MetaFilter posts by insomnia_lj.
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Global warming underestimated by up to 78%. Scientists analyzing historical climate data for Europe have established the existence of a greater-than-anticipated positive feedback mechanism between high temperatures and global carbon dioxide levels. This provides more scientific evidence to support previously-expressed concerns that as global warming intensifies, a chain-reaction of considerably higher temperatures may occur. This corresponds with a new report released by the Australian government, claiming that "there is now perceived to be a greater risk that the upper end of the well known IPCC TAR estimate of a 1.4 to 5.8°C temperature rise will be reached or exceeded by 2100."
"Estimates of future warming . . . may have to be raised by about 50 percent."
posted on May-24-06 at 2:10 AM
Bush out of favor in 47 out of 50 states. The SurveyUSA 50-state-poll shows some interesting details on Bush's approval rating, which has fallen to just 35% in North (and South) Carolina, 29% in Missouri, and 42% in Texas. He remains popular in only three states: Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. Could the Democrats have a shot even in Utah in the not-too-distant future? A lot of Utahns think so.
posted on May-16-06 at 9:40 AM
Hungry like the wolf. In his state-of-the-nation address, Vladamir Putin took a swipe at the Bush administration, saying that Russia should build "a strong, reliable home because we do see what's going on in the world. . . Comrade Wolf knows whom to eat. It's eating without listening to anyone. And by all appearances, it's not going to listen . . . Where is all this pathos about the need to fight for human rights and democracy when it comes to the need to pursue their own interests? Here everything is possible. There are no limits."
posted on May-10-06 at 4:01 PM
UN reports "vast" levels of hunger for Iraq's children. The World Food Programme is reporting that a "dismal shortage of cash" is jeopardizing the health of over 3 million Iraqis, over half of them children. The organization cites "a growing negative impact on the most vulnerable". Last year, a survey indicated that over 27 percent of all Iraqi children under the age of five were chronically malnourished. This was before reports came out, indicating that food rations have been cut off, and reports of food prices escalating sharply. Some Iraqis have resorted to selling their blood for money to make ends meet. Approximately 400,000 Iraqi children now suffer from "wasting," a condition characterized by chronic diarrhea and dangerous deficiencies of protein. Iraq now has the third highest infant mortality rate in the world, just ahead of Afghanistan.
posted on May-9-06 at 4:47 AM
CIA warned White House -- no WMD programs in Iraq. A retired senior CIA official interviewed by 60 Minutes claims that the White House ignored intelligence from Iraq's foreign minister, Naji Sabri in the run-up to the invasion. CIA Director George Tenet delivered the information to President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other high-ranking officials in September 2002, according to the CIA official. A few days later the administration said it was no longer interested. "...we said 'Well, what about the intel?' And they said 'Well, this isn't about intel anymore. This is about regime change.' " The interview airs on CBS, Sunday at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
posted on Apr-22-06 at 1:19 PM
LiveJournal adopts banner ads. SixApart has broken a longstanding promise/agreed-upon principle (recently deleted) and is adding banner ads to the service, which will be visible to the general public and approximately 95% of their users. Last year's April Fool's joke suddenly not very amusing anymore. Is SixApart's bubble a bit overinflated?
posted on Apr-19-06 at 6:31 AM
2006 Webby Award finallists announced. So, if your favorite home/welcome page My Yahoo or Wonderbra? Two nominations for Metacritic. Other Meta-related sites, not so much... Best of the web?!
posted on Apr-11-06 at 1:17 PM
New York Times to release Bush/Blair memo tomorrow. The memo, which was mentioned previously, but never publically disclosed, confirms that George W. Bush and Tony Blair were determined to invade Iraq, regardless of UN approval, and despite what both leaders told their citizens. More troubling, the memo also indicates that Bush may have conspired to assassinate Saddam Hussein, which appears to violate Sec. 5g of Executive Order 11905, which states that "No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination." This executive order was considered the law of the land even after 9/11, when Bob Barr proposed legislation H.R. 19, which was never enacted into law.
posted on Mar-26-06 at 11:04 PM
Город наш! The city is ours! Belarussians are using weblogs, online communities, and text messaging to organize, share news and numerous photos, and oppose their corrupt government's fraudulent election. Patriotism, flags, and dark blue is in fashion, whether the government likes it or not.
posted on Mar-23-06 at 2:09 AM
Democratic presidential candidate rails against US imperialism. "The platform . . . condemns the experiment in imperialism as an inexcusable blunder, which has involved us in enormous expense, brought us weakness instead of strength, and laid our nation open to the charge of abandoning the fundamental principles of a republic."
A prominent American author who initially supported the conflict, changed his mind, calling it "a mess, a quagmire from which each fresh step renders the difficulty of extrication immensely greater.” The US is “the kind of World Power . . . that a prairie-dog village is . . . it is the duty of our Government to stand sentinel, with solemn mien, and lifted nose, and curved paws, on top of our little World-Power mound.”
posted on Mar-20-06 at 7:24 PM
Kinderstart sues Google to get a higher page ranking. Why on earth should Google be obligated to give another search engine access to their proprietary page ranking methods, unless the goal is for Kinderstart to either steal or play games with Google's ranking methods... again?
posted on Mar-19-06 at 3:51 PM
A world of sounds. Despite their difficult URL, The Freesound Project has grown at a rapid pace over the last year, arguably surpassing archive.org's audio library when it comes to sound effects, field recordings, site design, and usability. Now Freesound is combining their sound library with geotagging and Google Maps, allowing users to navigate the world by sound too! (previously on mefi)
posted on Mar-4-06 at 4:27 AM
Bush's "pepperoni" defence of outsourcing. "India's middle class is buying air-conditioners, kitchen appliances and washing machines, and a lot of them from American companies like GE and Whirlpool and Westinghouse. And that means their job base is growing here in the United States. Younger Indians are acquiring a taste for pizzas from Domino's, Pizza Hut..."
posted on Feb-23-06 at 11:32 AM
Berlusconi allies with Italian fascists. Declaring the opposition party as a threat to democracy, Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi did the obvious thing... he allied with the fascists. After all, what did they ever do to harm anyone? They look like a friendly, patriotic group. Cleancut... and they sound kinda cheery too. Their websites feature familiar faces. I'm sure the knifings and the bombings -- yes, plural -- were just a matter of youthful overexuberance. So, where's Bush on this issue?
posted on Feb-21-06 at 6:15 AM
British soldiers filmed beating Iraqis. A British tabloid has released footage showing British troops beating Iraqi rioters. The video, available in realplayer format or Windows Media format, was apparently taken by a British corporal, and shows at least eight British soldiers dragging four young rioters inside a British army compound, where they were repeatedly beaten with batons, boots and fists, and kicked in the genitals. Arab television and the BBC have since aired the footage.
posted on Feb-13-06 at 4:01 PM
Abramoff says Bush is lying. "Having my picture taken with someone doesn't mean that I'm a friend with them or know them very well." - George W. Bush, Jan. 26, 2006.
