Ohio marks 1913 flood centennial | The Bellevue Gazette

By KANTELE FRANKO

Asso?ci?ated?Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) ? State offi?cials are using the 100th anniver?sary of a dev?as?tat?ing and deadly flood to encour?age Ohioans to pre?pare for poten?tial high water emer?gen?cies by review?ing their response plans and insur?ance coverage.

On the heels of the state and national Flood Safety Aware?ness Week, Sat?ur?day marks the cen?ten?nial of the 1913 storms that rolled through the Mid?west and hung over the Ohio Val?ley for sev?eral days, cre?at?ing the state?s worst weather disaster.

Sev?eral days of rain flooded all of Ohio?s rivers and streams and more than 35,000 homes and left at least 400 peo?ple dead in the state, or per?haps 600 by some esti?mates. It washed away or dam?aged docks, bridges, rail?roads and trains, wreak?ing havoc from Cincin?nati to Portsmouth to Cleve?land and hin?der?ing efforts to get aid to dam?aged areas. Lev?ees broke, drench?ing var?i?ous cities and leav?ing parts of Day?ton and Colum?bus with 10?feet of water or?more.

?There?s noth?ing to pre?vent a storm like this from occur?ring again,? said Sarah Jami?son, a hydrol?o?gist with National Weather Ser?vice. ?Mother Nature has her own way of deal?ing with things, so it?s our role to try to be pre?pared and react appro?pri?ately to?that.?

The sys?tem, which led to sig?nif?i?cant flood?ing in more than a dozen states, from Illi?nois through Con?necti?cut, stands out not just because of how much rain fell but also because it encom?passed such a large geo?graphic area, said Jami?son, who stud?ied the flood and found many Ohioans know lit?tle about?it.

?It?s really fas?ci?nat?ing to think, ?How did the col?lec?tive mind?set really not remem?ber this event?? It?s an answer I don?t have,? said Jami?son, part of the Ohio Sil?ver Jack?ets, a group of local, state and fed?eral rep?re?sen?ta?tives focused on flood control.

In hard-hit south?west Ohio, the dis?as?ter spurred a regional pur?suit of solu?tions to area flood prob?lems and even?tu?ally led to the Miami Con?ser?vancy Dis?trict, which focuses on flood pro?tec?tion, water qual?ity and pro?mot?ing recre?ation along water?ways in the Great Miami River Water?shed. The area?s flood pro?tec?tion sys?tem was designed to pro?tect against flood?ing even more severe than what hap?pened in?1913.

Angela Manuszak, the district?s spe?cial projects coor?di?na?tor, calls it a tale of resilience and sac?ri?fice for the ben?e?fit of the larger com?mu?nity and says many fam?i?lies in the area have passed down sto?ries about the flood. She has one, too ? a tid?bit about how her grand?fa?ther helped with the cleanup as part of the Ohio National Guard out of Toledo and later kept in his home a ?very uncom?fort?able Vic?to?rian chair? sup?pos?edly taken from the floodwaters.

The dis?trict, his?tor?i?cal orga?ni?za?tions, libraries and other groups are com?mem?o?rat?ing the cen?ten?nial with a vari?ety of events, some hope?ful, oth?ers more somber. In Day?ton, an exhibit about the flood is being unveiled Sat?ur?day at Car?il?lon His?tor?i?cal?Park.

Mem?bers of the Sil?ver Jack?ets acknowl?edge the con?di?tions that led to the 1913 flood are rare but say it?s impor?tant to remem?ber the pos?si?bil?ity of sim?i?lar rain?fall still exists, albeit in an envi?ron?ment with greatly improved mea?sures to pre?vent flood?ing, pro?tect prop?erty and warn residents.

Some of those improve?ments began with the pub?lic out?cry over the 1913 flood, which started a larger-scale con?ver?sa?tion about flood mit?i?ga?tion, Jami?son?said.

That con?ver?sa?tion con?tin?ues as state offi?cials use the anniver?sary to bring up that?topic.

