Burma Government Didn't Warn of Killer Cyclone

Jeff Masters, a meteorologist with the web site Weather Underground, has uncovered an amazing story related to the cyclone that killed thousands in Burma: The government buried a warning of the impending storm on page 15 of a state-run newspaper.

Many of you have expressed amazement that so many could die from a tropical cyclone in this day and age of satellites and modern communications. Why did it happen? I believe there are two main reasons: the historical lack of tropical cyclones that have hit Burma's Irrawaddy delta, and the unwillingness of Myanmar's leaders to provide adequate warnings for fear of jeopardizing their May 10 referendum to consolidate their power.

Masters has a scanned copy of the newspaper page, which rates the storm warning's news value below "Greece, Russia Stress Closer Cooperation" but ahead of the TV listings (4:45 p.m.: Dance of National Races).

Irrawaddy.Org, a news site that covers Burma from Thailand, provided more details on the downplayed warning:

Appearances on Burma's state television by the country's director general of the Department of Meteorology and Hydrology, Tun Lwin, always attract a large following.

Viewers like his style and informative approach to weather reporting. But now those same viewers are asking: "Why did he fail to warn us of the approach of Cyclone Nargis?"

According to well-informed sources close to his department, Burma's leading meteorologist passed those warnings on to the government in Naypyidaw, together with information about the cyclone's strength, expected course, and timing.

Tun Lwin reportedly suggested the warning should be carried by state media, but sources said he was told by his bosses in the capital: "Don't create public panic ahead of the referendum."

Weather · 2008/05/14 · 2 COMMENTS · Link

Forget the Kennedy Memorial

Directly behind the monument is a 12-story building that houses the county records office on the lower floors. The upper floors, beginning with the 6th floor, house part of the county jail complex. I was locked up on the 7th floor of that building and stared down at the monument for 3 months a few years ago.

It is without a doubt the ugliest structure ever dedicated to a person living or dead.

Politics · 2008/05/13 · Comment · Link

Breaking News: Kidnapped Hot Dog Man Found

Because I read Roadside America's blog on cheesy Americana tourist attractions, I was among the first to get the news that Virginia's kidnapped Hot Dog Man has been found:

Hot Dog Man is a popular, if relatively recent, mass-produced roadside statue: a six-foot-tall, bun-wrapped wiener, licking his lips in anticipation as he pours ketchup on his own head. The saucy sausage has been reported from New Jersey to Washington. And last month, a Hot Dog Man in Earlysville, Virginia, made the news when it was kidnapped on the night of April 9.

Now a story out of the Lynchburg News and Advance reports that “Harry the Hot Dog” has been found — buried in the woods next to a local trailer park. Both of his arms, including the one hoisting the ketchup, were broken off and are missing, but his owner has vowed to rebuild him. The police reportedly dug Harry out of his shallow grave with their bare hands after receiving an anonymous tip.

I can't find it this morning, but there's a site devoted to animals in ads who want to be eaten. Hot Dog Man's further removed from his origins, but it's still disturbing to see him apply ketchup with such relish.

Food · 2008/05/09 · 2 COMMENTS · Link

Hillary Clinton: Whites Like Me Better

There's a nice dustup on the Drudge Retort this morning over Hillary Clinton's explicitly racial justification for her continued candidacy:

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," Hillary Clinton said in an interview with USA Today. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me. There's a pattern emerging here."

The argument that Democrats should nominate the candidate who does best with [insert race here] is not only politically disastrous for the party, it's offensive.

Barack Obama and his surrogates could have argued at any time that his candidacy is more viable because he's supported by black voters, historically one of the most solidly Democratic blocs. If he did so, he'd be making his campaign about race, and he's shown thus far the wisdom to avoid that.

The fact that Clinton lacks this wisdom, and is playing the race card in a moment of desperation in the hopes she can divide and conquer, strikes me as a pretty strong reason she doesn't deserve the nomination.

I can't think of a Democratic candidate for president who has fallen so far in my esteem during the course of a campaign. Last fall, I was close to supporting Clinton because of her vast public policy knowledge and her tenacity. I knew she'd fight hard for the Democratic agenda and would be a far more formidable foe for the Republicans than they realized. Obama, though inspirational, seemed like a babe in the woods. I wanted to see the inauguration of the first female president 78 years after suffrage.

But she's run a terrible, cynical and divisive race for president.

Politics · 2008/05/08 · 6 COMMENTS · Link

No Temporary Checks, No Peace

I had a weird thing happen at my bank this week: I ran out of checks because I didn't reorder them in time, but when I needed temporary checks so I could pay some bills, my request was refused. The bank, which has locations across several Southern states, doesn't give its customers temporary checks.

My first impulse is to quit the bank over this hassle. There's a bank on every corner these days, and the services they offer are utterly interchangeable. To get my bills paid, I ended up buying the check-printing software VersaCheck. Printing your own checks costs more up front, but it feels like you are making an end-run around The Man.

Before I switch banks, I'd like to figure out the rationale for giving temporary checks to new account holders while denying them to long-time customers. A web search on the subject of wrongful temp check denial turned up bupkiss.

Business · 2008/05/08 · 5 COMMENTS · Link

Music: Scapegoat Wax's 'Perfect Silence'

While experimenting with the social music site Imeem, I found "Perfect Silence" by Scapegoat Wax, one of the bands on the defunct Beastie Boys label Grand Royal Records.

I don't know how Imeem has permission to share this, but it's a great song by a band that disappeared after Grand Royal declared bankruptcy in 2001 -- just as the group was getting radio play for the song Aisle 10 (Hello Alison). You can't even find its songs on iTunes today, but singer Marty James performs with One Block Radius.

Music · 2008/05/02 · 5 COMMENTS · Link

How to Crash Your Apache Server with PHP

I returned from a trip out of town Monday to crashing web servers that ate my lunch all week long. For several days, I used the top command in Linux and watched helplessly as two servers ground to a halt with load averages higher than 100.

Top reports the processes that are taking up the most CPU, memory and time. On the server running Workbench, the culprit was always httpd, the Apache web server. This didn't make sense, because Apache serves web pages, images, and other files with incredible efficiency. You have to hose things pretty badly to make Apache suck.

If you know the process ID of a server hog, Apache can tell you what that process is doing in its server status report, a feature that requires the mod_status module. The report for Apache's web site shows what they look like.

Using this report, I found the culprit: A PHP script I wrote to receive trackback pings was loading the originating site before accepting the ping, which helps ensure it's legit:

// make sure the trackback ping's URL links back to us
$handle = fopen($url, "r");
$tb_page = '';
while (!feof($handle)) {
$tb_page .= fread($handle, 8192);
}
fclose($handle);
$pos = strpos($tb_page, "http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench");
if ($pos === false) {
$error_code = 1;
send_response(1, "No link found to this site.");
exit;
}

Most trackback pings are not legit -- I've received 600 from spammers in just the past three hours. Each ping required Apache to check the spammer's site, download a page if it existed, and look for a link to Workbench. A single process performing this task could occupy more than 50 percent of the CPU and run for a minute or more.

I'm surprised Apache ran at all after I added trackback a couple months ago. I was beginning to think the web server software was idiot-proof, but I've proven otherwise.

Programming · Apache · Php · 2008/05/02 · 12 COMMENTS · Link

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