Year: 2006

69 people are dead after a powerful earthquake caused a tsunami to form and strike Indonesia’s Java island. (CNN VIDEO)

Regional agencies had issued bulletins that the 7.7-magnitude undersea earthquake was strong enough to send a killer wave steaming toward the country worst hit by the 2004 tsunami, but they did not reach the victims because the island has no warning system.

The hardest-hit area appeared to be Pangandaran, an idyllic beach resort long popular with local and foreign tourists, where witnesses said people shouted “
Tsunami! Tsunami!” and climbed trees or crowded inland mosques as the wave approached.

Red Cross official Arifin Muhadi told The Associated Press that 69 people were killed, most in Pangandaran, and that 77 others were missing.

“We are still evacuating areas and cross-checking data,” he said.

The full scope of the natural disaster won’t be known for a few days.

More: Pictures

UPDATE: 86 104 341 550 reportedly dead as a result of the killer wave. 

Bush, unvarnished.

It wasn’t meant to be overheard. Private luncheon conversations among world leaders, picked up by a microphone, provided a rare window into both banter and substance _ including President Bush cursing Hezbollah’s attacks against Israel.

Bush expressed his frustration with the United Nations and his disgust with the militant Islamic group and its backers in Syria as he talked to British Prime Minister Tony Blair during the closing lunch at the Group of Eight summit.

“See the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this s— and it’s over,” Bush told Blair as he chewed on a buttered roll.

He told Blair he felt like telling U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who visited the gathered leaders, to get on the phone with Syrian President Bashar Assad to “make something happen.” He suggested Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice might visit the region soon.

The unscripted comments came during a photo opportunity at the lunch. The leaders clearly did not realize that a live microphone was picking up their discussion.

Or did they? Don’t be so quick to think that Bush didn’t know exactly what he was doing. You see, diplomatically he would have never made that comment in front of the press corp. Yet this is a man who says what he believes. It’s obvious he wants Syria to get it together and control Hezbollah. Perhaps this microphone malfunction wasn’t really a ‘slip’ at all?

More: Transcript

Still More: Bill Quick Deconstructs.

 

Heh.

Heh heh.

BWAAAAAAHHAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAA!!

Obviously, I have little in common with Joao Silva. If it were me standing there, I would have knocked the cannon out of that guy’s grip and stomped on his head.

And counting.

On July 17, 1996, TWA Flight 800 blew apart in flight.

To observe the anniversary of the July 17, 1996, disaster, hundreds of family members will gather for a memorial Monday on Long Island at Smith Point County Park, the closest point on land to the crash site.

Back in 1996, I had just started to travel frequently for my company, and this tragedy sent a chill down my spine. Just a couple of days ago, I viewed an animation of what happened when the plane exploded (located three paragraphs down within the story on this page). Based on investigator findings, we now know exactly what the passengers experienced. It’s pretty awful.

Unfortunately, as CNN discovered, there are planes flying today with the same problems that led to the disaster of TWA 800, making it likely that more of these kind of disasters could happen in the future. The network will broadcast a special report focusing on the anniversary of the doomed flight.

There’s no end in sight.

Israeli missiles struck Beirut’s airport and killed 17 people in the south Sunday, including a family who had come from Canada to visit their home village — the first in what Israel warned would be a massive retaliation after a Hezbollah rocket barrage left eight dead in the Israeli city of Haifa.

The Haifa attack, a dramatic turning point in five days of violence, led Israel to accuse Syria and Iran of providing guerrillas with sophisticated weapons. Israeli officials said the missiles that hit Haifa were more advanced, with longer range and heavier warheads, than the hundreds of rockets that have rained on northern Israel.

The Jerusalem Post notes Hezbollah rockets have hit targets 45 kilometers southeast of Haifa, marking the longest distance into Israel to date.

Meanwhile, Michael Totten’s old neighborhood is under attack, and insults made by readers of his blog have forced him to revise his comment policy.

More: World War III?

Therefore, take a moment to watch a flying lawn mower.

            

How come I’m never this lucky?

A woman placed a 10-cent bet at a Michigan horse track and won $21,584, a track official says. The Michigan woman, whose name was not released, made the bet Friday at Sports Creek Raceway in Swartz Creek, about 55 miles northwest of Detroit.

She placed two 10-cent Superfecta bets on a race being simulcast from the Hollywood Park track in Inglewood, Calif. The Superfecta requires gamblers to pick the four top-finishing horses in correct order.

“One of them won,” Sports Creek general manager Chris Locking told The Detroit News. She returned to the track Monday to collect her winnings.

“Pretty good return for 10 cents, isn’t it?” Locking said.

Uh, yeah.