"The guy saw me in almost a dozen settings and joked with me about a bunch of things, including details of my kids. Perhaps he has forgotten everything, who knows." - Jack Abramoff
Mr. Abramoff, who raised over $100,000 for the Bush campaign, also indicated that he was sent a personal invitation to stay at the President's Texas ranch.
posted on Feb-10-06 at 2:51 AM
Hamas wins majority in Palestinian elections. In a surprise upset, Hamas has unseated Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party. This after initial results indicated that Fatah would win, and both the Bush administration and Israel indicated that Abbas shouldn't form a coalition government with members of Hamas, but should keep them entirely in opposition. Prominent Hamas leader Ismail Haneya said, "America and Israel wanted to vote against Hamas, so the Palestinian people voted for the Hamas . . . and voted against the occupation." He reiterated that Hamas would resist Israel's occupation until all Palestinian rights were regained.
posted on Jan-26-06 at 3:21 AM
Moqtada Sadr promises to help defend Iran. The Iraqi Shi'ite leader promised to defend Iran -- presumably in Iraq -- if Iran is attacked by the US. Moqtada Sadr is the commander of the Mahdi Army, which fought US troops for weeks in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf, threatening to unite poor, discontented Iraqi Shi'ites in common cause with Sunni insurgents. Sadr and his followers are known to have close ideological and logistical links to clerics inside Iran. In the event of a conflict with Iraq, their assistance to the Iranians could greatly increase instability within Iraq, possibly assisting elements of Iran's Revolutionary Guards' Qods Force in infiltrating Iraq, and orchestrating attacks upon American interests.
posted on Jan-24-06 at 9:27 AM
Iraq - All oil, no gas. A consortium of 34 Turkish companies have joined together to stop all exports of petrol / refined oil products to Iraq, because Iraq's government owes them over $1 billion that they have so far been unable to pay. Iraq's largest refinery was forced to shut down in December, after its truck drivers walked off the job due to insurgent threats. They reopened ten days later, only to shut down again after an insurgent swarm attack killed and wounded more drivers. The refinery has once more ceased activity, as their reserves of refined fuel are full and there is no way to get them to their customers. Iraq's diesel-driven power plants are undersupplied too, leading to worsening outages.
posted on Jan-22-06 at 2:46 PM
Disney eats crow. Disney, whose former CEO Michael Eisner rejected the idea of Disney being hired to market Pixar's movies, who insisted on owning their sequel rights, and who apparently hoped Finding Nemo would flop so that he could get better negotiating terms with Pixar, is now in talks for buying Pixar outright for approximately $6.7 billion in stock. Steve Jobs gets his revenge... again. How much revenge? 50.1% of $6.7 billion dollars, apparently.
posted on Jan-19-06 at 9:24 PM
We don't not make deals with terrorists. Yesterday, the Guardian reported: "Kidnappers threatened to kill the abducted US journalist Jill Carroll unless the Bush administration ordered the release of Iraqi women prisoners within 72 hours, according to a report on al-Jazeera television yesterday." Today, the BBC reports "Iraq's ministry of justice has told the BBC that six of the eight women being held by coalition forces in Iraq have been released early. The six were freed because there was insufficient evidence to charge them, a justice ministry spokesman said." Cause, meet effect. Effect, this is cause.
posted on Jan-18-06 at 12:33 PM
Fables of the reconstruction. The Bush administration does not intend to seek any further funding for Iraqi reconstruction, leaving only $3.5 billion left to spend out of the $18.4 billion the US budgeted. Approximately half of all reconstruction costs spent so far -- $7.5 billion -- have been eaten up by increased costs due to the insurgency. All remaining reconstruction costs will depend entirely upon foriegn contributions and Iraq's oil industry. But will foriegn aid come through if its too dangerous to work there? Can Iraq's oil industry pay for reconstruction when its output has been in a tailspin for well over a year, falling from 2.8 million barrels a day in May 2004, to 1.82 million barrels per day in January 2005, to 1.2 million barrels a day by November. and ending the year with a low of 1.1 million barrels a day in December? As for the Iraqi infrastructure left to be rebuilt, water and sanitation is still poor in most areas, and electricity production, which looked promising last summer after imports from Iran and Turkey, has deteriorated again, falling to only 3700 megawatts in November 2005, essentially at the same level produced in May 2004.
posted on Jan-2-06 at 11:25 PM
Ding dong! It's a Christmas song! (Windows Media) Günther has returned to put the tra-la-la and ding-ding-dong back into Christmas.
posted on Dec-13-05 at 6:08 PM
Bush administrationadmits denies making mistake! Starts off new relationship with conservative German chancellor by personally insulting her. "We are not quite sure what was in her head." - a senior Bush administration official, referring to Merkel. This after Condoleeza Rice gave Merkel private assurances and made a public statement in which she said "when and if mistakes are made, we work very hard and as quickly as possible to rectify them. Any policy will sometimes have mistakes . . . we will do everything that we can to rectify those mistakes." Obviously, Condi was mistaken. The Bush administration does not make mistakes.
posted on Dec-6-05 at 2:54 PM
Al-Jazeera bites back. In 2003, following US pressure on the Emir of Qatar and claims of a secret meeting of House, Senate, Pentagon, and intelligence leaders who authorized the use of "all possible pressure" to silence the station, al-Jazeera fired its general manager, stopped referring to Iraqi insurgents as "the resistance", and banned the airing of hostage executions and the death of US soldiers. Today, following recent reports of George W. Bush planning an attack against al-Jazeera HQ in Qatar, and the US bribing of Iraqi reporters and news sources, al-Jazeera seems to have changed that policy by airing the video of 10 US Marines being killed in an improvised explosive device attack. (NSFW. Windows Media. Right click this link to save the video, or this link to stream it.) Is this change indicative of larger changes in Arab public opinion, or has the Emir of Qatar decided to push back?
posted on Dec-3-05 at 8:14 PM
Pentagon bribery scandal -- Iraqi journalists bought out. Officials in Washington have admitted that the US military has bribed Iraqi journalists with under-the-table payoffs of up to $200 a month -- twice the average Iraqi monthly income -- for producing upbeat newspaper, radio and television reports about the war in Iraq. This follows a similar report yesterday that the military secretly paid Iraqi newspapers to run dozens of pro-American articles written by the US Information Operations Task Force in Baghdad. A Pentagon spokesman described the report as "troubling". "This article raises some questions as to whether or not some of the practices that are described in there are consistent with the principles of this department."
