Blog

Cross-examined by Lautenschlager, Vang was asked if each victim deserved to die. Vang answered “no” in some cases and “yes” in others.

Stunning… have fun in prison.

Link

Penn & Teller’s Bullshit! on Showtime is one of the most lucid shows out there. Unfortunately, it’s on Showtime, which I don’t get (thank you, Internet). Today, I found a link to the episode on PETA, the People for the *cough*Ethical*cough* Treatment of Animals.

I was never a fan of PETA, but after this, I feel sick. Watch. Learn.

UPDATE: Video is now gone; someone slammed my server.

Lifehacker has a cool post about how to properly lash two ropes together. As a failed Cadet (kind of like Boy Scouts, but with more God and less crafts), I should know this, yet don’t. I bring shame on my family.

But no longer, as I will learn how to do this… as soon as I need to lash two ropes together.

…

Link

This is completely for a couple people at work and will make zero sense to anyone else.

You can now buy these T-shirts at Cafepress:

That is all.

The news hit recently that the next version of Windows, Vista, will come in 7 different “flavors”, or SKUs. I’m making the prediction right now that this is a completely false story cooked up to divert attention from the disaster that Vista has become. After dropping pretty much every decent feature from Vista, Microsoft had another Windows Me release on their hands; a dressed-up version of the previous version.

Why do I say that? First, Microsoft may be dumb, but this would colossally dumb. People can’t figure out the fact that Win XP has two versions; it’s inconceivable that the general public could begin to fathom what they need to ask for when there are 7 versions.

Second, this is way to complicated for even Microsoft to support. Windows as an OS is very, very difficult to support from Microsoft’s standpoint because of their insistence at maintaining backward compatibility. Introducing limited releases of an OS (which is what 6 versions of Vista would essentially be) is a logistical nightmare for Microsoft. Now, instead of maintaining security on one stripped-down version (XP Home), they have to protect 6 versions from hacking, cracking, and security risks.

If Vista comes in more than 3 versions, one of which will be Windows Vista Home Theatre Crashing Edition, I’ll buy a Mac. I’ll have to.

Link

One of the very few podcasts I subscribe to (This Week in Tech) released one of their episodes on video. This was shot live in the San Francisco Apple store. BitTorrent download.

Link

“I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.” –President Bush, on “Good Morning America,” Sept. 1, 2005, six days after repeated warnings from experts about the scope of damage expected from Hurricane Katrina (Source)

Link [via Fark]

I’m currently enjoying a glass of Arcadia Ales’ Amber Ale, an excellent ale from the Arcadia Brewing Company (warning: crappy browsing experience) in Battle Creek. It will soon be chased by a New Holland Sundog Ale brewed in Holland (Michigan). Why the dopey post about microbrews?

Because I had to pour out five gallons of partially fermented ale when the foaming brew clogged the airlock, allowing the CO2 to build up enough pressure to blow the lid of the fermentor. I figure the beer was exposed to the open basement air for about 12 to 16 hours; not a good thing for maturing beer. I can’t brew another batch until Saturday at the earliest and my last batch won’t condition until at least the 16th. So I drown my sorrows in good beer from others, pretending my batch would have been as good as either of them. Ah, the brutality of failure.

Add geography to the growing list of FEMA fumbles.

A South Carolina health official said his colleagues scrambled Tuesday when FEMA gave only a half-hour notice to prepare for the arrival of a plane carrying as many as 180 evacuees to Charleston.

But the plane, instead, landed in Charleston, West Virginia, 400 miles away.

I know Michael Brown didn’t personally do this (well, I believe he didn’t), but if the leader allows this kind of incompetence to flourish, that leader is gone.

Link

Yep…

Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said it all, starting his news briefing Saturday afternoon: “Louisiana is a city that is largely underwater…”

Well there’s your problem right there.

If ever a slip-of-the-tongue defined a government’s response to a crisis, this was it.

