Fly The Friendly Unencumbered Skies

A German travel agency is proudly offering charter flights for a select group of people. The passengers will, as the company puts it, fly "The way God intends it." That would be soaring in the buff.

BERLIN (AFP) - German holidaymakers will be able to indulge their love of naturism by taking to the skies nude on special flights being launched this year, a travel company said on Monday.
 
"In the former East Germany, naturist holidays were a much-loved way of spending the best weeks of the year," said the founder of OssiUrlaub.de, Enrico Hess.

"We want to make that freedom possible above the clouds too."

The flights are aimed specifically at former East Germans, nicknamed "Ossis" in German, who feel nostalgic for the naturism that was authorised and extremely popular under communist rule.

The first nude flights will be a day-trip on July 5 between Erfurt in southeast Germany and the Baltic Sea island of Usedom, which is fringed by white sand beaches.

One hopes the tour operator screens the clientèle carefully. Some unencumbered folks from Southern Illinois might better be avoided. And for heavens sake, don't let any Australians on the plane. Also hope for a lack of turbulence for the flight. One shudders to think of the potential damage a cup of hot coffee could do if the air gets rough.

On a side note, my wife and I went on a cruise a number of years ago and wandered up onto the "clothing optional" sun deck of the ship just to see what was up there. What we found was not exactly anything we would have intentionally sought to view, I can assure you. (I have written once about Europeans at a resort in Florida.) I do not know what language the folks were speaking, it was not English. But an international incident was probably averted when my wife restrained me from pushing them back into the water.

Kenya Deteriorating Rapidly

Murderous violence continues to escalate in Kenya. Tribe on tribe and gang on gang, day by day the death toll is rising.

NAIVASHA, Kenya — Hundreds of Kikuyus wielding stones, sticks, machetes, and wooden planks studded with nails confronted rival tribes Monday on a main road, whooping and wailing for blood as violence from last month's disputed election raged in Kenya's Rift Valley .
 
Having borne the brunt of the violence since the election, Kenya's dominant tribe, the Kikuyu, is fighting back with ferocity.

"I wish they give us just one Luo. I will skin him alive," said a 22-year-old named Edwin, referring to a rival group. He was carrying a two-by-four with nails sticking out, and didn't want to give his last name in case he made good on his threat.

Kenyan police, who've been unable— many Kenyans say unwilling— to calm the tribal tensions in much of the country, fired shots into the air, scattering the mob. But it was clear that the post-election violence has entered a grim new phase of tit-for-tat attacks.

On Sunday, a Kikuyu mob burned several people alive in a home in Naivasha. On Monday, police reported finding another 14 bodies, bringing the two-day death toll to 28, according to Kenyan news reports.

As word of the Naivasha killings spread to the Luo stronghold of Kisumu, 130 miles west, gangs of youths rampaged through the streets Monday, blocking roads with flaming barricades and beating up any Kikuyus they could find. Police shot one man dead, residents said, and news reports said police had killed another in the town of Eldoret.

By nightfall, young Luo men in Kisumu were said to be going door to door in the slums looking to flush out Kikuyus.

"They're going to be doing that all night, terrorizing people," said Hezron McObewa, a doctor. "This is all because of what happened in Naivasha. . . . We're not going to have any Kikuyus left in this town."

Not a good situation. It is made worse by the fact that the incompetent Kofi Annan is supposedly mediating things. Given Annan's track record in Rwanda, that is a world class bad choice.

Hold The Lungs

Unless you happen to be of Scots descent, you may have missed the vast sound of wailing and lamentation on Friday. That was the annual wailing of the haggis, or what some people call "Burns Night." Now the annual celebration of the birth of Robert Burns has been going on for many years but the wailing about the haggis began in 1971. That's when the USDA banned the use of sheep lungs in food.

Thousands of Americans had to make do without the real thing Friday night when they sat down to what should have been a filling meal of boiled sheep's stomach stuffed with minced sheep lung, heart, liver and oatmeal.

Jan. 25 was the 248th anniversary of the birth of Scottish poet Robert Burns. (He wrote Auld Lang Syne, among other things.)

It's also the high holy day of haggis-eating worldwide. Thousands of "Burns Night" dinners are held wherever people of Scottish ancestry have landed. These evenings of food, whiskey and song traditionally reach their high point with the ceremonial carrying in of the haggis — preceded by a recitation of Burns' Ode to a Haggis and a bagpiper, if at all possible.