posted on Dec-1-05 at 11:12 AM
What kind of an idiot would call for an attack on our ally Qatar? Frank Gaffney Jr. did. He served as Reagan's former Undersecretary for Defense, is the President of the influential neocon Center for Security Policy, was a fellow member of the Project for the New American Century (along with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle, Wolfowitz, etc.), and apparently serves an advisor to the Pentagon. He called for al-Jazeera to "be taken off the air, one way or another" six months before Bush's meeting with Blair, and clearly had the connections needed to put policy into action within the Bush administration.
posted on Nov-29-05 at 2:23 PM
A Thanksgiving Prayer. (QuickTime, 7.6 mb) From Reality Studio's excellent collection of Wm. Burroughs multimedia.
posted on Nov-24-05 at 9:07 AM
The origin of life?! I heard from an authority in molecular biology today that a group of researchers funded by the Carnegie Institution and NASA believe they've discovered the origin of RNA, and with that, the origin of life. This new discovery grew out of NASA's Deep Impact mission to study the composition of comets. Specifically, they started investigating a kind of carbon that forms in layers, with each layer slighly offset from the previous one in a helix shape. Significantly, the thickness of these carbon layers corresponds with the thickness of each twist in a strand of RNA. It turns out that the individual building blocks of RNA are capable of bonding to this layered carbon when exposed to UV radiation. Once this has happened, apparently formaldehyde can then bond to the building blocks of RNA on the carbon "pattern", allowing the bonded RNA to slough off into the primordial soup. Over time, some of these RNA strands could fold and bond to themselves, forming DNA. Formaldehyde, the initial bonding material, would eventually be replaced by a more chemically sophisticated substance, creating the chemical bond that we observe today in DNA. Expect a paper on it to be released in approximately three months with all the details.
posted on Nov-6-05 at 3:53 AM
To boldly go where no one has gone before. George Takai comes out of the closet! Old Star Trek episodes suddenly become gay kitsch, develop strange, new context. Sexuality: The Final Frontier?
posted on Oct-28-05 at 12:59 AM
Streaming Japan. Taka Yamada's Brovision.com is a beautiful and voluminious personal video diary of Japanese life and culture. Talk with a geisha, climb to the top of Mt. Fuji, or float a paper lantern down the river. Alternately, you can check out Video-link Japan, watch some television... or ignore all that and share your favorite J-links instead.
posted on Oct-22-05 at 7:17 PM
U.S. soldiers videotaped desecrating Taliban corpses. The bodies were positioned to face Mecca and burned -- an act of desecration that violates Islamic burial rites and the Geneva Conventions. A U.S. PsyOps specialist broadcast an inflammatory message to the nearby town in order to incite an attack. "Attention, Taliban, you are all cowardly dogs. You allowed your fighters to be laid down facing west and burned. You are too scared to come down and retrieve their bodies. This just proves you are the lady boys we always believed you to be."
The video aired last night in Australia, but hasn't surfaced yet in the U.S. It won't be long, though.. "Wow, look at the blood coming out of the mouth on that one, fucking straight death metal."
posted on Oct-20-05 at 3:18 AM
The birth of Hurricane Wilma? Tropical Depression 24 is expected to become Tropical Storm Wilma by Monday, and forecasters are predicting that it will turn into the Gulf of Mexico, where water temperatures and other conditions are favorable for it to develop into a large, slow moving hurricane. Oil futures have already started going up in response to the threat.
posted on Oct-17-05 at 12:34 AM
Did Dick make him do it? The Huffington Report claims that both the Wall Street Journal and Bloomsburg News are working on stories indicating that Vice President Dick Cheney is the target of the special prosecutor's investigation into Plamegate. George Stephanopoulos also recently claimed that a source close to the investigation told him that Cheney and Bush were involved in discussions on how to handle the Wilson affair that may have led to the leak. Meanwhile, Cheney's chief spokesman has left the country until October 26th, two days before the conclusion of the grand jury investigation.
posted on Oct-11-05 at 7:23 PM
Is the Blair government creating another dodgy dossier? Following Tony Blair's recent outburst accusing the Iranian government of supporting attacks on British troops, a team are being dispatched to Iraq on a hunting expedition, in the hope of proving him right. Meanwhile, a prominent neo-con who served as the Iraq desk officer for the Office of Special Plans is telling the British that only the threat of force will tame Tehran. Sound familiar?!
posted on Oct-9-05 at 6:18 PM
"Mom, you're not going to like this." A mother of a U.S. soldier tells her son about the latest Iraq torture admissions, only to be told that his unit routinely beat and abused Iraqis. "...suppose you visit an Imam and you want him to call off IED attacks in his neighborhood. If you just go in and ask him politely, he'll tell you he'll try to help; but, he won't . . . But, if you go to that same guy and beat him up thoroughly, then ask him to knock off the attacks, he'll respect you and he'll try to help. . . ." The mother reports that her son was "under the impression that the conduct was in line with military policy."
posted on Oct-6-05 at 7:40 AM
Harriet Miers -- keeper of the President's skeleton closet. In the run-up to George W. Bush's 1988 campaign, Bush's people paid Harriet Miers $19,000 to review his military records, which are, to this day, mysteriously incomplete. This wasn't the first time Miers has been accused of helping protect Bush's military record. She was also accused in a lawsuit of using a Texas Lottery Commission contract to buy the silence of former Texas House Speaker Ben Barnes about the assistance that he gave in placing Bush in the Air National Guard. Barnes kept that secret until 1999, when he was forced to testify under oath about his involvement in getting Bush a position in the Texas Air National Guard.
posted on Oct-4-05 at 10:16 PM
"Operation Offset" is what the Republicans are calling their budget cut plan to pay for Hurricane Katrina. Will there be tax cuts for the rich? Nope. The great majority of the proposed cuts target the elderly and the poor, heavily targeting Medicare. They eliminate all federal funding for energy conservation, the "Energy Star" program, energy efficient vehicles, hydrogen vehicles, high-speed rail, light rail, PBS, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, AmeriCorps, the "Even Start" program, the Presidential Election Campaign Fund, security/anti-drug funding for innercity schools, and all federal loans to grad students. Also facing cuts are the Global AIDS Initiative, the EPA, the Center for Disease Control, pensions and healthcare plans for retired federal workers, job programs and revitalization funds for poor neighborhoods, the school lunch program, community health centers, and health care for soldiers.
posted on Sep-27-05 at 4:37 PM
Bush administration threatens veto against Geneva Convention. After hearing about the latest torture scandal in Iraq, Republican Armed Services Committee Senators John McCain, John W. Warner, and Lindsey Graham are seeking an amendment to a defense bill which would require the military to abide by the Geneva Convention... but the Bush administration is reportedly opposed to any such legislation, and have threatened to veto it. To make matters worse, many prominent Congressional Republicans are also opposed to abiding by the Geneva Convention, to the point that overturning such a veto is far from assured.
