Shake Rattle and Roll

Earthquake season is upon us, three earthquakes in two days in Sumatra with sceptics starting to say that a "biggie" is on it's way! Meanwhile in Sulawesi two earthquakes struck yesterday.

On Wednesday September the 2nd a large 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck West Java, this one caused quite a panic in Jakarta and was quickly followed by two aftershocks, measuring 5.1 and 5.4 within a few hours.

I had been in a watering hole in Kemang (a fashionable suburb of Jakarta as I am told) and never having encountered an earthquake before was at first unsure what was going on.

Was this the fabled flash-backs that Timothy Leary had written about, after effects from 30 years ago while experimenting with psychedelic's, apparently not when I realised that the pictures on the walls were swaying and the floor below me felt like jelly.

Out in the carpark, watching a building site next door I saw the guy from the tower crane which was about 14 stories high perform the quickest emergency evacuation ever while the 6 tons of counterweight on the cranes jib moved dangerously from side to side.

Realising through simple trigonometry that where I was standing was just about where the crane would fall if it were to let loose I decided that perhaps I was safer indoors with a beer rather than exposed to danger in the car park.



Yesterday's quake in Padang is thought to have killed over a thousand people, but, as has been demonstrated before, this initial number is likely to increase exponentially due to the difficulties in assessing exactly how many people live in any given area.

I really don't think my tinfoil hat will protect me when the next one shakes up on us!

Terrorist my arse!

I don't know why, but, it seems that the government needed to de-construct the myths surrounding Noordin Top, the terrorist mastermind who was killed during a raid in Central Java last month.

Obviously Forensic Scientists were obliged to study the body to ensure that it was in fact him who had been shot, but the latest news has made me question how far a forensic examination will go in search of the truth.

Here is the report!

“There is an anomaly in Noordin’s anus because it is shaped like a funnel,” said Mun’im Idris, a forensic pathologist from the University of Indonesia. “It indicated that somebody had sodomized him.”

Mun’im was part of the team of experts that conducted the autopsy on the body of Noordin, a Malaysian-born terrorist sought for a string of attacks carried out across the country in the name of Islam.

It is unclear why Mun’im released the information. A photograph was released to substantiate this information.



It appears that this information has caused speculation on Noordin’s “sexual deviance” and it is also thought that there may be a backlash from supporters and extremists within the Muslim community that supported Noordin and his supporters. (I am currently smirking trying to imagine what their protest banners may look like.)

Separately, a national Police spokesman said he had no information about the allegations.

“I haven’t received the report about the anomaly on Noordin’s body because it is not a part of the investigation, however, we always knew he was an arsehole”

It now brings into question as to whether he had met a former Prime Minister while he lived in Malaysia. State sponsored terrorism anyone?