But American lovers of Burns and all things Scottish have had to make do with home-grown approximations for more than 30 years. True Scottish haggis, sheep lungs and all, hasn't been legal to import since 1971, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture banned the use of lungs in food.

Researchers found "stomach contents, lesions and bacteria" in lungs, says Amanda Eamich of the USDA's Food Safety Inspection Service. Since then, the USDA has considered them an adulterated food item.

The mad-cow disease outbreak in the United Kingdom in the 1980s put sheep stomach on the "out" list as well, because sheep get a form of mad cow called scrapie.

Sounds yummy. now you know why all Scots cuisine has the reputation of being based on a dare. But fear not, haggis lovers! USA Today reports that help is on the way!

Until then, they'll have to settle for other versions that are available in the USA. Some butchers make haggis, especially around Burns Night. And the folks at Caledonian Kitchen, a producer of all things Celtic in Lewisville, Texas, are "up to our eyeballs in haggis right now," says manager Jason Summerlin.

The company makes a popular canned haggis. But for this year's Burns Night, it sold 2,000 pounds of haggis in the past three weeks, says owner Jim Walters. Their frozen, 8-pound "presentation haggis" runs $85 plus up to $55 for shipping.

But it's not quite the real thing. Attuned to American tastes, the haggis is stuffed with 100% USDA Choice sirloin beef and beef liver, along with oats and beef suet. The closest they come to a "warm-reekin' rich" haggis, to use Burns' words, is a do-it-yourself haggis stuffing kit — cans of lamb haggis, a casing and instructions on how to steam it yourself. No lungs, though.

Canned, counterfeit haggis? A do-it-yourself haggis kit? What's the world of dare-based cuisine coming to? We here at Blue Crab Boulevard believe we have a solution: gamma radiation! If the haggis is irradiated, it won't matter what's in it! Now, some people will be frightened by the thought of a giant, glowing, radioactive haggis loping about the banquet room in search of a victim. But if enough good Scots whisky is applied beforehand, nobody will notice! Or they'll blame the whisky.

Red Market

Indian Police are working to arrest as many suspects in an illegal kidney transplant ring as they can. Unfortunately, the ringleader, Dr. Amit Kumar, appears to have escaped, possibly by bribing police officials. The police have arrested the doctor at least four times since 1994 when his black market kidney operation was first exposed.

GURGAON/LUCKNOW: Investigators believe that since Dr Amit Kumar had earlier been arrested four times — twice by Mumbai police, once in Guntur (Andhra Pradesh) and once by Delhi Police — he is well aware of the law and if he has fled, arresting him will prove much more difficult this time. "We do not have an extradition treaty with Nepal — hence we cannot directly ask it to hand over an accused wanted by the Indian police. For a person like that to be brought here, there is a lot of paperwork required," said a senior officer.

Twelve teams of Gurgaon police, meanwhile, continued raids across Gurgaon, Faridabad and other adjoining areas which are believed to have been used by the accused doctors. "From the documents we have recovered and from the interrogation of the arrested men it seems that at least 50 more medical and paramedical people might have been involved in the racket," Moradabad SSP Prem Prakash said. A team of Moradabad police has already left for Gurgaon.

Two more people, including the driver of Dr Upender, was detained on Sunday and an Indica car was recovered. Prakash said they were now on the lookout for two more doctors — Satprakash Gupta and Rajesh Gupta — who have been accused once before in a similar racket unearthed at Nizamuddin railway station. The other doctors on the run include Dr Jeevan and Dr Saraj Kumar, who operates an anaesthesia service in east Delhi.

Reuters reports that officials believe the racketeers performed at least 400-500 illegal operations - sometimes taking the kidneys from poor Indians at gunpoint. The "donors" never made more than about $1,200 from the sale of their kidneys, while the doctors made a fortune.

"We suspect around 400 or 500 kidney transplants were done by these doctors over the last nine years," Mohinder Lal, Gurgaon's police chief, told the Hindustan Times.

Several people have been arrested, including some doctors, police said.

The case, one of the largest transplant rackets reported in India in recent years, has dominated the country's headlines and sparked calls for the government to tighten regulation of kidney transplants to stop backstreet operations as global demand rises.

"Dr Horror" was how India's Mail Today described the ringleader of the racket in a front-page headline on Monday.

The doctor accused of heading the group may have fled the country, according to police, quoted as saying he appeared to have been tipped off. As many as 50 medical officials may have been involved in the racket.