posted on Sep-26-05 at 4:32 AM
The world's biggest thief? A warrant has been issued against former Iraqi Interim Defense Minister Hazim Shaalan for defrauding Iraq of over $1 billion. In January, I posted to MeFi about Shaalan's possible involvement in a $300 million fraud scheme and the murder of two American arms merchants. What is more troubling, however, is that the U.S. government may have turned a blind eye to this massive defrauding of the Iraqi people. Prior to his role as Defense Minister, Shaalan ran a real estate agency in Britain and had no prior military qualifications. For this reason, Juan Cole believes it likely that Shaalan was a CIA agent, while Ahmed Chalabi accused Sha'alan of spying for Saddam. Meanwhile, the insurgents accused Shaalan of conspiring with the Bush administration to scrap Iraq's heavy weaponry. What does seem clear is that he apparently tried to buy broken Soviet-era armored vehicles and 28-year-old, second-hand Polish helicopters too old to fly at a premium, while pocketing lucrative kickbacks. Which begs the question -- if the U.S. government really wanted a strong, independent Iraqi military, then why doesn't it give Iraq the heavy arms they'll need to defend themselves?
posted on Sep-20-05 at 1:53 AM
Lights, camera, empathy! The Bush adminstration has gone to great lengths and great expense to create just the right image... from the "magic hour light" Mission Accomplished speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln to hiring a small floatilla of barges with floodlights to illuminate the Statue of Liberty, to sticking his head on Mount Rushmore. It seems a bit absurd, however, to spend a huge amount of money to bring in lighting crews and massive theatrical floodlights to bathe a building blue in the middle of a humanitarian crisis. They even took the time to reset the clocktower back to the correct time. Why didn't they just use the building's existing white lights instead? Did they need the lights to match the president's shirt? Note that his sleeves are rolled up and his collar is unbuttoned. It sure is hard work rebuilding New Orleans, isn't it?
posted on Sep-16-05 at 3:11 AM
Barbara Bush insults Katrina survivors. Said today while visiting relief efforts at the Houston Astrodome: "Almost everyone I've talked to said we're going to move to Houston. What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. (Said with concern.) Everybody is so overwhelmed by all the hospitality. And so many of the peoples in the arena here, you know, they're underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them." I'd be curious what she'd think after after living there for just a week, much less for months on end, before being sent off to somewhere even further from their homes, friends, and relatives. Please note: This woman raised our president. Did the acorn fall far from the tree?
posted on Sep-6-05 at 1:32 AM
"I'm sure the thugs at OMB are happily gnawing on Mike Parker's bones." Mike Parker, the former head of the Army Corps of Engineers from 2001-2002, was forced to retire because he vocally criticized Bush administration plans to cut funding for their anti-flooding projects. Here's a bit of Mike Parker's testimony from a Senate Budget Committee meeting in 2002, shortly before he was forced to resign: "After being in the administration and dealing with them, I still don't have warm and fuzzy feelings for them. I'm hoping that OMB (White House Office of Management and Budget) understands we're at the beginning of the process. If the corps is limited in what it does for the American people, there will be a negative impact." So, what is he saying now about what would've happened had New Orleans recieved proper funding? "Levees would have been higher, levees would have been bigger, there would have been other pumps put in. I'm not saying it would have been totally alleviated but it would have been less than the damage that we have got now."
posted on Sep-4-05 at 12:10 PM
"It doesn't make sense to me." Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert weighs in on rebuilding New Orleans during an interview (bugmenot) by the Chigago Daily Herald. "It doesn’t make sense to me, and it’s a question that certainly we should ask. . . First of all your heart goes out to the people, the loss of their homes . . . but there are some real tough questions to ask about how you go about rebuilding this city. We help replace, we help relieve disaster . . . (Rebuilding) is certainly the decision the people of New Orleans are going to make. . . But I think federal insurance and everything goes along with it and we ought to take a second look at it. . . How do you go about rebuilding this city? What precautions do you take? . . . It looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed. . . But you know we build Los Angeles and San Francisco on top of earthquake fissures and they rebuild, too. Stubbornness." Dennis Hastert was a sponsor of the legislation that cut the funding needed to upgrade New Orleans levee system to withstand category 5 hurricanes. He also failed to vote on legislation this year which would've provided additional funds for the Army Corps of Engineers.
posted on Sep-1-05 at 4:54 PM
Katrina targets New Orleans. Mandatory evacuations have been declared, and contraflow evacuation routes are in effect near New Orleans, as Hurricane Katrina, a very wet, drenching hurricane, approaches the city from the Gulf of Mexico, where it is gaining in size and strength, with an estimated 45% chance of making landfall as a category 4 or 5 hurricane. The computer models suggest that New Orleans will sustain a direct hit from Katrina, which could be "The Big One" warned about by experts, capable of flooding the city, polluting it with industrial waste, and even flooding the pump stations, leaving it incapable of pumping out the water. The hurricane is predicted to make landfall early Monday near Port Fourchon, which handles approximately 13% of U.S. oil imports, and 27% of U.S. domestic production.
posted on Aug-27-05 at 6:21 PM
The poet has checked out. Thomas Strickland died on August 15, 2005, in Al Mahmudiyah, Iraq, after several harrowing ordeals. He left behind his journal and numerous war poems, such as "Cheers to suicide! So Where's my Martini?" and "Terrer be a Cancer Today", parts one and two. Could he be the Wilfred Owen of the Iraq War?
"Humanity, I think, is what fills the little gaps between all the broken shit, all the breaking, and all the plans, schematics, graphics and orders. Its the sand slipping out of grasping fingers. Its our instinct without progress as a motivator. It's who we are when we concentrate on being more than doing."
posted on Aug-26-05 at 4:53 AM
Less scary than Cheney. Christopher Walken for President 2008.
(Walken Friday flash... or just do a little dance!)
posted on Aug-12-05 at 7:35 PM
Mysterious Skin. After years of offending the mainstream, director Gregg Araki's controversial new film (trailer) is getting a surprising degree of critical acclaim, with an 8.3 rating on IMDB, and a 90% rating amongst Rotten Tomatoes "Cream of the Crop" reviewers. It also features a soundtrack that will delight Cocteau Twins fans, as it features a shimmering score by Robin Guthrie (who apparently has a blog) and Harold Budd, reminiscent of their work on The Moon and The Melodies.
posted on Jul-28-05 at 9:43 AM
New FCC head seeks to quietly gut independent DSL carriers. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has circulated a proposal that would eliminate the requirement of phone companies to lease their phone lines to competitors, effectively cutting the throat of independent DSL carriers such as Covad, and their customers, such as EarthLink, AT&T, Concentric, AOL, and Sprint. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 gave Baby Bells the right to sell long distance service in exchange for opening up their networks to the public. Now the Bush administration are poised to undo this, killing a multibillion dollar industry, and giving monopoly control back to the Baby Bells, who aren't quite so small anymore, thanks to corporate mergers. If you like having all the broadband choices you currently have, you may want to contact the FCC commissioners, toot sweet.
