Damn.

Whoopsi Gras 9/7/05

Brown is being sent back to Washington from Baton Rouge, where he was the primary official overseeing the federal government's response to the disaster, FOX News has confirmed. Brown will be replaced by Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen, who was overseeing New Orleans relief and rescue efforts.

Like it matter this late in the game.

FOXNews.com - Politics - FEMA Chief Taken Off Hurricane Relief Efforts

A federal appeals court ruled today that the president can indefinitely detain a U.S. citizen captured on U.S. soil in the absence of criminal charges, holding that such authority is vital to protect the nation from terrorist attacks.

Sweet! Kiss your checks and balances goodbye!

Court Rules U.S. Can Indefinitely Detain Citizens

A lot of really good pictures in this series from someone who stayed in the French Quarter through the disaster.

Kodakgallery.com: NOLA Slideshow

I think everyone is still frustrated that it took so long for the calvary to arrive once the levee broke.

However, the real problem is obvious in retrospect. They knew NOLA couldn't handle a major storm. The Hurricane seasons have been getting worse in the past few years due to a shifting Atlantic temperature cycle. This was a high probability event. Other countries have built effective public floodworks that prevent these kinds of disasters. We should have built one. The blame for failing to do so is bi-partisan.

Unfortunately, this country is now in a permanent election year, and so the partisan attacks have begun in earnest. The left says its all Bush's fault and that historically documented Atlantic cycles are caused by Global Warming. The right is shooting back at the state and local governments (which are run by Dems) while simultaneously failing to admit that anything might have been done wrong.

I've been trying to avoid memeing anything blatently partisan. I'm sick of what the political discourse in this country has turned into. Ya'll are all full of shit. EVERYONE (this means YOU) is at fault for failing to advocate a proper public works project. Shut the fuck up and give the Red Cross some money.

Now, having said all of that, if you haven't seen Kayne West's rambling comments on the NBC Katrina Telethon they are a must see, in high res if possible, if for no other reason then the look on Mike Meyer's face!

The link here is to a rap song about the flood that remixes his comment. Its good. I really like it. So I'm memeing it. If you really like Bush you might not like it. Unless you are able to ignore petty bullshit and see the truths in people's frustrations inspite of how they might articulate them.

Swam to the store, tryin' to look for food
Corner store's kinda flooded so I broke my way through
Got what I could but before I got through
News say the police shot a black man trying to loot

Boing Boing: Katrina: Kanye remixed: George Bush Don't Like Black People.

The Dutch case is one of many in which low-lying cities and countries with long histories of flooding have turned science, technology and raw determination into ways of forestalling disaster.

London has built floodgates on the Thames River. Venice is doing the same on the Adriatic. Japan is erecting superlevees. Even Bangladesh has built concrete shelters on stilts as emergency havens for flood victims.

"They have something to teach us," said George Z. Voyiadjis, head of civil and environmental engineering at Louisiana State University.

Good story on flood control technology. Its a few days old. I should have memed this earlier. Check it out now before the NYT puts it behind their insipid barrier.

In Europe, High-Tech Flood Control, With Nature's Help - New York Times

HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

This weather report was put out about 20 hours before Katrina hit land. Ted Koppel says his team thought it was a hoax and tried to get it confirmed.

August 28 2005 10:11 AM CDT NOAA Bulletin - Wikisource

As oil field workers report natural gas bubbling from broken pipelines in the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. Department of Energy predicted Wednesday that tightening supplies this winter could increase household expenditures for natural gas by about 70 percent, compared to last winter.

Natural gas hike of 70% possible

But it's not fair to the nature of New Orleans to think of jazz and the blues as the poor man's music, or the music of the oppressed.

Something else was going on in New Orleans. The living was good there. The clock ticked more slowly; people laughed more easily; people kissed; people loved; there was joy.

Anne Rice...

Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans? - New York Times

The Mercury-bound MESSENGER spacecraft captured several stunning images of Earth during a gravity assist swingby of its home planet on Aug. 2, 2005. Several hundred images, taken with the wide-angle camera in MESSENGER’s Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS), were sequenced into a movie documenting the view from MESSENGER as it departed Earth.

MESSENGER: MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging