Two Weird Deadly Disasters Prove Nature Is Strange.

A phenomenon called liquefaction turned solid land to liquid, causig
this mess in Indonesia recently. 

Florida is reeling today from the Hurricane Michael disaster, and my sister blog Matt's Weather Rapport has videos of the extreme and scary things 100 to 150 mph winds can do.

To further prove that disasters can be hugely, weirdly, strangely scary, I have two weird videos of how strangely aspects of two recent disasters played out. They are fascinating to watch because it shows how strange nature can be when it goes off the rails.

A couple weeks ago, a terrible earthquake and tsunami struck parts of Indonesia, killing perhaps 1,400 or more people.

The following video, edited to take out the fact that the terrified person taking the video kept turning the camera, shows a strange, large landslide caused the the earthquake.

It's not a steep slope at all, like you see in most landslides. It's a gentle grade, but the entire landscape is moving. My understanding is this is an extreme example of liquefaction.  It usually occurs durig earthquakes in wet soil, or soil that is sandy, or was used as fill to claim a wetland. According to USGS:

"Earthquake waves cause water pressures to increase in the sediment and the sand grains to lose contact wit each other, leading the sediment to lose strength and act like a liquid."

Sounds very scary, and the video below verifies that horror:



The next video shows the aftermath at one house of Hawaii's volcanic eruption this year. Kilauea  has been erupting much of this year. Lava has destroyed hundreds of homes.

Even homes that were not overrun by lava were extensively damaged or destroyed. Huge quantites of sulfur dioxide belched from fissures. This stuff is highly corrosive. It turned the lush Hawaii vegetation in spots into something that looked more barren than Vermont in the depths of post-foliage November.

Worse, it corroded anything that was made of metal. Like leaving the stuff out in the rain for decades. Except this sulfur dioxide destruction took weeks, not years.

At one house, which was under construction when the volcano erupted, everything that was metal, from electrical fixtures to appliances, corroded away. A new metal bucket left outside was reduced to crunchy bits of rust.

The following video of that under-construction property, really is jaw dropping:

Spam, The Meat Product, Is One Of The Most Stolen Items In Hawaii

Spam is a popular choice of theft among
criminals in Hawaii lately.

The paradise state of Hawaii is being hit by a crime wave.

A weird one.

Thieves are making off with lots and lots and lots of Spam.

Of course we'd all like it if someone were to steal the spam junk that we get in our inboxes and take it away, but that's not what I'm talking about.

It's Spam the meat product, says television station KHON.

Thieves, a large proportion of them drug addicts, are stealing it so often that some stores have been locking up the Spam, like they do watches and medications to protect their stocks.

Apparently, there's two reasons why Spam is suddenly such a hot commodity on the crime circuit.  For one, a lot of people in Hawaii love Spam for some reason, so it's easy to sell to gain cash to feed drug addictions.

Secondly, Hawaii lawmakers recently passed a law raising the threshold level for felony theft from $300 to $750, says KHON.

Thieves often try to stay just under that $750 threshold and they've discovered an easy way to do that is to just steal boxes or shopping carts full of Spam.

Of course, there are other items that are newly popular with thieves with the raised felony threshold, such as clothing, electronics and power tools.

But Spam seems to be the biggy.  This would make a great weird episode of Hawaii Five-0 wouldn't it?

Worse, some of the criminals are getting more brazen. Instead of just running when confronted by store security, a few of them have increasingly been responding with fists, knives, even guns.

Which puts these thieves back into the felony category, but I guess they didn't think that through very well.

We hope this crime trend doesn't spread. I'm not a huge fan of Spam, but I'd hate to see stores hit with thefts like this.

Surely, Woman Now Becoming Hugely Embarrassed Over Her Viral Road Rage Rant

The now-famous Hawaii road rage lady
does her, um, performance.  

As road rage videos go, this one's a doozy.

A woman in Hawaii was rather perturbed that a pickup truck driver cut her off. (though the truck driver denies this)

To give her the benefit of the doubt, it is irritating to be cut off. But most people, when cut off in traffic, take a deep breath, stew for a few minutes and move on with their lives

Not this "lady". No sir. The guy in the pickup truck recorded her epic rant. It is a work to behold, though I'll warn you now, the language makes the video at the bottom of this post totally, totally NSFW.

"Fuck off, you fat ass," is one of the more polite things she says to the guy in the truck.

The guy in the truck spews out a few F-bombs, too, but at this point in the woman's rant, you can't blame him.

The woman in the video, identified as Kimberly Ong, also seems incredibly fascinated by pickup truck guy's physical appearance. I don't know what he looks like, but Kimberly uses the word "fatty" a lot.

The sad and scary thing about this video is the kid in the car. Before she proceeds with her F-bomb laden rant, she veers, screeches, brakes and swerves wildly, in an attempt to frighten the guy in the truck, I guess.

She complains that he almost caused a crash, and meanwhile she nearly causes several other crashes on the busy street.

With. Her. Kid. In. The. Car.

I'm sure the F-bombs are great for the kid, too. You get a glimpse of him and it really is the picture of misery.

According to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, police have opened a felony investigation against Ong, because it looks like she hit Arakaki, or at least tried to. She certainly reached into his vehicle.

"Police have classified the case as first-degree unauthorized entry into a motor vehicle, which is a Class B felony," says the Star-Advertiser. 

You'd think at this point, with the infamy of her making a fool of herself, and a possible felony hanging over her head, and a possible intervention by child protective services, Ong would be groveling with apologies.

But you'd be thinking incorrectly. She sort of regrets the language, but not much else about the incident, judging from a report on television station KITV.  

"I was super, super angry. I really was angry.....And of course he was taunting me somewhat. So, that obviously made me even more angry. I'm not the most happy about it. But I could have probably chose some better words to use. I was upset and it's apparent. I don't totally 100 percent regret it."

Kim, Kim, Kim. (Can I call you Kim? Just don't call me fatty.) So the only thing you regret, Kim,  is the F-bombs? And you don't totally regret it? Do you realize how much danger you put your kid in? What if the guy in the truck was even crazier than you, and had a gun, not just a camera phone?

And do you always get that mad when somebody does something slightly irritating? Kids do irritating things all the time. Do you go off on your kid like you did on the guy in the truck?  Maybe it's time for anger management therapy.

Now I'm glad I don't live in beautiful Hawaii.  I'd hate to tick off Kimberly Ong. She's got the rage heard round the world.

Here's the video. Again, it's NSFW. (Hat tip to Jalopnik for this story)