I thought your readers would like to know that there has been a recall of some dangerous mats in some Toyotas. Here is the news we got on Guam.
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Photo courtesy of lisabearnson.com

Quick Adjustment Fixes Acceleration Problem On Popular Models

By Michael Rudolph

GUAM – The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued a vehicle safety alert that urges all Toyota and Lexus owners to remove the driver’s side floor mats immediately. Do not replace the original floor mat with any other floor mat.

According to the NHTSA, the safety alert was issued because of numerous instances in which the driver’s side floor mat has created an interference with the gas pedal. The interference can cause “the accelerator to get stuck open under certain conditions” and can cause the vehicle to speed up and crash, possibly resulting in serious bodily harm or death.

Atkins Kroll Is Ready To Act

Guam News Factor was able to reach Mr. Larry Nicely, Customer Service Manager at Atkins Kroll Toyota for a comment. Nicely made it clear that the recall was related to the “driver’s side floor mat and clip” only. Atkins Kroll will not charge its customers for the recall repair and it is best to make an appointment. However, no appointment is necessary to have this life-saving repair made.

Affected vehicles include the following:

2007-2010 Camry
2005-2010 Avalon
2004-2009 Prius
2005-2010 Tacoma
2007-2010 Tundra
2007-2010 ES 350
2006-2010 IS 250 and IS350

Guam residents who own any of these cars should call the Atkins Kroll service department at 648-1876 regarding the safety recall alert. Nicely was pleased to provide us this valuable information because this is a real life safety issue.

In the NHTSA press release, Ray LaHood, the NHTSA Secretary, stated that “this is an urgent matter…for everyone’s sake, we strongly urge owners of these vehicles to remove mats or other obstacles that could lead to unintended acceleration.”

According to the New York Times, “3.8 million vehicles” are affected under this recall and “the recall is the largest ever for Toyota.”
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Hafa adai

Leland

The point is that 13-year-old girls should have rights too, and if we let every rich guy rape them and then pay them off handsomely, what will stop the poorer rapists from doing the same and then going the economy route? And all we’ll wind up with is a lot of f£ucked-up 13-year-old girls. Which is not good. For the girls or the society as a whole.

Sorry, Roman Polanski. I like your films too. But you did the crime. You gotta do the time.

We had a massive earthquake and tsunami here on Samoa. I hope some of your readers will lend a hand we could sure use it. Many of us on the island read you blog daily. My girls group formed because of your blog. We are the Girlz of Samoa. We love you and hope to meet you one day.

If you come to Samoa, we will organize a parade for you. My brother thinks you are so hot, he asked me to tell you to say this when you meet him ‘O ai lou igoa.
He is attempting to use an old custom to say to you later in the evening “Ua leva le po, ina tatou momoe ia.”

The first question you are asking him his name. This he thinks would allow our customs to let him to say to you later in the evening the second which translates “It is late in the night, let us retire to sleep.”

You get his horny drift. Smack him for me.

We are trying to keep a happy face on in the presence of this calamity.
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Oct 1, 2009 12:33 am US/Pacific
Death Toll Rises In Samoa Quake, Tsunami
 How You Can Help Tsunami Victims
APIA, Samoa (CBS 5 / AP) ?

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A man searches among the debris at the beach following a magnitude 8.3 earthquake, on Sept. 30, 2009, in Lalomanu, Samoa.
Phil Walter/Getty Images
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Stunned Samoans dug through the sodden wreckage of their homes and told of the terror of being trapped underwater or flung inland by the tsunami that
ravaged towns and killed at least 149 people in the South Pacific.

“The devastation caused was complete,” Samoan Minister Tuilaepa Sailele told New Zealand’s National Radio on Wednesday after inspecting the southeast coast of the main island of Upolu, the epicenter of the damage. “In some villages absolutely no house was standing. All that was achieved within 10 minutes by the very powerful tsunami.”

His own village of Lesa was washed away, as were many others in Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga.

Military transports flew medical personnel, food, water and medicine to Samoa and American Samoa, both devastated by a tsunami triggered by an undersea earthquake. A cargo plane from New Zealand brought in a temporary morgue and a body identification team.

Officials expect the death toll to rise as more areas are searched. Among the hardest hit areas was the southeast coast of Samoa, with authorities reporting that several tourist resorts were wiped out.

“To me it was like a monster—just black water coming to you. It wasn’t a wave that breaks, it was a full force of water coming straight,” said Luana Tavale, an American Samoa government employee.

Survivors fled to higher ground after the magnitude 8.0 quake struck at 6:48 a.m. local time (1:48 p.m. EDT; 1748 GMT) Tuesday. The residents then were engulfed by four tsunami waves 15 to 20 feet (4 to 6 meters) high that reached up to a mile (1.5 kilometers) inland.

