Thanks so much for ... your tremendous support on the Pepsi challenge. We are SO close so we're in the office this weekend trying to rally last minute support and votes. We really appreciate all your help so far!You can vote once today and you can vote once tomorrow, and unlike most other elections in America, multiple voting is legal! Go vote, now!
The leading edge of a tsunami generated by an earthquake in Chile is surging through Hilo Bay and Kahului Harbor and advancing up the island chain.I had hoped to listen to a government update on this, but my live feed is now stuck.
At noon, water was receding rapidly in Kahului Harbor, and there were reports of similar activity in Barbers Point and Hawaii Kai on Oahu.
Gauges monitored by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center suggest that ocean levels rose 3 feet before noon today during a state-wide tsunami warning and people should remain on alert.
"It's not an all-clear," said Ed Teixeira, state Civil Defense vice director. "... We're not out of the woods yet."
"The build-up of this particular seismic event ... is slow in building," Teixeira said.
The warning center said the wave on Maui is 2 meters from peak to trough, or a 1-meter wave. On the Big Island, it was 1.7 meters, peak to trough.
"This could get bigger," said Nathan Becker of the National Weather Service. "We don't know yet. This clearly is a tsunami taking place in Hawaii right now.
"We could still see a larger wave."
When waves start getting smaller, officials at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center may consider canceling today's warning, Becker said.
"We're not there yet," he said.
There was no grand finale, no gold medal – and sadly, no class from Apolo Anton Ohno as the final moments of his career ticked away Friday night.When did anyone ever expect class from the smugly self-satisfied Apolo Ohno?
Ohno went down as the greatest short-track speedskater in history when he took what are likely to be his final Olympic laps here, but he did nothing for his reputation with a needless and baseless swipe at a celebrating host nation.
By lashing out at the judges who disqualified him from the 500-meter final, Ohno ended his Olympic career much as it began in 2002: with controversy.
“You know, it is the head Canadian referee [Michel Verrault] out there,” said Ohno, with a smirk and a shrug. “And there were two Canadians in the race.”
Ohno, who could have skated into the sunset simply thankful to be adorned with yet another medal-gaining Olympic Games, instead offered remarks that were unfair and unfounded, that came across as an attempt to take some sheen off a truly golden night for Canada.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center has issued a tsunami advisory for the state following a strong earthquake this evening near the coast of Chile.These things are always a bit unnerving, but they rarely turn out to be anything. It's a bit like the "tornado watch" that would flash across the screen during the summers I spent in Minnesota when I was a kid. At any rate, I'm a mile or so inland, so I'm sure things will be all right.
At 9:45 p.m. Hawaii time, the warning center said sea level readings indicated that a tsunami was generated.
The magnitude 8.8 earthquake was reported at 8:34 p.m. Hawaii time and was centered near the coast of Chile.
An advisory was issued for Hawaii and forecasters said there is a possibility that the advisory could be elevated to a watch or warning. If tsunami waves reach the Islands, their earliest arrival time is estimated at 11:19 tomorrow morning.
A tsunami warning is in effect for Chile and Peru. A tsunami watch was in effect for Ecuador, Colombia, Antarctica, Panama and Costa Rica.
The Associated Press reported that buildings shook and collapsed in Santiago, Chile. Phone lines were down in the country, making confirmation of damage difficult, especially further south toward the epicenter. The quake was felt in Argentina as well.
The quake hit 197 miles (317 kilometers) southwest of the capital, Santiago, and at a depth of 36.9 miles (59.4 kilometers) at 3:34 a.m. Chile time.
Its epicenter was just 75 miles from Concepcion, Chile's second-largest city, where more than 200,000 people live along the Bio Bio river, and 60 miles from the ski town of Chillan, a gateway to Andean ski resorts that was destroyed in a 1939 earthquake.
Short-track speedskater Apolo Anton Ohno didn't add another medal to his collection Friday night, when he was disqualified for pushing in the final of the men's 500 meters at the Vancouver Winter Olympics.My understanding is that the judges took quite a few minutes trying to decide whether to disqualify Ohno, or to strip the Team Korea of every medal ROK athletes have ever won at the winter Olympics. It was a close call, but Jim Hewish had gone out for a nosh, so they went with the former.
