially, there appears to be evidence that they may be related to disposal operations," said Shane Khoury, deputy director and general counsel for the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission. "But we also know that this is an area that is historically active."

In not a matter of “if,” but a matter of when a major quake along the New Madrid Fault Line will happen.  In Spring, 2011, state and federal agencies will conduct a large-scale simulation of a natural disaster in order to practice earthquake response.

The Arkansas Dept of Emergency Management asks that everyone help by becoming as prepared as possible, and has put together an earthquake preparedness guideline for you.

Increase in UFO sightings during tough times

Some will say that it’s because of the hard economic times that rob people of hope for the future. Others will just write it off to some unyet sound explanation. But, there are enough questions, hard, tough questions that prompted the people of Denver to add a measure to the Nov. 2 ballot that set the ground to develop a welcoming protocol. That measure was voted down, but it was there.

It’s the age-old question of extraterrestrial life and UFOs, and according to some, the more sightings that hit the news, the more sightings there are. Take, for instance, the sighting over NY City that has the attention of national media. MUFON, one organization dedicated to investigate sightings, reports receiving 500 calls per month on average, with 100 of those calls not so easily explained away.

Even ABC news caught this object hovering over NYC while doing on-street interviews. So far, no one is able to come up with a plausible explanation, yet thousands have seen the object hovering.

The debate is fueled and alive again. Is there life “out there?”

Foxconn worker conditions in photos

A bell clangs to signal the end of the work shift. Your replacement is standing behind you, waiting to take over and obediently steps in without missing a beat of the production flow. You walk a short way down an alley and into a massive dorm that is home to 210,000 of your coworkers, half of the existing workforce. You walk down a sterile, dim hallway to your room that is the size of a garage and shared with 7 others, one of which shares your bed since there are only 4. You might watch TV in a stark community room or wash your clothes and yourself on a balcony set up for that purpose. Then, back to work you go after sleeping on a barely 1 inch thick pad for a bed.

That is what it’s like to work for electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn in China, the makers of our beloved iPhone. Wired.com sent a team there to take photos for an upcoming feature focusing on the worker’s conditions and reported abuse allegations along with the unprecedented 11 suicides that have occurred there.

Article comments point out that the conditions photographed at Foxconn aren’t all that bad compared to other places in China, and I suppose it wouldn’t even be in our sights at all if it wasn’t the birthplace of the wildly popular iPhone.

But here is an example of the extreme exploitation of people at the hands of capitalism, found throughout Asia and any other third-world or newly industrialized country.

I love my iPhone and extend my thanks to those that suffered to make it.