Just last Thursday, June 10th, 2010, the demolition of a building in Vancouver took a turn for the worst when, twice in the same day, the “professionals” behind the demolition sent entire brick walls falling into the streets. The collapsed walls destroyed city property and narrowly missing workers, pedestrians and drivers. The whole debacle was captured from various angles by onlookers and posted on YouTube.

This video shows the first collapse, as a second-story wall falls to the sidewalk, damaging a streetlight and stunning a woman driving black Volvo while stopped at the intersection.

The same collapse, viewed from above in a taller building, shows the proximity of construction flaggers who had to scurry away to avoid getting hit with debris.

Later that day, the demolition continued on the remaining wall. (Notice the still-dangling streetlight damaged in the first incident.) This wall buckles and falls onto the sidewalk, crushing fences, two newspaper boxes and sends an entire street lamp pole crashing into the street where cars were passing only seconds before!

The second wall collapse, taken by another bystander:

At this time the demolition site has been closed pending further investigation. The building in question was Vancouver’s William Davis Centre for Acting Development, which was being demolished by a company called Global Excavation and Demolition to make way for new condominiums. They may want to consider building a school for construction demolition safety instead.

Local Vancouver news outlets have more on the story:
The Vancouver Sun
The Province
CBC News

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You may remember last month that Stephen Colbert directed his Colbert Nation minions to take over the NASA vote to name the next International Space Station module after himself. He did, in fact, win the vote when COLBERT climbed the ranks to gain 230,539 votes, even more than the NASA supplied 2nd place name of Serenity.

On tonight’s Colbert Report on Comedy Central, NASA officially announced that the node would not be named Colbert. Instead, Node 3 will be known as Tranquility, to honor the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. Colbert didn’t leave empty handed, however, as NASA also announced that they will install a treadmill inside the Tranquility module which has been scientifically named the “Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill” or C.O.L.B.E.R.T.

On his show, Colbert graciously accepted the consolation prize, proudly confirming to himself that NASA followed his command.

NEW SPACE STATION MODULE NAME HONORS APOLLO 11 ANNIVERSARY [nasa.gov]

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In December 2009 a new room will be added to the International Space Station that will include a “cupola” — an observation deck with 360-degrees of windows. As you can see in the image above it looks like a small turret dome (although it doesn’t rotate) sticking out of the Node 3 room like a giant R2-D2 head. The panoramic view will be the perfect spot for astronauts to observe and photograph the earth and space, as well as offer better views to operate the station’s 57-foot robotic arm.

I always thought the ISS needed better windows, however one needs to consider the risks of such windows causing exposure to solar radiation and damage from micrometeorites. This observation deck certainly fits the bill and adds about +23 cool points to the ISS, as if it wasn’t awesome-tacular enough!

As an added bonus, now until March 20th NASA is letting the public vote on what name to give Node 3, which includes the cupola, when it gets added to the ISS. Click here to cast your vote at Nasa.gov.

Help NASA Name Node 3

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From FoxNews.com:

With southern California fighting wind-driven flames and spot fires breaking out across northern California, firefighters have fingered at least one arsonist: an unlucky squirrel.

Redding firefighters say the squirrel set off the blaze when it shorted out a power line, caught fire and dropped into dry vegetation.

 Flaming Squirrel Blamed for Northern California Wildfire [FoxNews.com]

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This is surveillance footage from inside and outside a bank as an F5 tornado ripped through Parkersburg, Iowa Memorial Day weekend with winds exceeding 200mph. Several angles from the interior of the bank show windows exploding and debris flying in every direction. The exterior security camera captured the tornado leveling a house that was located across the street from the bank. No one was inside the bank at the time, though this series of storms killed eight people in the Parkersburg area.

Interior Bank Security Camera Footage – Weather.com

Exterior Bank Security Camera Raw Footage – Weather.com

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This morning at 4:37am a magnitude 5.2 earthquake shook the Midwest and Southenrn Illinois. Local news channel WAVE-TV was on the air as their studio began to shake during the weather report. Its funny, as the weatherman nervously continues through his weather report as studio lights shake overhead and external cameras bobble around, and his female co-anchor considers hiding under her desk.

View Video [USA Today]

Additional videos from the studio [WAVE-TV]

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On Wednesday, February 20th, sometime around 9:36pm CST, (coincidentally, nearly the same exact time as the total lunar eclipse) the Navy successfully hit the decaying spy satellite USA-193 with a missile launched from a ship somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.

45-minutes ago from the AFP:

The US Defense Department said late Wednesday it had successfully used a ship-board missile to shoot down an out-of-control spy satellite before it plummeted to Earth.

“At approximately 10:26 pm today (0326 GMT Thursday), a US Navy Aegis warship, the USS Lake Erie, fired a single modified tactical standard missile 3, hitting the satellite approximately 247 kilometers (133 nautical miles) over the Pacific Ocean as it travelled in space more than 17,000 miles (44,000 kilometers) per hour,” the Defense Department said in a statement.

The Pentagon reports that it could be 24 hours before they know if their primary objective, to destroy the large fuel tank full of toxic hydrazine propellant, was successful or not, though they do report viewing an explosion on impact.

Debris from the explosion will begin falling and burning up in the earth’s atmosphere immediately, and could continue for days. I don’t know about you, but if you’re in the projected ground path of where the satellite should have been, thats a ripe invitation to head outside and watch for an impromptu meteor debris shower over the next few nights.

On any accord, let’s pray to the Gods of All Things Awesome that somebody is going to share some video of the missile-on-satellite action. Please!

US shoots down rogue spy satellite – AFP

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President Bush has approved a plan by the Pentagon to use a Navy missile to shoot down the defunct spy satellite that has been falling from orbit since late January. Originally, the National Security Council considered letting the satellite re-enter the earth’s atmosphere on its own accord, betting on the fact that whatever small chunks weren’t burnt to a crisp would land harmlessly in an ocean or unpopulated area. Turns out, they don’t want to take that chance. “This is all about trying to reduce the danger to human beings,” Deputy National Security Adviser James Jeffrey said in an AP story. I’d bet that its also about the fact that this is a spy satellite after all, and they can’t have that top-secret equipment, no matter how crispy, fall into the wrong hands.

No specific date has been set, yet it is probable that the window of opportunity to blast the satellite before it enters the atmosphere will be within the next two weeks. My hope is that they will let us know when to expect the “PEW! PEW! PEW!” action so we can all grab our lawn chairs and enjoy the fireworks.

The Associated Press: US Plans to Shoot Down Broken Satellite

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