?Whether 100?years ago or today, flood?ing can be dev?as?tat?ing on a per?sonal and mate?r?ial level,? Depart?ment of Insur?ance Direc?tor and Lt. Gov. Mary Tay?lor said in a state?ment urg?ing Ohioans to re-evaluate whether they might need flood insur?ance, which is not part of tra?di?tional homeowner?s or renter?s insurance.

The annual cost of res?i?den?tial flood insur?ance poli?cies, which are pur?chased through pri?vate insur?ers but admin?is?tered by the government?s National Flood Insur?ance Pro?gram, can range from less than $200 to $500 or more depend?ing on the extent of the cov?er?age, up to $250,000. Such insur?ance is avail?able in com?mu?ni?ties that par?tic?i?pate in the pro?gram and meet cer?tain guide?lines, such as agree?ing to adopt mea?sures that reduce flood?ing?risks.

About 42,000 Ohio house?holds have insur?ance through the fed?eral pro?gram, accord?ing to gov?ern?ment data, and about 1,500 claims total?ing $29.6 mil?lion were closed in Ohio in the fis?cal year that ended Sept. 30. The mapped flood plain areas in Ohio include about 280,000 struc?tures, and about 10 per?cent of those are cov?ered by flood insur?ance, accord?ing to the government.

Source: http://thebellevuegazette.com/local-news/ohio-marks-1913-flood-centennial/

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Why Pope Francis is something of a surprise

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina - now Pope Francis - was not widely considered the top candidate heading into this week's conclave.

By Robert Marquand,?Staff writer / March 13, 2013

Pope Francis speaks from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, March 13. Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio who chose the name of Francis, is the 266th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.

Luca Bruno/AP

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Habemas Papam, ?We have a pope.? And the name of the man to emerge on the balcony in Vatican City is Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina.

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The church leader that believing Roman Catholics call the ?successor? of the apostle Peter and ?the vicar of Christ? will go by the name of Pope Francis and is the first non-European pope in modern times, and the first from a developing country.

The much-awaited choice is something of a surprise, as the new pope was not foreshadowed prominently on the short lists of various experts, though the 76-year old was said to be the runner-up to retiring Pope Benedict in the 2005 conclave.

Cardinal Bergoglio, a Jesuit intellectual who reportedly eschews the ornate trappings of church power ? he travels by bus ? was elected in a swift five votes of a conclave of 115 cardinals, and immediately appeared to say the Lord?s Prayer to crowds on the Vatican plaza.

Like his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI who resigned last month, the first head of the Catholic church to do so in 600 years, Pope Francis is said to be theologically orthodox and socially conservative. He has opposed Argentina?s gay marriage laws, has been fiercely pro-family, and is also known as an advocate for the poor. In church terms, he is?seen as a master conciliator who will be adroit at healing many of the rifts and scandals over finances and pedophile priests that have dogged the Vatican in recent years.

The conclave appeared to steer away from popular choices like the cardinals of New York and Boston, Timothy Dolan and Sean O?Malley, as well as the local Italian favorite Angelo Scola.

He was elected by a conclave that overwhelmingly shares the conservative views of Benedict who has held sway as an enforcer of orthodoxy in the Vatican since 1982.

As John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter writes, ?Either John Paul II or Benedict XVI appointed each of the 117 cardinals who will cast a ballot, including 11 Americans, so there will be little ideological clash. No matter what happens, the church almost certainly won't reverse its bans on abortion, gay marriage or women priests.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/csmonitor/globalnews/~3/iPRGZGYtgQM/Why-Pope-Francis-is-something-of-a-surprise

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Oil firms, environmentalists OK new fracking rules

Kevin Begos , The Associated Press ? ? ? 3 hrs.

PITTSBURGH -- In an unlikely partnership between longtime adversaries, some of the nation's biggest energy companies and environmental groups have agreed on a voluntary set of standards for gas and oil fracking in the Northeast that appear to go further than existing state and federal pollution regulations.