posted on Jul-26-05 at 5:11 PM
Where's Raed's brother? Iraqi weblogger Khalid Jarrar has been abducted by the mukhabarat -- Iraq's secret police. Khalid Jarrar was seized at his college in Iraq shortly after his mother, Faiza, toured the U.S., calling for a timetable for U.S. withdrawl. So, why is it that arrests of Iranian webloggers made international news, but Iraqi webloggers from prominent families can be "disappeared" without a single major news organization reporting on it?
posted on Jul-19-05 at 2:29 AM
posted on May-24-06 at 2:10 AM
Bush out of favor in 47 out of 50 states. The SurveyUSA 50-state-poll shows some interesting details on Bush's approval rating, which has fallen to just 35% in North (and South) Carolina, 29% in Missouri, and 42% in Texas. He remains popular in only three states: Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. Could the Democrats have a shot even in Utah in the not-too-distant future? A lot of Utahns think so.
posted on May-16-06 at 9:40 AM
Hungry like the wolf. In his state-of-the-nation address, Vladamir Putin took a swipe at the Bush administration, saying that Russia should build "a strong, reliable home because we do see what's going on in the world. . . Comrade Wolf knows whom to eat. It's eating without listening to anyone. And by all appearances, it's not going to listen . . . Where is all this pathos about the need to fight for human rights and democracy when it comes to the need to pursue their own interests? Here everything is possible. There are no limits."
posted on May-10-06 at 4:01 PM
UN reports "vast" levels of hunger for Iraq's children. The World Food Programme is reporting that a "dismal shortage of cash" is jeopardizing the health of over 3 million Iraqis, over half of them children. The organization cites "a growing negative impact on the most vulnerable". Last year, a survey indicated that over 27 percent of all Iraqi children under the age of five were chronically malnourished. This was before reports came out, indicating that food rations have been cut off, and reports of food prices escalating sharply. Some Iraqis have resorted to selling their blood for money to make ends meet. Approximately 400,000 Iraqi children now suffer from "wasting," a condition characterized by chronic diarrhea and dangerous deficiencies of protein. Iraq now has the third highest infant mortality rate in the world, just ahead of Afghanistan.
posted on May-9-06 at 4:47 AM
CIA warned White House -- no WMD programs in Iraq. A retired senior CIA official interviewed by 60 Minutes claims that the White House ignored intelligence from Iraq's foreign minister, Naji Sabri in the run-up to the invasion. CIA Director George Tenet delivered the information to President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other high-ranking officials in September 2002, according to the CIA official. A few days later the administration said it was no longer interested. "...we said 'Well, what about the intel?' And they said 'Well, this isn't about intel anymore. This is about regime change.' " The interview airs on CBS, Sunday at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
posted on Apr-22-06 at 1:19 PM
LiveJournal adopts banner ads. SixApart has broken a longstanding promise/agreed-upon principle (recently deleted) and is adding banner ads to the service, which will be visible to the general public and approximately 95% of their users. Last year's April Fool's joke suddenly not very amusing anymore. Is SixApart's bubble a bit overinflated?
posted on Apr-19-06 at 6:31 AM
2006 Webby Award finallists announced. So, if your favorite home/welcome page My Yahoo or Wonderbra? Two nominations for Metacritic. Other Meta-related sites, not so much... Best of the web?!
posted on Apr-11-06 at 1:17 PM
New York Times to release Bush/Blair memo tomorrow. The memo, which was mentioned previously, but never publically disclosed, confirms that George W. Bush and Tony Blair were determined to invade Iraq, regardless of UN approval, and despite what both leaders told their citizens. More troubling, the memo also indicates that Bush may have conspired to assassinate Saddam Hussein, which appears to violate Sec. 5g of Executive Order 11905, which states that "No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination." This executive order was considered the law of the land even after 9/11, when Bob Barr proposed legislation H.R. 19, which was never enacted into law.
posted on Mar-26-06 at 11:04 PM
Город наш! The city is ours! Belarussians are using weblogs, online communities, and text messaging to organize, share news and numerous photos, and oppose their corrupt government's fraudulent election. Patriotism, flags, and dark blue is in fashion, whether the government likes it or not.
posted on Mar-23-06 at 2:09 AM
Democratic presidential candidate rails against US imperialism. "The platform . . . condemns the experiment in imperialism as an inexcusable blunder, which has involved us in enormous expense, brought us weakness instead of strength, and laid our nation open to the charge of abandoning the fundamental principles of a republic."
A prominent American author who initially supported the conflict, changed his mind, calling it "a mess, a quagmire from which each fresh step renders the difficulty of extrication immensely greater.” The US is “the kind of World Power . . . that a prairie-dog village is . . . it is the duty of our Government to stand sentinel, with solemn mien, and lifted nose, and curved paws, on top of our little World-Power mound.”
posted on Mar-20-06 at 7:24 PM
Kinderstart sues Google to get a higher page ranking. Why on earth should Google be obligated to give another search engine access to their proprietary page ranking methods, unless the goal is for Kinderstart to either steal or play games with Google's ranking methods... again?
posted on Mar-19-06 at 3:51 PM
A world of sounds. Despite their difficult URL, The Freesound Project has grown at a rapid pace over the last year, arguably surpassing archive.org's audio library when it comes to sound effects, field recordings, site design, and usability. Now Freesound is combining their sound library with geotagging and Google Maps, allowing users to navigate the world by sound too! (previously on mefi)
posted on Mar-4-06 at 4:27 AM
Bush's "pepperoni" defence of outsourcing. "India's middle class is buying air-conditioners, kitchen appliances and washing machines, and a lot of them from American companies like GE and Whirlpool and Westinghouse. And that means their job base is growing here in the United States. Younger Indians are acquiring a taste for pizzas from Domino's, Pizza Hut..."
posted on Feb-23-06 at 11:32 AM
Berlusconi allies with Italian fascists. Declaring the opposition party as a threat to democracy, Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi did the obvious thing... he allied with the fascists. After all, what did they ever do to harm anyone? They look like a friendly, patriotic group. Cleancut... and they sound kinda cheery too. Their websites feature familiar faces. I'm sure the knifings and the bombings -- yes, plural -- were just a matter of youthful overexuberance. So, where's Bush on this issue?
posted on Feb-21-06 at 6:15 AM
British soldiers filmed beating Iraqis. A British tabloid has released footage showing British troops beating Iraqi rioters. The video, available in realplayer format or Windows Media format, was apparently taken by a British corporal, and shows at least eight British soldiers dragging four young rioters inside a British army compound, where they were repeatedly beaten with batons, boots and fists, and kicked in the genitals. Arab television and the BBC have since aired the footage.
posted on Feb-13-06 at 4:01 PM
Abramoff says Bush is lying. "Having my picture taken with someone doesn't mean that I'm a friend with them or know them very well." - George W. Bush, Jan. 26, 2006.