The seeming definition of our time and our leaders had been their insistence on slashing federal budgets for projects that might’ve saved New Orleans. The seeming characterization of our government that it was on vacation when the city was lost, and could barely tear itself away from commemorating V.J. Day and watching Monty Python’s Flying Circus, to at least pretend to get back to work. The seeming identification of these hapless bureaucrats: their pathetic use of the future tense in terms of relief they could’ve brought last Monday and Tuesday — like the President, whose statements have looked like they’re being transmitted to us by some kind of four-day tape-delay.

But no. The incompetence and the ludicrous prioritization will forever be symbolized by one gaffe by of the head of what is ironically called “The Department of Homeland Security”: “Louisiana is a city…”

Politician after politician — Republican and Democrat alike — has paraded before us, unwilling or unable to shut off the “I-Me” switch in their heads, condescendingly telling us about how moved they were or how devastated they were — congenitally incapable of telling the difference between the destruction of a city and the opening of a supermarket.

And as that sorry recital of self-absorption dragged on, I have resisted editorial comment. The focus needed to be on the efforts to save the stranded — even the internet’s meager powers were correctly devoted to telling the stories of the twin disasters, natural… and government-made.

But now, at least, it is has stopped getting exponentially worse in Mississippi and Alabama and New Orleans and Louisiana (the state, not the city). And, having given our leaders what we know now is the week or so they need to get their act together, that period of editorial silence I mentioned, should come to an end.

No one is suggesting that mayors or governors in the afflicted areas, nor the federal government, should be able to stop hurricanes. Lord knows, no one is suggesting that we should ever prioritize levee improvement for a below-sea-level city, ahead of $454 million worth of trophy bridges for the politicians of Alaska.

But, nationally, these are leaders who won re-election last year largely by portraying their opponents as incapable of keeping the country safe. These are leaders who regularly pressure the news media in this country to report the reopening of a school or a power station in Iraq, and defies its citizens not to stand up and cheer. Yet they couldn’t even keep one school or power station from being devastated by infrastructure collapse in New Orleans — even though the government had heard all the “chatter” from the scientists and city planners and hurricane centers and some group whose purposes the government couldn’t quite discern… a group called The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

And most chillingly of all, this is the Law and Order and Terror government. It promised protection — or at least amelioration — against all threats: conventional, radiological, or biological.

It has just proved that it cannot save its citizens from a biological weapon called standing water.

Mr. Bush has now twice insisted that, “we are not satisfied,” with the response to the manifold tragedies along the Gulf Coast. I wonder which “we” he thinks he’s speaking for on this point. Perhaps it’s the administration, although we still don’t know where some of them are. Anybody seen the Vice President lately? The man whose message this time last year was, ‘I’ll Protect You, The Other Guy Will Let You Die’?

I don’t know which ‘we’ Mr. Bush meant.

For many of this country’s citizens, the mantra has been — as we were taught in Social Studies it should always be — whether or not I voted for this President — he is still my President. I suspect anybody who had to give him that benefit of the doubt stopped doing so last week. I suspect a lot of his supporters, looking ahead to ’08, are wondering how they can distance themselves from the two words which will define his government — our government — “New Orleans.”

For him, it is a shame — in all senses of the word. A few changes of pronouns in there, and he might not have looked so much like a 21st Century Marie Antoinette. All that was needed was just a quick “I’m not satisfied with my government’s response.” Instead of hiding behind phrases like “no one could have foreseen,” had he only remembered Winston Churchill’s quote from the 1930’s. “The responsibility,” of government, Churchill told the British Parliament “for the public safety is absolute and requires no mandate. It is in fact, the prime object for which governments come into existence.”

In forgetting that, the current administration did not merely damage itself — it damaged our confidence in our ability to rely on whoever is in the White House.

As we emphasized to you here all last week, the realities of the region are such that New Orleans is going to be largely uninhabitable for a lot longer than anybody is yet willing to recognize. Lord knows when the last body will be found, or the last artifact of the levee break, dug up. Could be next March. Could be 2100. By then, in the muck and toxic mire of New Orleans, they may even find our government’s credibility.

Somewhere, in the City of Louisiana.

Video

[via Eschaton]

The ‘city’ of Louisiana – Bloggermann – MSNBC.com