The program announced Wednesday will work a lot like Underwriters Laboratories, which puts its UL seal of approval on electrical appliances that meet its standards. In this case, drilling and pipeline companies will be encouraged to submit to an independent review of their operations, and if they are found to be taking certain steps to protect the air and water, they will receive the blessing of the brand-new Pittsburgh-based Center for Sustainable Shale Development.

If the project succeeds, it could have far-reaching implications for both the industry and environmental groups. A nationwide boom in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has unleashed huge new energy reserves but also led to fears of pollution and climate change.

Shell Oil Vice President Paul Goodfellow said this is the first time the company and environmental groups have reached agreement to create an entire system for reducing the effects of shale drilling.

"This is something new," said Bruce Niemeyer, president of Chevron Appalachia. "This is a bit of a unique coming-together of a variety of different interests."

In addition to Shell and Chevron, the participants include the Environmental Defense Fund, the Clean Air Task Force, the Heinz Endowments, EQT Corp., Consol Energy and the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, and the organizers hope to recruit others.

It may be part of a trend. Earlier this month a coalition of industry and environmental groups in Illinois announced that they worked together on drilling legislation now pending there. But the Pittsburgh project, which has been in the works for nearly two years, would be voluntary.

Power shift: Energy boom dawning in America

"We believe it does send a signal to the federal government and other states," said Armand Cohen, the director of the Boston-based Clean Air Task Force. "There's no reason why anyone should be operating at standards less than these."

The new standards include limits on emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and the flaring, or burning off, of unwanted gas; reductions in engine emissions; groundwater monitoring and protection; improved well designs; stricter wastewater disposal; the use of less toxic fracking fluids; and seismic monitoring before drilling begins.

The project will cover Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio ? where a frenzy of drilling is under way in the huge, gas-rich Marcellus and Utica Shale formations ? as well as New York and other states in the East that have put a hold on new drilling.

Interactive map:Where US energy is produced

Shell said it hopes to be one of the first companies to volunteer to have its operations in Appalachia go through the independent review. Chevron said it expects to apply for certification, too, when the process is ready to start later this year.

Mark Brownstein, an associate vice president with the Environmental Defense Fund, said many oil and gas companies claim to be leaders in protecting the environment, and "this can be one opportunity for them to demonstrate that leadership" by submitting to an audit.

"Anyone who claims to be placing a priority on good management practice" should be rushing to sign up, he said.

The project will be overseen by a 12-member board consisting of four seats for environmentalists, four for industry and four for independent figures: former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill; Christine Todd Whitman, the former New Jersey governor and Environmental Protection Agency chief; Carnegie Mellon University President Jared Cohon; and Jane Long, former associate director at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

The center's proposed 2013 budget is $800,000, with the two sides expected to contribute equal amounts, said Andrew Place, the project's interim leader and director of energy and environmental policy at EQT, an Appalachian energy company.

Slideshow: Drilling down and out in Texas

Mark Frankel, an expert on ethics and law at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, said the idea sounds promising, but it remains to be seen if the new standards are a significant improvement over existing laws. He said there are also ethical and policy questions.

"What does it mean to have an independent board? Who's on it? How do they get on it?" he asked.

George Jugovic, president of the environmental group PennFuture, one of the participants, said the industry's involvement makes this different from past debates over fracking.

"Buy-in from them is huge. That provides leadership from within," Jugovic said. "It's very different from someone from the outside saying, 'You can do better.'"

