Boy scouts hit by tornado

The bad news is that four teens from Iowa and Nebraska were killed when a tornado roared through the Little Sioux Scout Ranch in Iowa. The good news is that Scouts in Tornado Help Save Lives: Putting Their Skills to Test, Boy Scouts Trapped in Tornado Sweep Take Heroic Action (reported by Marcus Baram, Good Morning America, abcnews.go.com, June 12, 2008).

My condolences to the families and friends of the dead and injured. My thanks to the boys and adults who kept the toll from being even worse.

My thanks to ABC News and Good Morning America. I've been tracking this story on various places on the Internet, and the Baram article is the best I've seen so far.

Update: Sophia Tareen of AP wrote 4 victims of deadly Iowa tornado were model youth.

Low carbon footprint

Sometimes cartoons say things better than mere words. Like this.

hat tip: Carl, via Dr. Sanity

Tsunami Warning Center map

I see the NOAA Pacific Tsunami Warning Center has an easy to read world 'event' map, and a table of tsunami messages. There are tabs to take you to regional maps: Pacific Ocean, Hawai'i, Indian Ocean, and Caribbean Sea.

At the top of the page is a box for current warnings, watches and advisories, if any. None are in effect at the moment.

Try to name the worst maritime disaster...

... in terms of lives lost.

I couldn't.

But millions of Germans can.

More on that ship and sinking here.

To be sure, the death toll for that sinking is an estimate, as are the death tolls from several other incredibly deadly maritime disasters, so there is some question which was actually the one with the most casualties. Let us agree they were all horrific, shall we?