Ohno appeared to push Francois-Louis Tremblay of Canada on the final turn, causing Tremblay and South Korean skater Sung Si-Bak to fall.
The skater and her coach were in a car going from post-competition doping control to a press conference that would be aired live in South Korea, where half the country's 48 million people already had watched TV broadcasts of their national hero becoming their first Olympic figure skating champion.I forgot where I read it, but someone in one of the K-blogs made a point that Kim Yuna represents a worthy goal for so many Korean girls and women now: She achieved what she did through her own hard work, her wits, her intelligence, her perseverance, etc., not a trust fund, a rich husband, or going to the right school (I'm paraphrasing).
During the 20-minute ride, Kim and Orser simply could have sat back and looked at the gold medal she won three hours earlier with a performance of record-breaking, mind-boggling quality. Instead, as Orser sat in a front seat and Kim in the back, they leaned together to study details on the score sheet, talking about places to improve in her next competition, the March World Championships.
That discussion speaks to the particular greatness Kim displayed in the Olympics.
If, at age 19, she already has joined the sport's legends, it will owe not only to Kim's lighter-than-air grace in her movements on the ice and her huge jumps but also to Team Kim's grounding in the demands of figure skating's scoring system.
Never have athlete and artist been more perfectly balanced than they are with Kim. Never has a skater with both those qualities displayed them so flawlessly in the sport's most important competition.
"I always wanted to be Olympic champion and do clean programs," Kim said. "This was the first time I have done both programs clean, and I am very joyful it was at the Olympics."
That achievement alone sets her apart from many of the sport's greats, especially because they had to do far fewer defined elements in a four-minute program that used to embody its title: free skate.
Am very sorry to you. This is my first direct email --- I have been tormented and I apologize for my insane behaviour lately. A friend has been managing my email account.And if this is authentic, I think we're seeing a clearer picture of a disturbed person, as many of us have long suspected. While it's noble to draw attention to the plight of North Korean refugees, Mr Park's actions seem more a cry for help than a call to action.
I don't call people easily because of my spiritual condition --- I've had bouts of rage and intense temptations to kill myself (because of inner torture) since leaving DPRK.
Here is what I need by tomorrow evening, if you can help me:
DPRK flag, lighter
A notebook of picture evidence of the North Korean Human Rights Crisis and Genocide (I will be going through the pages while speaking in the interview)
Two Signs:
"CHINA - INTERNATIONAL LAWBREAKER"
"CHINA - STOP MURDERING REFUGEES"
Kim Yu-na put one hand to her mouth and let the tears flow.And to all those in South Korea who use international sporting events as a proxy for national prestige, congratulations to you, too, I guess. I can hear your whooping and hollering all the way over here.
All that pressure, so many expectations. The "Queen" took it all on and delivered royally.
The South Korean won the Olympic gold medal Thursday night, soaring to a world-record 228.56 points and shattering her previous mark by more than 18 points. It may go down as one of the greatest performances in figure skating history, and it's sure to set off wild celebrations from Seoul to Pyongchang [Kushibo notes that SI wrote it that way]. It's South Korea's first medal at the Winter Olympics in a sport other than speedskating.
Even Kim seemed to be dazzled by the show she put on, gasping when she saw the monstrous score. Coach Brian Orser gave a Rocky-like victory pump, shaking his clasped fists over each shoulder.
Authorities "recently detained four South Koreans who illegally entered" North Korea, the North's official Korean Central News Agency said Friday. "They are now under investigation."Were they trying to get into North Korea to deliver a message, à la Monsieur Park? Were they too close to the border and got lost, à la Mitch Koss et al? Were they hapless tourists or businesspeople snagged by the Norks so that they'd have fresh bargaining chips? Were they defectors?
The brief dispatch didn't identify the South Koreans or say when they allegedly enter the North.
The National Intelligence Service, Seoul's top spy agency, had no immediate comment on the report.
The announcement came weeks after North Korea freed Robert Park, an American missionary detained for illegally crossing its border on Christmas Day to call international attention to the country's alleged human-rights abuses.
Last year, a South Korean pig farmer defected to North Korea by cutting through barbed wire at the heavily fortified border.