? 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/energy-firms-environmental-groups-agree-tough-new-fracking-standards-1C8975363

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Canon's tiny next-gen EOS Rebel spied, reportedly with modest specs to match

It's virtually an annual tradition for Canon to unveil new EOS Rebel DSLRs well before the summer hits, and we're very nearly due for the next installment. It shouldn't be a shock, then, that Digicam info claims to have both images and details of the EOS Kiss X7, which may be the smaller and lighter EOS-b. As you'd imagine, most of the differences versus the Rebel T4i appear to be more ergonomic than technical. While there's mention of a second-generation hybrid autofocusing system, the most conspicuous changes appear to center on a space-saving design that moves the AF assist light to the opposite side. The 18-megapixel sensor, DIGIC 5 processor, ISO 25,600 sensitivity ceiling, 9-point autofocusing coverage and 3-inch LCD all appear to be retreads -- the new model would be more to attract first-time owners than catch habitual upgraders. If the details are accurate, Canon would sell the Kiss X7 late in April for ¥79,000 ($828). There's no word on plans for the camera's US counterpart, but we wouldn't be surprised to see an American edition arrive around the same time.

Filed under: Cameras, Canon

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Via: Canon Rumors

Source: Digicam info (translated)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/19/canon-2013-era-eos-rebel-reportedly-spied/

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Awww?News Anchor Reads Her Own Proposal On Teleprompter (VIDEO)

Awww…News Anchor Reads Her Own Proposal On Teleprompter (VIDEO)

Jillian Pavlica, an anchor at FOX54 in Huntsville, Alabama, was surprised at work on Saturday night, when her boyfriend Vince proposed to her. Vince had hijacked the studio’s teleprompter with “breaking news” that the unsuspecting Pavlica read herself. Pavlica began reading the script on the teleprompter, stating, “We have some breaking news to report to ...

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Thinking of buying - Zillow Real Estate Advice

I would agree with Tim. ?In most cases I've worked with buyers to help them improve their credit and, eventually, get into the home of their dreams. ?Visit with a Loan officer. ?They can pull your credit and help you understand how to make the move and what kind of cash you will need. In many cases it it will be significantly less than you think.?

Source: http://www.zillow.com/advice-thread/Thinking-of-buying/483400/

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Belmont Club ? The Destruction of Writing

Here?s a message from the Consilium of Europa?? ?that?s what it?s actually called ? on the Cyprus crisis. ?Imagine for a moment that we are communications intelligence specialists tasked with forming some estimate of the people who composed it. We might begin by noting the message in its linguistic conventions is characteristic of what might be called EU-Speak.

EU-Speak?contains words rarely if ever encountered in ordinary English speech; words like ?progressivity?. ? It ?is larded with stock phrases that say in ten words what people normally convey in one. Why is it written this way?

Statement by the Eurogroup President on Cyprus

The Eurogroup held a teleconference this evening to?take stock of the situation in Cyprus.

I recall that the political agreement reached on 16?March on the cornerstones of the adjustment programme and the financing envelope for Cyprus reflects the consensus reached by the Cypriot government with the Eurogroup. The implementation of the reform measures included in the draft programme is the best guarantee for a more prosperous future for Cyprus and its citizens, through a viable financial sector, sound public finances and sustainable economic growth.

I reiterate that the stability levy on deposits is a one-off measure. This measure will -together with the international financial support -be used to restore the viability of the Cypriot banking system and hence, safeguard financial stability in Cyprus. In the absence of this measure, Cyprus would have faced scenarios that would have left deposit holders significantly worse off.

The Eurogroup continues to be of the view that small l depositors should be treated differently from large depositors and reaffirms the importance of fully guaranteeing deposits below EUR 100.000. The Cypriot authorities will introduce more progressivity in the one-off levy compared to what was agreed on 16 March, provided that it continues yielding the targeted reduction of the financing envelope and, hence, not impact the overall amount of financial assistance up to EUR 10bn.

The Eurogroup takes note of the authorities? decision to declare a temporary bank holiday in Cyprus on 19-20 March 2013 to safeguard the stability of the financial sector, and urges a swift decision by the Cypriot authorities and parliament to rapidly implement the agreed measures.

The euro area Member States stand ready to assist Cyprus in its reform efforts on the basis of the agreed adjustment programme.