At least five foreigners — two U.S. and three Greek citizens — were found in a luxury guesthouse operated by the doctor running the racket, Lal was quoted as saying by local media.

Police said they have since been allowed to leave India.

Many victims complained they were taken to the house with promises of a job, and then duped or forced at gunpoint to sell their kidneys.

Laborers, many who gathered every day in parts of Gurgaon to look for any kind of job, were offered around 50,000 rupees ($1,250) for their kidneys. They were sold to wealthy clients for 10 times as much.

I honestly don't know who is more contemptible here. The doctors who victimized the poor or the rich people who bought the stolen kidneys. Both are sickening excuses for human beings.

China In Chaos Due To Snow And Ice

The Chinese government is issuing "red alerts" (ironic, isn't it?) to large areas of the country over expected heavy snowfalls.  (Questionable link broken).

BEIJING, Jan. 28 (Xinhua) — The China Meteorological Administration (CMA) early Monday issued a red alert for severe snowstorms forecast for central and eastern China.

Heavy snow is set to blanket northern Hunan, eastern Hubei, southeastern Henan, northwestern Zhejiang as well as most areas of Anhui and Jiangsu provinces on Monday, while some of these areas will expect snowstorms, according to the CMA.

Meanwhile, freezing rain will pound some parts of Guizhou, Hunan, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Anhui and Zhejiang.

This is on top of the already existing chaotic conditions caused by the past few weeks of brutal winter weather:

BEIJING, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) — Prolonged snow, rain and cold weather has led to train delays in central and south China and stranded tens of thousands of passengers, in addition to expressway closures, flight cancellations and relocations of people.

A total of 136 electric passenger trains came to a standstill on an artery railway in Hunan Province after the local power supply system was damaged by continuous snow and icy rain.

Technicians and workers with the Guangzhou Railway Group Corp., the operating company, were using more than 100 diesel locomotives to pull the electric locomotives carrying tens of thousands of passengers from a section that suffered a sudden drop in power, a company spokesman said.

About 40,000 passengers were stranded at different stations along the trunk line linking Beijing and Guangzhou in south China, he said. Another 50,000 passengers were delayed at Guangzhou Railway Station.

"We will do our best to resume traffic as soon as possible," he said.

The company had dispatched more than 10,000 technical workers to repair the damaged power lines, and cancelled trains scheduled to depart from Guangzhou Railway Station, especially those bound for Hunan, he said.

It had also ordered the transfer of some trains to other lines and refunds to passengers reduce number of stranded people, he said.

Meanwhile, the company had dispatched workers with almost 10,000 kg of rice, vegetables, meat, edible oil, and 20,000 boxes of instant noodles and drinking water to serve passengers aboard the stranded trains, he said.

There are reports that the Chinese government is deploying riot troops to try to control crowds of stranded passengers in some areas. It's bad over there right now, folks. People are being killed when their houses collapse under the weight of the snow and ice and electricity supplies are severely limited or gone altogether in some areas.

Before that, six people were confirmed dead in buildings that collapsed under the weight of the snow in Hubei and Anhui provinces and nine others died in weather-related traffic accidents in Hubei.

In southwestern Guizhou, power has been cut off in nine counties because of grid damage caused by the freezing rain.

By midday Tuesday, three 500-kV transmission trunk cables and 25 smaller lines were out of operation with serious damage, according to the Guizhou Power Grid Company.

The company had stopped supplying electricity to seven high energy-consuming industries and had imposed limits on other industries to ensure power for homes, government buildings and hospitals, said Chao Jian, deputy general manager of the company.

One hopes Al Gore stays away from China. They can't take much more of this.

Fan Mail From Some Flounder

Life imitates Bullwinkle and Rocky. A letter written 15 years ago by a Japanese schoolgirl has just turned up. Or been pulled up, as the case may be. The letter was found attached to a fish caught by a Japanese fisherman.

TOKYO (AFP) - A letter that a young girl in Japan sent into the sky in a balloon some 15 years ago has been found on a fish hauled from 1,000 metres (3,300 feet) below the Pacific.
 
A fisherman found the still legible piece of paper sitting on a sticky flatfish in his catch on Thursday, along with a torn-off string and the fragment of a red balloon.

He opened the folded paper, discovering it was a handwritten letter from a six-year-old girl at an elementary school in Kawasaki, 150 kilometres (93 miles) away from where the fish was caught off Choshi port.

The sender, Natsumi Shirahige, and her friends released letters as part of events to mark the school's 120th anniversary, which was in 1993.