"The guy saw me in almost a dozen settings and joked with me about a bunch of things, including details of my kids. Perhaps he has forgotten everything, who knows." - Jack Abramoff
Mr. Abramoff, who raised over $100,000 for the Bush campaign, also indicated that he was sent a personal invitation to stay at the President's Texas ranch.
posted on Feb-10-06 at 2:51 AM
Hamas wins majority in Palestinian elections. In a surprise upset, Hamas has unseated Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party. This after initial results indicated that Fatah would win, and both the Bush administration and Israel indicated that Abbas shouldn't form a coalition government with members of Hamas, but should keep them entirely in opposition. Prominent Hamas leader Ismail Haneya said, "America and Israel wanted to vote against Hamas, so the Palestinian people voted for the Hamas . . . and voted against the occupation." He reiterated that Hamas would resist Israel's occupation until all Palestinian rights were regained.
posted on Jan-26-06 at 3:21 AM
Moqtada Sadr promises to help defend Iran. The Iraqi Shi'ite leader promised to defend Iran -- presumably in Iraq -- if Iran is attacked by the US. Moqtada Sadr is the commander of the Mahdi Army, which fought US troops for weeks in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf, threatening to unite poor, discontented Iraqi Shi'ites in common cause with Sunni insurgents. Sadr and his followers are known to have close ideological and logistical links to clerics inside Iran. In the event of a conflict with Iraq, their assistance to the Iranians could greatly increase instability within Iraq, possibly assisting elements of Iran's Revolutionary Guards' Qods Force in infiltrating Iraq, and orchestrating attacks upon American interests.
posted on Jan-24-06 at 9:27 AM
Iraq - All oil, no gas. A consortium of 34 Turkish companies have joined together to stop all exports of petrol / refined oil products to Iraq, because Iraq's government owes them over $1 billion that they have so far been unable to pay. Iraq's largest refinery was forced to shut down in December, after its truck drivers walked off the job due to insurgent threats. They reopened ten days later, only to shut down again after an insurgent swarm attack killed and wounded more drivers. The refinery has once more ceased activity, as their reserves of refined fuel are full and there is no way to get them to their customers. Iraq's diesel-driven power plants are undersupplied too, leading to worsening outages.
posted on Jan-22-06 at 2:46 PM
Disney eats crow. Disney, whose former CEO Michael Eisner rejected the idea of Disney being hired to market Pixar's movies, who insisted on owning their sequel rights, and who apparently hoped Finding Nemo would flop so that he could get better negotiating terms with Pixar, is now in talks for buying Pixar outright for approximately $6.7 billion in stock. Steve Jobs gets his revenge... again. How much revenge? 50.1% of $6.7 billion dollars, apparently.
posted on Jan-19-06 at 9:24 PM
We don't not make deals with terrorists. Yesterday, the Guardian reported: "Kidnappers threatened to kill the abducted US journalist Jill Carroll unless the Bush administration ordered the release of Iraqi women prisoners within 72 hours, according to a report on al-Jazeera television yesterday." Today, the BBC reports "Iraq's ministry of justice has told the BBC that six of the eight women being held by coalition forces in Iraq have been released early. The six were freed because there was insufficient evidence to charge them, a justice ministry spokesman said." Cause, meet effect. Effect, this is cause.
posted on Jan-18-06 at 12:33 PM
Fables of the reconstruction. The Bush administration does not intend to seek any further funding for Iraqi reconstruction, leaving only $3.5 billion left to spend out of the $18.4 billion the US budgeted. Approximately half of all reconstruction costs spent so far -- $7.5 billion -- have been eaten up by increased costs due to the insurgency. All remaining reconstruction costs will depend entirely upon foriegn contributions and Iraq's oil industry. But will foriegn aid come through if its too dangerous to work there? Can Iraq's oil industry pay for reconstruction when its output has been in a tailspin for well over a year, falling from 2.8 million barrels a day in May 2004, to 1.82 million barrels per day in January 2005, to 1.2 million barrels a day by November. and ending the year with a low of 1.1 million barrels a day in December? As for the Iraqi infrastructure left to be rebuilt, water and sanitation is still poor in most areas, and electricity production, which looked promising last summer after imports from Iran and Turkey, has deteriorated again, falling to only 3700 megawatts in November 2005, essentially at the same level produced in May 2004.
posted on Jan-2-06 at 11:25 PM
Ding dong! It's a Christmas song! (Windows Media) Günther has returned to put the tra-la-la and ding-ding-dong back into Christmas.
posted on Dec-13-05 at 6:08 PM
Bush administration
posted on Dec-6-05 at 2:54 PM
Al-Jazeera bites back. In 2003, following US pressure on the Emir of Qatar and claims of a secret meeting of House, Senate, Pentagon, and intelligence leaders who authorized the use of "all possible pressure" to silence the station, al-Jazeera fired its general manager, stopped referring to Iraqi insurgents as "the resistance", and banned the airing of hostage executions and the death of US soldiers. Today, following recent reports of George W. Bush planning an attack against al-Jazeera HQ in Qatar, and the US bribing of Iraqi reporters and news sources, al-Jazeera seems to have changed that policy by airing the video of 10 US Marines being killed in an improvised explosive device attack. (NSFW. Windows Media. Right click this link to save the video, or this link to stream it.) Is this change indicative of larger changes in Arab public opinion, or has the Emir of Qatar decided to push back?
posted on Dec-3-05 at 8:14 PM
Pentagon bribery scandal -- Iraqi journalists bought out. Officials in Washington have admitted that the US military has bribed Iraqi journalists with under-the-table payoffs of up to $200 a month -- twice the average Iraqi monthly income -- for producing upbeat newspaper, radio and television reports about the war in Iraq. This follows a similar report yesterday that the military secretly paid Iraqi newspapers to run dozens of pro-American articles written by the US Information Operations Task Force in Baghdad. A Pentagon spokesman described the report as "troubling". "This article raises some questions as to whether or not some of the practices that are described in there are consistent with the principles of this department."
posted on Dec-1-05 at 11:12 AM
What kind of an idiot would call for an attack on our ally Qatar? Frank Gaffney Jr. did. He served as Reagan's former Undersecretary for Defense, is the President of the influential neocon Center for Security Policy, was a fellow member of the Project for the New American Century (along with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle, Wolfowitz, etc.), and apparently serves an advisor to the Pentagon. He called for al-Jazeera to "be taken off the air, one way or another" six months before Bush's meeting with Blair, and clearly had the connections needed to put policy into action within the Bush administration.
posted on Nov-29-05 at 2:23 PM
A Thanksgiving Prayer. (QuickTime, 7.6 mb) From Reality Studio's excellent collection of Wm. Burroughs multimedia.
