Irma #2
I wish I
were a sorceress.
I’m surely not a scientist.
Just a reader
Of the leaders in the news.
North Korea, Harvey, rockets
Boston Red Sox in the dockets
I’m surely not a scientist.
Just a reader
Of the leaders in the news.
North Korea, Harvey, rockets
Boston Red Sox in the dockets
Charged
with using Apple watches to steal signs.
Violence,
hurricanes,
Cheating:
Why?
This is
too crazy.
Are these
phases
Showing
us,
Going
towards
A monster
breakdown?
Simple
Skirmish
To an
Irma!
Insect,
bird, yes, every minnow.
Families
child-less, widowed;
Dis-endowed
the moneyed crowd,
Castle,
mansion, slum will go.
Marshes
all will overflow.
(and we
thought Bangladesh was low)
The
planet’s being bashed,
Yet there
are people who cash in on it.
Prayer
will never be the answer.
Cancer from our own behavior.
Cancer from our own behavior.
Karma’s
germ:
Now
Irma.
Philipsburg, Sint Maarten
Irma developed on 30 August 1917 near the Cape Verde Islands from a tropical wave that had moved off the west African coast two days earlier and became a Category 2 hurricane on the Saffir–Simpson scale within 24 hours; shortly afterward it became a Category 3 (and therefore a major hurricane). [The initial scale was developed by structural engineer Herbert Saffir , who, commissioner by the United Nations in 1969 to study low-cost housing in hurricane-prone areas, realized there was no simple scale for describing the likely effects of a hurricane; after devising a 1–5 scale based on wind speed that showed expected damage to structures, he gave it to the US National Hurricane Center, whose director Robert Simpson added the effects of storm surge and flooding in 1971; in was introduced to the general public in 1973.] On 5 September Irma became a Category 5 hurricane, and early the next day reached peak intensity with 185 mph (295 km/h) winds, and a minimum pressure, making it the year's strongest tropical cyclone. The storm caused catastrophic damage in Barbuda, Barbados, Saint Barthélemy, St. Maarten, Anguilla, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. After dropping to Category 3 intensity as it passed along Cuba, on September 10 the storm rose to Category 4 again as it crossed warm waters between Cuba and the Florida Keys, before making landfall again on Cudjoe Key with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph (215 km/h). Harvey, also with 130 mph (215 km/h) winds, had made landfall in Texas two weeks earlier, thus marking the first time that two Category 4 or stronger hurricanes made landfall in the U.S. in the same year. Irma dropped back to Category 3 by the time it made a second Florida landfall on Marco Island, then weakened to a Category 2 later that day, the first time it weakened below major hurricane status in over a week. It was the most intense Atlantic hurricane in over a decade and the most intense hurricane to strike the US since Katrina in 2005. Harvey had developed from a tropical wave east of the Lesser Antilles, reaching tropical storm status on 17 August. The storm crossed through the Windward Islands the next day, passing just south of Barbados and later near Saint Vincent, and degenerated into a tropical wave north of Colombia early on 19 August before redeveloping over the Bay of Campeche on 23 August and rapidly intensifying on 24 August, becoming a hurricane later that day. By 25 Aug it attained Category 4 intensity hours before making landfall the next day near Rockport, Texas, at peak intensity, with winds of 130 mph (215 km/h), the first major hurricane to hit the US since Wilma in 2005. Then the storm moved over the Copano Bay and made a second landfall in Texas just north of Holiday Beach on August 26 as a Category 3 hurricane. However, in a four-day period, as the system meandered over eastern Texas and adjacent waters it dropped more than 40 inches (1,000 mm) of rain over some areas, causing catastrophic flooding, inundating hundreds of thousands of homes, and displacing more than 30,000 people. With peak accumulations of 51.88 in (1,318 mm), Harvey was the wettest tropical cyclone in American history.
ReplyDeleteWith three of the world's mightiest river systems and being situated in the world's largest delta, as well as an extensive coastline, Bangladesh is prone to large-scale coastal flooding, combined with the bursting of river banks, especially during the monsoon season from June to September. The monsaoon's convectional rainfall is further added to by relief rainfall caused by the Himalayas, as well as Himalayan meltwater. 80% of the country is floodplain. Each year about 26,000 sq km(around 18% of the country) is flooded, killing over 5,000 people and destroying more than seven million homes. During severe floods the affected area may exceed 75% of the country.
ReplyDelete2017 saw a rapid escalation of the missile development of the People's Republic of Korea ("North Korea"). On 9 September 2016, it had conducted a nuclear test that may have demonstated its ability to mount an atomic warhead to a missile. On 11 February 2017 it launched its first medium-range Pukguksong-2 missile over the Sea of Japan, followed by four more ballistic missiles on 6 March, another on 4 April. At the yearly Day of the Sun holiday, on 15 April, amid speculation that a 6th nuclear test would be conducted, it staged a massive military parade to commemorate the 105th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il-sung, the country’s founder and grandfather of current leader, Kim Jong-un, showing off for the first time two new intercontinental ballistic missile-sized canisters as well as submarine-launched ballistic missiles and a land-based version of the same; the next day the launch of a ballistic missile was attempted, but it exploded seconds after launch. On 13 May, however, it put up its first intermediate range ballistic missile, the Hwasong-12, which had a range of 4,000-6,000 km. It test-fired another Pukguksong-2 on 21 May, and a short-range ballistic missile on 29 May. The country fired several anti-ship missiles into the Sea of Japan on 8 June and tested a new rocket engine that could possibly be fitted to an intercontinental ballistic missile on 23 June. It tested its first intercontinental ballistic missile, the Hwasong-14, on 4 July, into Japan's exclusive economic zone; its reach was 7,000-8,000 km or more, able to hit the western US. Its 14th missile test of the year, including several failures, was another ICBM on 28 July, able to strike the American east coast. On 26 August it fired three short range ballistic missiles and three days later it launched another missile over northern Japan. On 3 September North Korea claimed to have successfully tested a thermonuclear (hydrogen) bomb; corresponding seismic activity similar to an earthquake of magnitude 6.3 revealed that its blast was around 10 times more powerful than previous detonations by the country.
After the New York Yankees general manager provided video evidence to Major League Baseball officials that a rival team, the Boston Red Sox, had stolen catcher's signs to pitchers about the next pitch to the batter. During home games, when the Sox were at bat and had a runner on second base, an employee in the video department who was watching the opposing catcher would decode the signals he was using to call pitches then transmit the information to a trainer in the Sox dugout who was wearing an Apple Watch; the trainer would give that information to a player standing nearby, who would signal to the teammate on second base to let him know what to look for; the base-runner would then signal the batter, giving him the advantage of knowing which pitch was coming before it was thrown. After a brief investigation confirmed the allegations , the Sox confessed but accused the Yankees of using a dedicated television camera at Yankee Stadium to steal signs. However, stealing signs is not against the rules, though it is regarded as a violation of the sport's unwritten code, though using electronic devices for communication in the dugout is prohibited.