The waves splintered houses and left cars and boats scattered about the coastline.

“I was scared. I was shocked,” said Didi Afuafi, 28, who was on a bus when the giant waves came ashore on American Samoa. “All the people on the bus were screaming, crying and trying to call their homes. We couldn’t get on cell phones. The phones just died on us. It was just crazy.”

With the water approaching, the bus driver sped to the top of a nearby mountain, where 300 to 500 people were gathered, including patients evacuated from the main hospital. Among them were newborns with IVs, crying children and frightened elderly people.

A family on the mountain provided food and water, while clergymen led prayers. Afuafi said people were still on edge and feared another quake.

“This is going to be talked about for generations,” said Afuafi, who lives just outside the village of Leone, one of the hardest hit areas.

Samoa National Disaster Management committee member Filomina Nelson told New Zealand’s National Radio the number of dead in her country had reached 83 — mostly elderly and young children. At least 30 people were killed on American Samoa, Gov. Togiola Tulafono said.

Officials on the island of Tonga said Thursday nine people had been confirmed killed on the northern island of Niuas, and four critically injured people had been flown out for treatment. Two of the island’s three villages were destroyed.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii said it issued an alert, but the waves got to the islands so quickly that residents only had about 10 minutes to respond. Another system designed to alert aid agencies suffered a hardware malfunction that delayed notification, but that did not affect residents.

On Samoa, the two-hour drive from the Apia airport to the heavily damaged southeast coast became little more than a link between flattened villages. Mattresses hung from trees, and utility poles were bent at awkward angles.

It was clear that tourists were among the casualties, but officials said they had no solid number of visitors in the area.

Three of the key resorts on the coast are scenes of “total devastation” while a fourth “has a few units standing on higher ground,” Nynette Sass of Samoa’s National Disaster Management committee told New Zealand’s National Radio on Thursday.

Dr. Ben Makalavea from Apia’s main hospital told the broadcaster that some couples can’t find their children, and fear they may have been washed out to sea. “One woman we saw was so confused that she doesn’t even know where she comes from,” he said.

Makalavea added that the hospital needs nurses, doctors, surgeons and blood to treat the increasing numbers of people with broken bones and cuts.

Red Cross relief workers were providing food, clothes and water to thousands of homeless now camping in the wooded hills above the coast. Volunteer Futi Mauigoa said water was in short supply.

“Tonight they are all going to be back up in the hills because the air out here is not really healthy for them,” he said of the rotting stench in the disaster area.

In Sale Ataga village, more than 50 police searched for bodies underneath uprooted trees.

Tony Fauena, a 29-year-old farmer, said the bodies of his 35-year-old niece and her 6-month-old son were found Tuesday but four other family members were still missing. “We don’t know if the rest are under there or released out to sea,” he said.

Suavai Ioane in Voutosi village said he was carried by a wave about 80 yards (meters) inland. Eight bodies were found in a nearby swamp.

The quake was centered about 120 miles south of the islands of Samoa, which has about 220,000 people, and American Samoa, a U.S. territory of 65,000.

Another underwater earthquake of 7.6 magnitude rocked western Indonesia on Wednesday, briefly triggering a tsunami alert along the Indian Ocean. At least 75 people were reported killed. Experts said the seismic events were not related.

Officials in the South Pacific islands struggled with power and communications outages.

In American Samoa’s capital of Pago Pago, power was expected to be out in some areas for up to a month, and officials said some 2,200 people were in seven shelters across the island.

The waves lifted a building housing a hardware store and carried it across a two-lane highway. Crews later found the two employees in the debris.

A Coast Guard C-130 plane loaded with aid and carrying Federal Emergency Management Agency officials flew from Hawaii to Pago Pago, where debris had been cleared from runways. President Barack Obama declared a major disaster for American Samoa.

Australian officials said they will send an air force plane carrying 20 tons of humanitarian aid, as well as aid officials and medical personnel to Samoa.

New Zealand provided 1 million New Zealand dollars ($710,000) in immediate aid to Samoa, Tonga and the Samoan Red Cross on Thursday. Acting Prime Minister Bill English said it was the first “of a long haul for … New Zealand … providing resources.”

He said Prime Minister John Key is cutting short his U.S. vacation to fly to Samoa to inspect the damage.

Hundreds of people bombarded American Samoa’s radio stations with requests to announce the names of their missing loved ones. Broadcasters urged listeners to contact their families immediately.

The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs said three Australians were among the dead. The British Foreign Office said one Briton was missing and presumed dead.

While the earthquake and tsunami were big, they were not as large as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed more than 230,000 in a dozen countries across Asia.
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We are hopping that some of your readers will send us some help.

Alvina