posted on Nov-24-05 at 9:07 AM
The origin of life?! I heard from an authority in molecular biology today that a group of researchers funded by the Carnegie Institution and NASA believe they've discovered the origin of RNA, and with that, the origin of life. This new discovery grew out of NASA's Deep Impact mission to study the composition of comets. Specifically, they started investigating a kind of carbon that forms in layers, with each layer slighly offset from the previous one in a helix shape. Significantly, the thickness of these carbon layers corresponds with the thickness of each twist in a strand of RNA. It turns out that the individual building blocks of RNA are capable of bonding to this layered carbon when exposed to UV radiation. Once this has happened, apparently formaldehyde can then bond to the building blocks of RNA on the carbon "pattern", allowing the bonded RNA to slough off into the primordial soup. Over time, some of these RNA strands could fold and bond to themselves, forming DNA. Formaldehyde, the initial bonding material, would eventually be replaced by a more chemically sophisticated substance, creating the chemical bond that we observe today in DNA. Expect a paper on it to be released in approximately three months with all the details.
posted on Nov-6-05 at 3:53 AM
To boldly go where no one has gone before. George Takai comes out of the closet! Old Star Trek episodes suddenly become gay kitsch, develop strange, new context. Sexuality: The Final Frontier?
posted on Oct-28-05 at 12:59 AM
Streaming Japan. Taka Yamada's Brovision.com is a beautiful and voluminious personal video diary of Japanese life and culture. Talk with a geisha, climb to the top of Mt. Fuji, or float a paper lantern down the river. Alternately, you can check out Video-link Japan, watch some television... or ignore all that and share your favorite J-links instead.
posted on Oct-22-05 at 7:17 PM
U.S. soldiers videotaped desecrating Taliban corpses. The bodies were positioned to face Mecca and burned -- an act of desecration that violates Islamic burial rites and the Geneva Conventions. A U.S. PsyOps specialist broadcast an inflammatory message to the nearby town in order to incite an attack. "Attention, Taliban, you are all cowardly dogs. You allowed your fighters to be laid down facing west and burned. You are too scared to come down and retrieve their bodies. This just proves you are the lady boys we always believed you to be."
The video aired last night in Australia, but hasn't surfaced yet in the U.S. It won't be long, though.. "Wow, look at the blood coming out of the mouth on that one, fucking straight death metal."
posted on Oct-20-05 at 3:18 AM
The birth of Hurricane Wilma? Tropical Depression 24 is expected to become Tropical Storm Wilma by Monday, and forecasters are predicting that it will turn into the Gulf of Mexico, where water temperatures and other conditions are favorable for it to develop into a large, slow moving hurricane. Oil futures have already started going up in response to the threat.
posted on Oct-17-05 at 12:34 AM
Did Dick make him do it? The Huffington Report claims that both the Wall Street Journal and Bloomsburg News are working on stories indicating that Vice President Dick Cheney is the target of the special prosecutor's investigation into Plamegate. George Stephanopoulos also recently claimed that a source close to the investigation told him that Cheney and Bush were involved in discussions on how to handle the Wilson affair that may have led to the leak. Meanwhile, Cheney's chief spokesman has left the country until October 26th, two days before the conclusion of the grand jury investigation.
posted on Oct-11-05 at 7:23 PM
Is the Blair government creating another dodgy dossier? Following Tony Blair's recent outburst accusing the Iranian government of supporting attacks on British troops, a team are being dispatched to Iraq on a hunting expedition, in the hope of proving him right. Meanwhile, a prominent neo-con who served as the Iraq desk officer for the Office of Special Plans is telling the British that only the threat of force will tame Tehran. Sound familiar?!
posted on Oct-9-05 at 6:18 PM
"Mom, you're not going to like this." A mother of a U.S. soldier tells her son about the latest Iraq torture admissions, only to be told that his unit routinely beat and abused Iraqis. "...suppose you visit an Imam and you want him to call off IED attacks in his neighborhood. If you just go in and ask him politely, he'll tell you he'll try to help; but, he won't . . . But, if you go to that same guy and beat him up thoroughly, then ask him to knock off the attacks, he'll respect you and he'll try to help. . . ." The mother reports that her son was "under the impression that the conduct was in line with military policy."
posted on Oct-6-05 at 7:40 AM
Harriet Miers -- keeper of the President's skeleton closet. In the run-up to George W. Bush's 1988 campaign, Bush's people paid Harriet Miers $19,000 to review his military records, which are, to this day, mysteriously incomplete. This wasn't the first time Miers has been accused of helping protect Bush's military record. She was also accused in a lawsuit of using a Texas Lottery Commission contract to buy the silence of former Texas House Speaker Ben Barnes about the assistance that he gave in placing Bush in the Air National Guard. Barnes kept that secret until 1999, when he was forced to testify under oath about his involvement in getting Bush a position in the Texas Air National Guard.
posted on Oct-4-05 at 10:16 PM
"Operation Offset" is what the Republicans are calling their budget cut plan to pay for Hurricane Katrina. Will there be tax cuts for the rich? Nope. The great majority of the proposed cuts target the elderly and the poor, heavily targeting Medicare. They eliminate all federal funding for energy conservation, the "Energy Star" program, energy efficient vehicles, hydrogen vehicles, high-speed rail, light rail, PBS, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, AmeriCorps, the "Even Start" program, the Presidential Election Campaign Fund, security/anti-drug funding for innercity schools, and all federal loans to grad students. Also facing cuts are the Global AIDS Initiative, the EPA, the Center for Disease Control, pensions and healthcare plans for retired federal workers, job programs and revitalization funds for poor neighborhoods, the school lunch program, community health centers, and health care for soldiers.
posted on Sep-27-05 at 4:37 PM
Bush administration threatens veto against Geneva Convention. After hearing about the latest torture scandal in Iraq, Republican Armed Services Committee Senators John McCain, John W. Warner, and Lindsey Graham are seeking an amendment to a defense bill which would require the military to abide by the Geneva Convention... but the Bush administration is reportedly opposed to any such legislation, and have threatened to veto it. To make matters worse, many prominent Congressional Republicans are also opposed to abiding by the Geneva Convention, to the point that overturning such a veto is far from assured.
posted on Sep-26-05 at 4:32 AM
The world's biggest thief? A warrant has been issued against former Iraqi Interim Defense Minister Hazim Shaalan for defrauding Iraq of over $1 billion. In January, I posted to MeFi about Shaalan's possible involvement in a $300 million fraud scheme and the murder of two American arms merchants. What is more troubling, however, is that the U.S. government may have turned a blind eye to this massive defrauding of the Iraqi people. Prior to his role as Defense Minister, Shaalan ran a real estate agency in Britain and had no prior military qualifications. For this reason, Juan Cole believes it likely that Shaalan was a CIA agent, while Ahmed Chalabi accused Sha'alan of spying for Saddam. Meanwhile, the insurgents accused Shaalan of conspiring with the Bush administration to scrap Iraq's heavy weaponry. What does seem clear is that he apparently tried to buy broken Soviet-era armored vehicles and 28-year-old, second-hand Polish helicopters too old to fly at a premium, while pocketing lucrative kickbacks. Which begs the question -- if the U.S. government really wanted a strong, independent Iraqi military, then why doesn't it give Iraq the heavy arms they'll need to defend themselves?