Wearing a sassy black dress, twisting and leaping to a medley of spy thriller songs, the queen of South Korean figure skating is continuing a quest her countrymen hope is no mission impossible:I know I'm swimming against the current of K-blog public opinion here, but I think Mr Glionna is betraying a facile inspection that is so common in anglophone analysis of Korea as to be cliché: If some issue or incident involving Korea can be even remotely connected with Japan, then Korea's longstanding han must be a major factor if not primary cause of whatever that is.
Not just to win, but to beat the Japanese in the process.
Kim Yuna, the pouting 19-year-old monarch-on-ice, is poised to win South Korea's first Olympic gold medal in figure skating -- a feat that for many countrymen would prove to be a satisfying athletic and political victory over their Asian neighbors.
Because when it comes to sports competitions against Japan, their colonial-era overlords from 1910 to 1945, Koreans wear their fiercest game faces -- whether on a baseball or soccer field, or even within the graceful realm of the figure-skating rink.
"With South Korea versus Japan, it is all about one-sided nationalism," said Shin Kwang-yeong, sociology professor at Chung-Ang University in Seoul. "Of course, Japan's colonization of Korea and emotions between the two countries are instilled in sports.
"It's a phenomenon based on South Korea's group perception about its traumatic history. If you do not win a gold medal, other medals are not satisfying."
And medals are sweeter if snatched from a Japanese competitor.
VANCOUVER, Feb. 24 (Yonhap) -- South Korean women's team was disqualified in the 3,000 meter relay short track event on Wednesday for impeding a Chinese player.Yonhap has been writing this story in waves. First there was a one-line report, now there is this detailed story above, and eventually the refined (i.e., proofread) story will appear. Yonhap is usually pretty good at presenting well edited articles, so I'm guessing the writer was trying to get this out as quickly as possible.
South Korean team -- Lee Eun-byul, Park Seung-hi, Cho Ha-ri and Kim Min-jung -- raced for five consecutive Olympic gold medal in the event, finished first in the relay event at the Pacific Coliseum, leaving China in second and Canada in third.
But the referees declared South Korea's disqualification, saying that a South Korean skater pushed a Chinese skater in the final lap, lifting the China to the first place. South Korean team officials strongly protested the controversial decision, but the referees did not reversed it.
As a result, Canada won silver and the Unites State took bronze.
After playing a reluctant role in one of the most controversial races in Olympic history seven years ago in Salt Lake City, South Korean speedskating star Kim Dong-Sung vowed never to return to the United States.Sorta unexpected, wouldn't you say?
Kim was in the middle of celebrating what he assumed was his gold medal victory in the 1,500 meters when he learned he had been disqualified for interfering with U.S. star Apolo Anton Ohno, who ended up receiving the first-place medal. Kim was so upset he needed oxygen in his hotel room that night. The South Korean delegation challenged the result, then threatened to boycott the Closing Ceremonies. Some 16,000 angry e-mails from South Korea crashed the U.S. Olympic Committee's computer system.
But there he was this week at the Kettler Capitals Iceplex in Arlington, wearing baggy jeans, a navy coat and gold-bladed skates, chasing speedsuit-wearing American children around the ice during an evening practice session. "Push, push, push!" he exhorted.
Kim's life since the 2002 Winter Games has unfolded with all of the unexpected twists of a typical final in short-track speedskating. Agonized at hearing the U.S. national anthem seven years ago, Kim now wants to ensure it is played. He aspires to create a U.S. Olympic champion in the Washington suburbs.
Ten of Kim's students will compete next weekend at the sport's national age-group championships in Midland, Mich., a competition that will help Kim evaluate his students' progress and his own proficiency in a profession he didn't consider pursuing until just more than two years ago. That's when a Maryland speedskating parent who heard he was in the country called him up and invited him to coach.
"I came here not as a player, but as a person looking for a future career," Kim, 28, said partly through an interpreter before the start of Tuesday's training session. "I didn't even bring my skates."
Now he doesn't plan to leave.
"My goals have changed," he said. "I want to make a national team member out of one of my young kids."
Hi there,
Saw your latest blog and though you have very right to write what you please, I just thought I would give you a bit of context from our side so that you have it.
