bad weather and bad vibes

Friday evening we went to a movie. While there it rained very hard, but we didn't realize how much. In the morning paper they say we got about 4inches of rain in 1.5 hours! It was still raining after the movie, but we sat and talked to a friend while eating a bit until the showers subsided some. They then gave us a ride home and we were quite surprised to find about 3 inches of water on the floor of the garage/basement! Fortunately not enough to cause serious harm. We also found a little water on the floor in the apartment by all the windows that face south- even though they were closed! The newspaper has many pictures of buses and cars sitting in deep water, so it was much worse in other areas. When such downpours occur there is no real way for the water to be handled unless the entire system was built to handle it, but that much rain in such a short time is apparently fairly rare. They say this was the 4th largest amount in that sort of time since they have kept records, which is not a long period, but long enough to say its not so common. Still, every year, there are more localized downpours that cause havoc in smaller areas.
This past week also witnessed the possibility of significant social unrest in the form of sectarian violence. In 1992 there was a rather sad case where a mosque was destroyed by people who felt the site belonged to an earlier Hindu temple. The case has been in the courts for 18 years while they try to sort out who it belongs to- Hindus or Muslims. People say that one side is likely to be unhappy - whichever way the decision goes. In addition the judge is due to retire in less than a week and if the case is not decided now, the case will probably go one for a long time more than it already has. The whole country was put on some sort of alert on Friday and Saturday, but then the verdict was delayed until this coming Tuesday and who knows what will happen then?