The Moaning Minority

When one starts to look at local elections, the picture is not always as clear as one would wish. As you walk up the Parade you can hear passing conversations, about poor parking facilities, double yellow lines outside banks, a Bus Station that isn't, no bus inspectors or bus information office for potential passengers.
In poor weather, snow, rain, frost and high winds more of the shopping area is open to the weather than is protected from it. The moan is not to totally enclose the area but to ensure that shop frontage have a window verandah. Away from the centre potholes seem to be the main problem.
What bothers me however, is that if 10,637 of the electors do not bother to vote, because they are satisfied with things as they are, then they are not going to be the moaners, so all those moans and groans are coming from those that voted. As a person that considers himself as a responsible person I find it sad that because I used the vote that my ancestors fought for, I have become a moaning minor! I need to consider my position

Local Elections

On the 5th May 2011 we had the latest round of Local Elections and, as usual, there was a poor turn out of electors. There is no point in gathering together reams of statistics to show trends and variations in electoral expectations, in short, those that didn't vote are quite happy with the situation and see no need for change.

In my Ward, Sutton Vesey, 18,528 of us have the vote and on the day, 5th May, 7891 of us, 42.59%, voted. The vote cast was:- Conservative 3,864 (48.97%)
Labour. 3,118 (39.51%)
Liberal/Dem. 463 ( 5.53%)
Green Party. 424 ( 5.37%)
The question is what happened to the missing 10,637 voters? Whatever it was, it must have been serious. The mereorological office report it was cool with light winds, the NHS say admissions to hospitals were of the usual order. The AA & Rac report business as normal. Birmingham Airport and British Rail both report business as usual. So I ask the question again, 'What happened to those missing voters'?

I think it reasonable to ask the Birmingham City Council to explain where these 10,000+ voters went to. The Council is the biggest employer in the region, several thousand of the missing could be employed by the Council. The Council provide the Polling Booth, and the vote is counted on Council Premises, and the Lord Mayor announces the winner

The worlds largest earthquakes

	Location	Date UTC	Magnitude	Lat.	Long.	Reference
1.	Chile	1960 05 22	9.5	-38.29	-73.05	Kanamori, 1977
2.	Prince William Sound, Alaska	1964 03 28	9.2	61.02	-147.65	Kanamori, 1977
3.	Off the West Coast of Northern Sumatra	2004 12 26	9.1	3.30	95.78	Park et al., 2005
4.	Near the East Coast of Honshu, Japan	2011 03 11	9.0	38.322	142.369	PDE
5.	Kamchatka	1952 11 04	9.0	52.76	160.06	Kanamori, 1977
6.	Offshore Maule, Chile	2010 02 27	8.8	-35.846	-72.719	PDE
7.	Off the Coast of Ecuador	1906 01 31	8.8	1.0	-81.5	Kanamori, 1977
8.	Rat Islands, Alaska	1965 02 04	8.7	51.21	178.50	Kanamori, 1977
9.	Northern Sumatra, Indonesia	2005 03 28	8.6	2.08	97.01	PDE
10.	Assam - Tibet	1950 08 15	8.6	28.5	96.5	Kanamori, 1977
11.	Andreanof Islands, Alaska	1957 03 09	8.6	51.56	-175.39	Johnson et al., 1994
12.	Southern Sumatra, Indonesia	2007 09 12	8.5	-4.438	101.367	PDE
13.	Banda Sea, Indonesia	1938 02 01	8.5	-5.05	131.62	Okal and Reymond, 2003
14.	Kamchatka	1923 02 03	8.5	54.0	161.0	Kanamori, 1988
15.	Chile-Argentina Border	1922 11 11	8.5	-28.55	-70.50	Kanamori, 1977
16.	Kuril Islands	1963 10 13	8.5	44.9	149.6	Kanamori, 1977

The above was stolen from http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/world/10_largest_world.php

Japan Earthquake 11th March 2011, continued.

When I was young if something frightened me, my Grandmothers advice was turn your back on it and it will go away. It seems to me that the powers that are in control of events in Japan have been taking my Grandmothers advice.
It is said that more photographs have been taken, and more technical data recorded of this event than ever before. Scientists from all over the world and in every known discipline, have indicated their interest in the research thrown up.

Japan etc

It is not my intention to fill my blog with tales of Japan, but it needs everyone to understand that on Friday 11th March, at 2:46 pm local time, at a point off the North-Eastern Coast of Japan, a major earthquake followed by a tsunami changed the world.
There seems to be a reluctance on the part of the Japanese Government to give figures of the deaths, but at the moment 20,000 dead and  40,000 missing is the information we have. Almost certainly the figure will be close to 100,000.  The majority of these deaths will be from the tsunami rather than the earthquake.

Japan,etc.

It is not my intention to keep featuring Japan as the star performer in my blog, but it is so important that failure on my part to bring it to your attention would be wrong, in fact it would be a dereliction of duty. Those of us who have studied risk assessment will be aware that

Four generations

From right to left, Me, my son Paul, my grandson Michael with his son Kenzo and my grandson Daniel.