"Our school is 120 years old… If you pick up this letter, please write to me," the letter reads, listing the school's address.

Obviously, the Animal Uprising™ is sending fishy letter thieves to steal our mail. Oh sure, it could be some finned entrepreneur trying to set up a trout mail system, but we suspect it is just the animal overlords. On the bright side, people who are behind on their bills now have a fresh, new excuse! "The check's in the mahi mahi."

Bush To Hit Earmarks With Executive Order

The wording of this story does not make it completely clear, but it appears that President Bush will issue an executive order directing Federal agencies to ignore earmarks that are air dropped into a conference bill and not explicitly voted on. The muddy part is whether it applies to the just-passed porkathon spending bills. It does not appear to.

In his State of the Union address tonight, Bush will promise to “veto any spending bill that does not succeed in cutting earmarks in half from 2008 levels,'' deputy press secretary Ton Fratto said in an e-mail.

Bush will issue an executive order tomorrow directing federal agencies to ignore any future earmarks included only in committee reports, not in the text of legislation.

Bush will say that if spending for such projects is warranted, then “Congress should debate them in the open and hold a public vote,'' Fratto said.

The wording makes it appear to be a half a loaf victory for those of us against earmarks. But even if it only applies to future spending, it is certainly better than what has been going on in recent years.

From Asset To Liability

Even the Guardian isn't impressed with Bill Clinton at the moment. Their American editor, Michael Tomasky, thinks the Clintons have some explaining to do in the next few days.

Think about it. A former president, who knows the inner workings of government intimately, would be back in the White House. He may have no official title or role. Yet he would, it's fair to assume, be deeply enmeshed in both politics and policy.

To what extent would this constitute a co-presidency? Writing in the New York Times on Saturday, Garry Wills noted that America's founders had wrestled with just this question and decided executive power had to be invested in one person for the sake of holding that person accountable. Wills - who has written glowingly about Hillary in the past - directly compared Bill's possible role to the one being played now by Dick Cheney and concluded that "it does not seem to be a good idea to put another co-president in the White House".

It has long been assumed - more conventional wisdom - that Bill as co-president was another huge plus, especially for Democratic voters. But suddenly even sympathetic observers like Wills are exploring the darker penumbras of that question. And with Bill having raised millions of dollars for his library from undisclosed donors - some of whom would surely have business with the federal government, as Frank Rich noted in his Sunday New York Times column - these explorations are likely to mount over the next 10 days.

It leaves me very curious not only as to how Hillary Clinton will address her husband's role in the coming days, but how Obama will as well.

While Tomasky isn't sure whether Obama or the media will begin asking the tough questions, he is pretty sure someone will. Where did Bill Clinton get money for his library from? Who made donations? Which of those donors does business with the Federal government? And what access or favors are expected in return? What is Bill's role in the White House going to be should Hillary win?

Important questions, indeed. Ones you can expect to be asked if Clinton gets the nod. If not sooner.

Money For Nothing

It really isn't surprising that the House of Representatives manages to throw away taxpayer's money buying nothing at all. What is unusual is that even the Washington Post isn't buying the explanation of what was "purchased" with the money. They point out that the "carbon offsets" the Democratic leadership of the House purchased bought nothing at all.

The House of Representatives has presumably learned that money cannot buy love or happiness. Now, it turns out it's not a sure solution to climate guilt, either.

In November, the Democratic-led House spent about $89,000 on so-called carbon offsets. This purchase was supposed to cancel out greenhouse-gas emissions from House buildings — including half of the U.S. Capitol — by triggering an equal reduction in emissions elsewhere.

Some of the money went to farmers in North Dakota, for tilling practices that keep carbon buried in the soil. But some farmers were already doing this, for other reasons, before the House paid a cent.

Other funds went to Iowa, where a power plant had been temporarily rejiggered to burn more cleanly. But that test project had ended more than a year before the money arrived.

The House's purchase provides a view into the confusing world of carbon offsets, a newly popular commodity with few rules. Analysts say some offsets really do cause new reductions in pollution. But others seem to change very little.

To environmentalists, the House's experience is a powerful lesson about a market where pure intentions can produce murky results.

"It didn't change much behavior that wasn't going to happen anyway," said Joseph Romm, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who writes a blog calling for more aggressive action on climate change. "It just, I think, demonstrated why offsets are controversial and possibly pointless. . . . This is a waste of taxpayer money."