EU-speak is a subdialect of a language one might call International Bureaucratese. Every UN document is written in IB. For example, there is the 2012 Global Partnership in Develpment Report, Making Rhetoric a Reality, a title curious in itself. But its contents are?almost impossible to comprehend. A random paragraph from the report illustrates this:

The waning of support for the global partnership for development may be understandable in the context of a protracted economic and financial crisis. But the global partnership for development should be seen as a positive-sum game?. There is positive feedback when the economies of development partner countries achieve robust growth and become dynamic markets for world trade and investment. Unsustainable pressures on the Earth?s natural limits are a further reason why the global partnership should be seen as an opportunity to yield positive-sum outcomes. Massive investments are needed for climate change mitigation and adaptation and other dimensions of environmental protection with global ramifications. Such investment will come about only through col lective action?nationally, of course, but also, and foremost, internationally. The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) committed itself in this regard to strengthening international cooperation to address challenges related to sustainable development for all. The international community cannot afford not to honour those commitments. But how credible can that agenda be if we have not delivered on previous commitments to achieve the MDGs? It will be credible only if the promises made are indeed fulfilled and rhetoric becomes reality.

Say what?

Although slightly different from EU-speak, IB has the same signature: the same obscure word usage and the infestation of stock phrases almost devoid of actual meaning.

As comm analysts we could take the approach that it is comprehensible to those who know the language. But there is a more interesting possibility. ?It deliberately contains little, if any, meaning at all.

Readers may remember Alan Sokal, a physics professor at New York University. ?In 1996, Sokal submitted an article to Social Text, an academic journal of postmodern cultural studies? with the express intention of demonstrating that a submission in intentional gibberish would be greeted with rave reviews.

The article ?Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity?, published in the Social Text Spring/Summer 1996 ?Science Wars? issue, proposed that quantum gravity is a social and linguistic construct. At that time, the journal did not practice academic peer review and did not submit the article for outside expert review by a physicist. On its date of publication (May 1996), Sokal revealed in Lingua Franca that the article was a hoax, identifying it as ?a pastiche of Left-wing cant, fawning references, grandiose quotations, and outright nonsense . . . structured around the silliest quotations [by postmodernist academics] he could find about mathematics and physics?

He sent them random text and to his surprise it was well received. Sokal was roundly criticized for being ?dishonest?. But he had singularly demonstrated that nobody actually knew what the hoax article said. In fact it said nothing. ?But amazingly, every reader pretended to his own idea what it said so that if you had asked 100 people to summarize it, one might have received 100 completely different answers in earnest.

Sokal?s experiment illuminates both EU-speak and International Bureaucratese. Perhaps for all their length and verbosity, these languages are designed to communicate the minimum possible information. What it can say will often be contradictory, ambiguous or plain nonsense. Yet this the language in which the transnational elite prefers to communicate. Why?

Because linguistic poverty is a feature, not a bug.

One is tempted to dismiss EU-speak as ?a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.? But suppose its real purpose is to mean anything you want it to mean on any occasion. To act as a ?linguistic blank canvas whose complete absence of inherent meaning makes it possible to lie with impunity, since one can alter the meaning of declarations and twist it into any shape required.

Perhaps the two greatest commentators on the corruption of language were George Orwell and Jesus Christ. Orwell?s theory of Newspeak is well known. But Christ had something interesting to say too about lies. He said in the famous John 8 passage, that lies were the ?native language of the devil.?

Jesus said to them ? ?why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil ? for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me!?

Orwell?s concept is remarkably similar. His fictional Newspeak ?is actually designed to make it ?impossible to understand exactly what the statement means, since all concepts and words that can be used to argue against Big Brother would be eradicated from the language.?

By impoverishing language, Orwell argued, it would be possible to ?prevent thinking?. Orwell?s conclusion is remarkably identical to Christ?s own zinger in John 8. If you could think aright, ?then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.?

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Source: http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2013/03/18/the-destruction-of-writing/

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