posted on Sep-20-05 at 1:53 AM
Lights, camera, empathy! The Bush adminstration has gone to great lengths and great expense to create just the right image... from the "magic hour light" Mission Accomplished speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln to hiring a small floatilla of barges with floodlights to illuminate the Statue of Liberty, to sticking his head on Mount Rushmore. It seems a bit absurd, however, to spend a huge amount of money to bring in lighting crews and massive theatrical floodlights to bathe a building blue in the middle of a humanitarian crisis. They even took the time to reset the clocktower back to the correct time. Why didn't they just use the building's existing white lights instead? Did they need the lights to match the president's shirt? Note that his sleeves are rolled up and his collar is unbuttoned. It sure is hard work rebuilding New Orleans, isn't it?
posted on Sep-16-05 at 3:11 AM
Barbara Bush insults Katrina survivors. Said today while visiting relief efforts at the Houston Astrodome: "Almost everyone I've talked to said we're going to move to Houston. What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. (Said with concern.) Everybody is so overwhelmed by all the hospitality. And so many of the peoples in the arena here, you know, they're underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them." I'd be curious what she'd think after after living there for just a week, much less for months on end, before being sent off to somewhere even further from their homes, friends, and relatives. Please note: This woman raised our president. Did the acorn fall far from the tree?
posted on Sep-6-05 at 1:32 AM
"I'm sure the thugs at OMB are happily gnawing on Mike Parker's bones." Mike Parker, the former head of the Army Corps of Engineers from 2001-2002, was forced to retire because he vocally criticized Bush administration plans to cut funding for their anti-flooding projects. Here's a bit of Mike Parker's testimony from a Senate Budget Committee meeting in 2002, shortly before he was forced to resign: "After being in the administration and dealing with them, I still don't have warm and fuzzy feelings for them. I'm hoping that OMB (White House Office of Management and Budget) understands we're at the beginning of the process. If the corps is limited in what it does for the American people, there will be a negative impact." So, what is he saying now about what would've happened had New Orleans recieved proper funding? "Levees would have been higher, levees would have been bigger, there would have been other pumps put in. I'm not saying it would have been totally alleviated but it would have been less than the damage that we have got now."
posted on Sep-4-05 at 12:10 PM
"It doesn't make sense to me." Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert weighs in on rebuilding New Orleans during an interview (bugmenot) by the Chigago Daily Herald. "It doesn’t make sense to me, and it’s a question that certainly we should ask. . . First of all your heart goes out to the people, the loss of their homes . . . but there are some real tough questions to ask about how you go about rebuilding this city. We help replace, we help relieve disaster . . . (Rebuilding) is certainly the decision the people of New Orleans are going to make. . . But I think federal insurance and everything goes along with it and we ought to take a second look at it. . . How do you go about rebuilding this city? What precautions do you take? . . . It looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed. . . But you know we build Los Angeles and San Francisco on top of earthquake fissures and they rebuild, too. Stubbornness." Dennis Hastert was a sponsor of the legislation that cut the funding needed to upgrade New Orleans levee system to withstand category 5 hurricanes. He also failed to vote on legislation this year which would've provided additional funds for the Army Corps of Engineers.
posted on Sep-1-05 at 4:54 PM
Katrina targets New Orleans. Mandatory evacuations have been declared, and contraflow evacuation routes are in effect near New Orleans, as Hurricane Katrina, a very wet, drenching hurricane, approaches the city from the Gulf of Mexico, where it is gaining in size and strength, with an estimated 45% chance of making landfall as a category 4 or 5 hurricane. The computer models suggest that New Orleans will sustain a direct hit from Katrina, which could be "The Big One" warned about by experts, capable of flooding the city, polluting it with industrial waste, and even flooding the pump stations, leaving it incapable of pumping out the water. The hurricane is predicted to make landfall early Monday near Port Fourchon, which handles approximately 13% of U.S. oil imports, and 27% of U.S. domestic production.
posted on Aug-27-05 at 6:21 PM
The poet has checked out. Thomas Strickland died on August 15, 2005, in Al Mahmudiyah, Iraq, after several harrowing ordeals. He left behind his journal and numerous war poems, such as "Cheers to suicide! So Where's my Martini?" and "Terrer be a Cancer Today", parts one and two. Could he be the Wilfred Owen of the Iraq War?
"Humanity, I think, is what fills the little gaps between all the broken shit, all the breaking, and all the plans, schematics, graphics and orders. Its the sand slipping out of grasping fingers. Its our instinct without progress as a motivator. It's who we are when we concentrate on being more than doing."
posted on Aug-26-05 at 4:53 AM
Less scary than Cheney. Christopher Walken for President 2008.
(Walken Friday flash... or just do a little dance!)
posted on Aug-12-05 at 7:35 PM
Mysterious Skin. After years of offending the mainstream, director Gregg Araki's controversial new film (trailer) is getting a surprising degree of critical acclaim, with an 8.3 rating on IMDB, and a 90% rating amongst Rotten Tomatoes "Cream of the Crop" reviewers. It also features a soundtrack that will delight Cocteau Twins fans, as it features a shimmering score by Robin Guthrie (who apparently has a blog) and Harold Budd, reminiscent of their work on The Moon and The Melodies.
posted on Jul-28-05 at 9:43 AM
New FCC head seeks to quietly gut independent DSL carriers. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has circulated a proposal that would eliminate the requirement of phone companies to lease their phone lines to competitors, effectively cutting the throat of independent DSL carriers such as Covad, and their customers, such as EarthLink, AT&T, Concentric, AOL, and Sprint. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 gave Baby Bells the right to sell long distance service in exchange for opening up their networks to the public. Now the Bush administration are poised to undo this, killing a multibillion dollar industry, and giving monopoly control back to the Baby Bells, who aren't quite so small anymore, thanks to corporate mergers. If you like having all the broadband choices you currently have, you may want to contact the FCC commissioners, toot sweet.
posted on Jul-26-05 at 5:11 PM
Where's Raed's brother? Iraqi weblogger Khalid Jarrar has been abducted by the mukhabarat -- Iraq's secret police. Khalid Jarrar was seized at his college in Iraq shortly after his mother, Faiza, toured the U.S., calling for a timetable for U.S. withdrawl. So, why is it that arrests of Iranian webloggers made international news, but Iraqi webloggers from prominent families can be "disappeared" without a single major news organization reporting on it?
posted on Jul-19-05 at 2:29 AM