There was an explosion at the Imperial Sugar Refinery in Port Wentworth, around 7:30 this evening., Details are sketchy right now, as it emergency crews try to deal with the aftermath and the fire under control. WTOC has the best info so far and I’m watching this thread over at Savannah Underground and this thread over at The Savannah Star Chamber message board.

9:30pm: Googlemaps shot of the area, taken before the explosion of course.

10:00pm: Police are requesting that families only send a single representative to the scene, in order to keep crowds under control. Families are being ushered to Our Lady of Lords Church.

The Savannah River has been closed from North of the Talmadge bride to the Houlihan bridge.

According to a short interview with a doctor at Memorial Hospital, over 30 injured have arrived there, all of them critical.

10:22pm: CNN story

10:25pm: Images showing up on The Star Chamber message board


10:40 pm: Savannah River is back open


Friday 8am: Doesn’t seem to be as bad as originally thought. Still six people unaccounted for. About 20 people have been or are in the process of being transported to the Augusta Burn Center. Fires are still raging and part of the plant has been destroyed, leading to structural concerns.

I remember taking my stepdaughter out of school for ocmpletely irrational reasons. When I tried to explain that the Twin Towers had been destroyed, she appeared confused. She didn’t know what they were.

Web suicide pacts surge in Japan
The number of Japanese who killed themselves in suicide pacts made over the internet rose sharply last year.


Transforming Robot, via the Japanese.

Yes, the second most powerful man in the world accidently shot someone. Now there’s questions about how long it took for the story to become public.

via boingboing

It’s a slow news day. Things have happened of course. Muslims are burning stuff because of a cartoon. A major feminist, the first noted one, died. Iran says “Screw you”. Lots of people when ferry sank.



These things have been repeating on the cable news for the past 4 or 5 hours, as the news usually does. Seems strange to hear such repetition of the news, these days, where a lot of my news comes from online sources, i.e. information I seek out or pull to me. TV and radio just push news, repeating it so that different people listening at different times can hear. Hence, the whole “Top stories of the hour” idea. But having heard it once or four times, do I need to hear it again? Shouldn’t a person be able to move on, maybe mark a story as read, so that when they view the news again they only get new stories and/or updates to stories? Just keep pulling in the new stuff once you’ve read things, moving ahead to the new news. It’s a big world, how can there be a slow news day? Isn’t there something happening somewhere?


New devices for tv, web, print (digital paper), radio and ANY OTHER METHOD of delivering information should have this ability, a way to mark stuff as already digested. Should also have the ability to set something aside to look at more closely or recieve specific updates on. Or highlight certain keyords or tags.

Scientists in Taiwan say they have bred three pigs that glow in the dark.


— Glow in the dark animals. This’ll do wonders for shepherds. And yeah, my first question is, when can we do it humans? Because that could be a lot of fun, though racisim would rear its head: i.e. “Oh god, honey, theres greenies moving next door. There goes property values.”

Google now has music search at google.com/musicsearch. You can enter song tiles, artist, or album. Goggle tells you what album it came from or all the albums an artist to websites, artist photos, a link to various music starts. Damn useful.

According the the Observer, dolphings trained by Navy to kill have gotten loose due to Katrina damage. If this sounds a bit unbelievable, well maybe it is.

Still, the idea that a bunch of dolphin assassins are running around is kinda fun. The only other thing they would need is opposable thumbs.

Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue asked the state’s schools to take two “early snow days” and cancel classes Monday and Tuesday to help conserve gasoline as Hurricane Rita threatens the nation’s fuel supply line.

Damn, they’ll do anything in this state not to teach kids. Considering that Georgia TIED for last place with South Carolia in SAT scores, you’d think that they wouldn’t let the kids out of school for ANYTHING. But no, they cancel school at the hint of gas shortage. Ironically it was announced on a day when the kids only had a half day. All it managed to do in Savannah was create a short gas panic as people feared the worst. Meanwhile, Rita didn’t do as much damage as feared.

I’m trying to find a good argument for doing this, but it just seems silly and short sighted, unless the governor is trying to make up for money spent elsewhere. Even still, this is a crappy way to do it.

This is just surreal and odd. Didn’t anyone want to turn OFF the tv? You’re living it, do you really need to news “analysis” of it?

The airliner circled Southern California for hours, crippled by a faulty landing gear, while inside its cabin 140 passengers watched their own life-and-death drama unfolding on live television.