The farmers in question were already using no-till farming techniques because of other factors:

About $14,500 of the House's money went to the North Dakota Farmers Union, some to pay farmers to do "no-till" farming. The farmers stopped using conventional plows and instead make tiny slits to plant their seeds. The practice increases the amount of carbon, a component in heat-trapping carbon dioxide, kept in the soil. But organizers said that some farmers had started the practice before the offset money came in because it saves fuel, brings in federal soil-conservation funds and could increase crop yields.

Even environmentalists are crying foul on this, you'll notice. So are some members of the House. Had the money been spent on additional energy efficiency improvements, there would have been real results from the expenditures. Instead, they spent money and got nothing in return.

And, of course, the money they spent happens to be ours, not their own.

On The Border

Hamas continues its assault on Egypt and has now deployed border agents on both sides of the Gaza-Egypt border.

RAFAH, Egypt - A smattering of Hamas-affiliated security forces, many of them bearded and dressed in blue camouflage uniforms, fanned out on both sides of the breached Gaza-Egypt border Sunday to jointly police the crossing with Egyptian guards.
 
Though only about a dozen Hamas forces took up positions, it was their first significant action on the Egyptian side of the border in the five days since Palestinian militants blasted through the partition. Since then, tens of thousands of Gazans have flooded into Egypt to buy food, fuel and other goods made scarce by an Israeli closure of the territory.

Hamas won Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006 and forcibly seized control of Gaza from the rival Fatah faction in June. But the Islamic militant group had no role in controlling Gaza's border crossings before the breach on Wednesday.

Now, Hamas is hoping to change that.

The temporary cooperation appeared to be between low-level security guards on the ground, and not indicative of any change in policy by Hamas or the Egyptian government, which are still far apart on the question of future control of the border.

Egypt wants to restore an arrangement whereby the border was controlled jointly by the Palestinian Authority headed by Fatah, Israel, and European monitors. Hamas rejects the old system and is pushing for a new one where it has a role.

Hundreds of Egyptian forces have been deployed around the border for several days, and some guards have also crossed briefly into Gaza. The Egyptians have been struggling to re-establish control along the border. But for the fifth straight day, Palestinians moved unimpeded back and forth across the frontier.

The small group of Hamas forces appeared to be coordinating efforts to restore order at the border with their Egyptian counterparts, jointly directing traffic and manning checkpoints. Both Hamas and the Egyptians were urging Gaza motorists to go back home.

There is a lesson here. A nation either enforces its sovereignty or it has to abandon its borders and eventually its sovereignty. That appears to be happening in Egypt right now.

It is happening somewhere else right now. A little closer to home.

“We’ll Eat You Up, We Love You So”

Somehow, Maurice Sendak's famous line from Where the Wild Things Are seems completely appropriate to this gem from Hillary Clinton (via Michelle Malkin).

Love drove Bill over campaign line: Clinton

Hillary Clinton admitted Sunday her husband Bill’s hard-charging campaign tactics had gone overboard, but chalked the ex-president’s fiery broadsides up to love and a chronic lack of sleep.

A day after rival Barack Obama trounced her in the South Carolina primary, the former first lady also mounted a vigorous defense of the two Clinton White House terms, which Obama has said did not spark transformational change.

Clinton was asked on CBS television’s “Face the Nation” whether her husband was “out of control” after he took the Illinois senator, and the media to task, during a foul-tempered week-long campaign.

“You know, my husband has such a great commitment to me and to my campaign,” the New York senator said.

“He loves me just like, you know, husbands and wives get out there and work on each others’ behalf.”

She blamed the tensions of the tight battle for the party’s presidential nomination

“Maybe he got a little carried away.”

Ah, that wild rumpus thing gets old quickly, doesn't it? As Sendak's book illustrated rather nicely. I wonder if Hillary might be worried that Wild Bill is actually beginning to eat her chances up.

Actually, I don't really wonder, I'm pretty sure Hillary is getting worried.

You’re Stupid If You Get Old

In Britain, that appears to be the tack the government is taking.

Drivers intending to stay behind the wheel well into old age may have to pass exams proving they are mentally up to it.

Ministers want to ban anyone over 75 who does not pass the exams and they will insist that drivers repeat the series of IQ tests every five years if they want to stay on the road.

The new barriers to elderly motorists will also include an eyesight exam, but they will not have to re-take their practical driving test.

Since 1974, motorists have been allowed to continue unhindered until they reach 70. After that, they simply fill out a form every three years to declare they are fit to drive and are free of ailments such as epilepsy, diabetes and heart conditions.

