Sep 28
No kidding Shep. Check out this clip to see Fox News’ Shepard Smith get blown away by hurricane Rita. Good times.
Sep 18
I love the attitude Sun is, or rather was (some of these ads were pulled), taking against Dell with the launch of Sun’s new server lines.
And on a completely unrelated note… HBO’s “Rome” is awesome! It is so awesome in fact that HBO has ordered another 12 episodes which we will see sometime in 2007. Great… just in time for the Sopranos.
Sep 11
Sep 11
No, GoogleJet isn’t Google’s latest venture, but rather a personal playtoy for founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The ~$150 Million Boeing 767’s interior is currently being customized for their needs. Let me guess, a few linux clusters, a PlayStation 2, and a rotating bed with velvet sheets. Nice. Looks like it is only going to cost them $7,000/hour. Only.
Yes, I did that in MS Paint
(12/31/05) Edit: Does someone want to explain to me why this article gets thousands of hits per month from mostly spanish speaking countries? I’m a bit baffled.
Sep 04
Here are two more clips that depict the incompetence of FEMA. Turning away food, water, disabling vital communications networks, ignoring the pleas for help. The first is Aaron Broussard, President of Jefferson Parish.
The guy who runs this building I’m in, Emergency Management, he’s responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, “Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?” and he said, “Yeah, Mama, somebody’s coming to get you.” Somebody’s coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Friday… and she drowned Friday night. She drowned Friday night! [Sobbing] Nobody’s coming to get us. Nobody’s coming to get us…
The second being Anderson Cooper, once again attacking a politician for not doing what it takes to fix this situation. It appears that Sen. Trent Lott is happy with the federal response that arrived about 5 days too late?
Cooper: So you’re pleased with the Federal government’s response?
Lott: I AM pleased with the federal government’s response…this is not a time for complaining…I am really shocked at the comments that are coming.
If these two clips don’t absolutely infuriate you, I don’t know what will.
With criticism comes praise, so after posting harsh words about her yesterday, congrats to Sen. Mary Landrieu for finally getting a spine.
“If one person criticizes them or says one more thing - including the president of the United States - he will hear from me,” she said on the ABC program. “One more word about it after this show airs and I might likely have to punch him. Literally.”
She burst into tears as she looked at a broken levee. “The President could have funded it,” she said. “He cut it out of the budget. Is that the most pitiful sight you have ever seen in your life? One little crane.”
She also referred angrily to comments Bush had made Friday at the New Orleans airport about the fun he had in her city in his younger days.
“Our infrastructure is devastated, lives have been shattered,” Landrieu said. “Would the president please stop taking photo-ops?”
There isn’t a person down there who doesn’t feel awful about what happened, and isn’t trying to correct the situation, but the way certain leaders and politicians have gone about getting aid has been ridiculous. Lesson learned, attack those who aren’t doing their jobs, don’t waste time praising those who are.
Sep 03
After the outpouring of help for the tsunami victims last winter, a similiar effort may be coming to New Orleans.
Is a dying city actually going to see that? Maybe, maybe not. Even though many countries are graciously offering their assistance and specifically stating what they will provide, Bush refuses to accept their offers at this point. He has already turned away Canadian & Jamaican assistance and we’ll see if the administration follows suit with these offers as well. Why? I’m sure they’ll claim security reasons and use the buzzword of the century (terrorism), which is a pathetic excuse.
This is just a continuance of what has amounted to a man-made natural disaster. The natural disaster part was of course the hurricane, but the damages incurred were only magnified by human neglect before, and after the hurricane. Last Sunday, the National Geographic Channel aired a few hours of natural disaster programs, showing not only what has happened, but what can happen. During one of these segments, they used the tsunami to jump into a “What-if” scenario in New Orleans. What if a hurricane or tidal wave broke the levee and flooded the city? I was shocked at the scenario and stunned to learn that it would infact happen if a class 5 (possibly even class 4) hurricane made a direct hit on New Orleans. Well, the next day it happened.
President bush stated on Good Morning America
“I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm. But these levees got breached. And as a result, much of New Orleans is flooded. And now we are having to deal with it and will.”
Sorry, the worst case scenario was considered and prepared for. FEMA started stockpiling food & water in strategic locations in New Orleans days before (allegedly). Hell, even the lump of clay Mr. Bill knew this was inevitable.
Speaking of FEMA, how can this entire situation be handled so poorly when plans & scenarios for this specific catastrophe have already been thought up, and exercises conducted? Listen to NPR’s Robert Siegel tear Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff a new one as to why FEMA’s efforts have been so abysmal (link).
Another reason why could be the organization’s director Michael Brown has shown in his incompetence in running FEMA. Rep. Robert Wexler urged President Bush to fire Brown in January for improperly handing out $30 million to Dade County for Hurricane Frances damages. Well, Hurricane Frances didn’t even hit Dade country, but rather 100 miles away. It turns out Brown doesn’t have the greatest track record in the world. His last position was director of the International Arabian Horse Association where his performance was “An unmitigated, total fucking disaster. I was shocked as hell when captain clueless put him in charge of FEMA a couple of years ago.” (link). Glad to know a regions fate and countless lives lie in the hands of his ability, or inability, to mobilize the rescue efforts.
Watching Fox News today (CNN was at commercial), they decided to take this opportunity to push their “Destroy the Alaska Wildlife Refuge so we Can Drive our Hummers” agenda by bringing on panelists to debate the topic. Of course they bring in lobbyists and oil execs to face off against a nobody conservationist who Neil Cavuto discredited anything that came out of her mouth. So, with Fox News always good for entertainment, there have been a few clips surface on the internet of the media’s take of this whole fiasco. One of them being Geraldo and Shepard Smith being dumbfounded as to why this whole situation is being handled so poorly.
Another clip that I came across was Anderson Cooper tearing into Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu on her political back patting and the government’s lack of effort. I found it quite entertaining and Cooper has been one of the more vocal members of the media about how appalling this whole situation is. I, along with the rest of the people with actual hearts, thank him for it.
There isn’t one person down there helping out that isn’t giving their best effort, and they’ve already saved countless lives. The problem here lies with the management and their inability to properly lead these rescue efforts. Herding people into the dome and the convention center through the hurricane was a good idea. Forcing them to stay there for 6 days with little or no food or water while garbage, human waste, and unfortunately human corpses, piled up was not. Reports say that much of the New Orleans police force just gave up and left the city because there was little or no communication or leadership in telling them what they should be doing.
Many people fall back to the argument that there is a time and a place to point fingers and play the blame game, and it isn’t now. Well guess what? If nobody speaks out, if Geraldo in typical Geraldo fashion doesn’t over-dramatically hold a crying baby in his arms, if Cooper doesn’t attack a political leader in her home state and hopefully motivates her to do more, if the blogosphere doesn’t explode with these stories, and we sit on our hands waiting for this man-made disaster to stabilize, more people will suffer and more people will die. Hopefully with the airlift out of the convention center occurring today, 4 days too late I might add, the worst is over and these people can begin an attempt at piecing back together their shattered lives.