First of all, though I am a co-author on Somewhere Inside, I am not making a penny from the book sales whatsoever. I am donating my entire portion to LiNK, CPJ and RSF.
While my sister and her team made a mistake by setting foot onto NK soil, they were used as political bargaining tools by the North Korea government. Since their return and President Clinton's visit, there have been a lot of positive movements. The North Koreans released the Hyundai worker as well as the South Korean fishermen they had been holding not to mention Robert Park after 2 months of detention.
North Korea also allowed Steven Bosworth into the country and a top level NK diplomat is scheduled to visit the U.S. next month to discuss nuclear disarmament.
How you can say that we have blood on our hands is so upsetting. Talk to the people at LiNK and ask them if they have noticed an improvement in the tone coming out of North Korea since my sister and Euna's return.
I am deeply proud of my sister and believe that her story will provoke people to think differently about what can happen when human beings get the opportunity to interact with one another despite that fact that their countries may consider each another enemies.
Thank you for using your voice. You are a very passionate person and I admire that. Know that my intentions have never been about self-aggrandizement. I have been lucky that God bestowed a path for me that I take very seriously, and that is for telling stories. I realize that there will be many who will be unhappy with some of the things I tell, but I feel compelled to tell them nonetheless.
Be well,
Lisa
Hi Kushibo,I'm more than happy to do whatever I can. Please, people, these folks at LiNK do good work, so vote early, vote often (at least vote once a day).
I wanted to ask if you could urge your readers to vote for us every day this week at www.linkglobal.org. We've been stuck in 4th place and we only have one week left to place in the top 2. Sunday is the last day to vote.
An easy way to get the word out is through our facebook group and cause. Here are some links that make it easier:
http://linkglobal.org/pepsi/blog/?page_id=111
http://linkglobal.org/pepsi/blog/?p=204
http://linkglobal.org/pepsi/blog/?p=186
Thanks for your consideration and help!
-Esther
Korea's Lee Seung-Hoon was gifted the men's 10,000m speed skating gold medal on Tuesday after Dutchman Sven Kramer was sensationally disqualified after coming over the line first.Kramer also blamed his own coach:
Russia's Ivan Skobrev took the silver and another Dutchman Bob de Jong won the bronze.
Kramer, who won 5,000m gold last week, was the hot favourite and he lived up to his billing by powering around the Richmond Oval more than four seconds faster than Lee in the gruelling race.
He thought he had won but a lane infringement with eight laps left saw him disqualified, ending his dream of completing the first golden treble by an Olympic speedskater since Norway's Johann Olav Koss in 1994.
Kramer, the 23-year-old son of two-time Dutch Olympic speedskater Yep Kramer, threw his goggles down in disgust and was a forlorn figure as Lee celebrated an unexpected victory.
"Usually, I don't want to blame anyone else, but this time I can't do anything else. I wanted to go on the outer lane then just before the cone Gerard shouted 'inner lane,' I thought he's probably right and went to the inner lane," he said.
"At first I thought my skates passed the cone on the wrong side, I will be disqualified. Then I noticed in the stadium something was wrong.
"You have to decide in a split second. Afterwards I should have gone with my own thoughts, but I was brought into doubt. This really sucks. This is a real expensive mistake."
Lee Dong-sung, back in the 2002 Olympics, was unsportsmanlike for throwing down the t'aegŭkki when it turned out he got disqualified after coming in first in Salt Lake. I'll excuse him, though, based on the undoubtedly high level of adrenaline pumping through his veins just then. Some will say I'm a hypocrite, because I'm not willing to accept the same excuse for police officers who shoot suspects they've chased into an alley, but come on, there's a difference between throwing down a flag and putting twenty-five bullets in someone carrying an ice cream cone you thought was a rocket launcher.No doubt some will see hypocrisy in Lee happily accepting this gold medal, but I don't think it is, for a variety of reasons. First, Lee Seunghoon was not (to my knowledge) one of those saying Ohno was undeserving. Second, Lee Seunghoon was not instrumental in Mr Kramer getting disqualified in the way that Ohno was instrumental in getting Kim Dongsung disqualified so he could win the gold in 2002. Rather different cases, methinks.
