Mr. Astro, You May Lash the Broom to Your Mast

Astro has an excellent post on the Tech Massacre. It defies excerpting. Read the whole thing.

This is Why ATON is Important...

Aids TO Navigation is the Coast Guard term for placing buoys, daymarkers, lighthouses, LORAN stations and other such items that help ships navigate in tricky waters.



I have no idea if markers had any effect on todays Cruise Ship Calamity, but a good buoy system does help prevent things like striking rocks. (navigation is just as important of course and there is the possibility that the rock was uncharted, either through recent geologic activity or oversight.)

Anyway, here is video of the cruise ship sinking. It is very fortunate that loss of life was so low.

No, Actually, They AREN'T Supposed to Do That....

Marine Link reports that a container ship rolled onto her beam ends Thursday in the port of Antwerp.

No one seems to have been killed.

Note that the Captain said the ship was actually taking on water which would seem to indicate hat this was not a ballasting issue, though if it was impropperly ballasted and had her cargo shift she could have submerged her scuppers and some other openings.

No, I really have no idea.

The closest I usually come to marine casualties is trying to prevent this sort of unpleasantness from happening with my vicious ticketbook. Actual smart folks have to do the post mishap investigations.

Update: Via Murdoc...Eaglespeak has a link to lots of pretty...OK, sad pictures.

4,000 and climbing

After the Tsunami nothing shocks me anymore, but this latest calamity to befall Indonesia is heartwrenching.

Latest from BBC here

Instapundit is putting up his list of charities.

Bird Flu
Tsunami
Islamic Millitants
A particularly lethal volcano
Now the earthquake
.... followed by torrential rains to drown those buried in the rubble.

I am without words.