But a shake-up was ordered because the 1.5million motorists aged 75 or over who have licences today will soar as the "baby boomer" generation approaches retirement and beyond.

The proposals, to be announced within weeks in a Government consultation document, suggest a "cognitive" exam to measure brain power.

It is likely to include an IQ-style puzzle such as being asked to spot the odd one out from a series of shapes.

Last night, a spokesman for the charity Age Concern warned: "A blanket system risks stereotyping the elderly as bad drivers."

Muriel Gladwin, 94, from Hereford, who taught herself to drive 82 years ago and has held a clean

licence since, said: "It's the wrong way round. You don't have as many older people getting into accidents as younger ones.

"It's the younger drivers who should be having more tests."

i have nothing whatsoever against eye examinations for older drivers. But younger folks who back what Britain is proposing should realize that some day, they too will be older. Unless the other British proposal kicks in, of course. Well, maybe that is the real message from the British government. You really would be stupid to grow old there. Because growing old is rapidly becoming an "unhealthy lifestyle choice" in Britain. Soon, the old in Britain will only be good for one thing: energy.

The real future is even darker than George Orwell feared.

Thought So

I kind of suspected that Ted Kennedy would not be far behind Caroline Kennedy in endorsing Barack Obama. That appears to be the case this afternoon.

ABC News' Rick Klein Reports: Senator Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., will endorse Barack Obama's presidential bid on Monday in Washington, a source close to Kennedy tells ABC News.

The endorsement gives Obama a boost in the eyes of the Washington establishment, and comes after some prominent Democrats criticized Senator Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and former president Bill Clinton for their campaign tactics before Obama's landslide victory in South Carolina.

Caroline Kennedy, the late President John F. Kennedy's only daughter, announced her endorsement of Obama in an Op-Ed for the New York Times on Sunday.

And in an exclusive "This Week" interview, Obama hinted that the senior senator from Massachusetts might be next.

"I'll let Ted Kennedy speak for himself. And nobody does it better. But obviously, any of the Democratic candidates would love to have Ted Kennedy's support. And we have certainly actively sought it," Obama said. "I will let him make his announcement and his decision when he decides it's appropriate."

I mentioned in comments a while ago that it appeared that a tide was beginning to set - both for Obama and against Hillary Clinton. The fault lines in the Democratic party are beginning to show rather clearly. It has been a different race so far than everyone expected. It looks to be getting even more interesting.

Meanwhile, Over In China

Chinese officials are scrambling to try to straighten out transportation chaos and major disruptions in energy and food supplies ahead of a major national holiday. Why, you ask?

Because of the brutal winter weather that is gripping the country, all the way down to the southern regions.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China on Sunday ordered urgent steps to fight transport chaos and threats to energy and food supplies caused by brutal winter weather that forecasters said will continue as the nation heads into a major holiday.
 
The cold spell has lashed central, eastern and southern China in recent days, bringing heavy snow and sleet to provinces used to milder winters. Dozens of people have died, and many roads, railways and airports have been paralyzed.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said the chaotic weather was threatening lives and straining supplies of fresh food, coal, oil and electricity ahead of holidays marking the Lunar New Year, which starts on February 7.

"Urgently mobilize and work as one to wage this tough battle against disaster," Wen told officials, according to the transcript on the government Web site (www.gov.cn). "Ensure that the people enjoy a joyful and auspicious Spring Festival."

He and other senior officials announced steps aimed at softening the economic blow from the bad weather.

Provinces must share coal and electricity, officials would waive some transport charges for farm goods and they would keep a close eye on price hikes. Train services must also be able to cope with tens of millions of passengers heading home for the holidays, while more coal must be found for power plants.

But the government's chief weather forecaster, Yang Guiming, said the harsh weather was likely to continue, the China News Service reported.

"There's no room for optimism about this abnormal rain and snow weather across the country over the next week," he said.

How bad is it? Well, homes have collapsed under the weight of snow and ice. Power lines have snapped and the government is taking the drastic step of reopening coal mines currently closed for safety reasons. The worst has not even hit yet according to the government. How extensive is the snow? Well, the Rutgers Global Snow Lab shows the majority of China is currently covered in the white stuff. Closer to home, the West Coast is being pummeled by yet another major storm with heavy rains and blizzard conditions at higher elevations. There is a brief warming trend forecast for the nation's midsection, but the arctic cold will return early next week, just in time for the remains of the systems pounding the West Coast to arrive in the heartland.

January 27, 1967

Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee. Rest in peace.

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