Posted 9/30/2005 07:53:00 PM by Douglas

It's been over a year, but it's still illegal to run over a kindergarten teacher in Houston.

A jury that could have opted for a lesser charge convicted a Katy teenager of murder Thursday for running down an elementary schoolteacher last year as the woman walked her dog.

Breanna Zipf, 18, wiped tears from her eyes as state District Judge Brock Thomas announced the verdict. The trial's punishment phase, in which she faces a sentence ranging from probation to life in prison, is scheduled to begin today.

Harris County Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Cook said that, though Zipf did not intentionally kill Davey, she made decisions that led to her death. She said Zipf, who was 17 then, drove to a Jack in the Box after a night of smoking marijuana and about three hours of sleep.

"This case is about the defendant having a selfish need, a selfish desire to satisfy her hunger," Cook said. "Two tacos with extra sour cream: That's what Gwendolen Davey died for."

How sad. It's sad when anyone just out walking their dog got hit by some stoner, but a stoner on the way to Jack in the Box? That's just criminal. As a juror, I'd have convicted her of bad taste.

And for all you sickos that came here looking for a picture of Ms. Zipf, go text

Posted 9/30/2005 07:46:00 PM by Douglas

The real victim of Rita's trip to Houston: your freezer.

Hurricane Rita caused an estimated $111 million in damage in Harris County, including more than $75 million in food discarded by supermarkets and convenience stores, local officials said Thursday.

Wind damage was relatively low because Rita slid so far to the east, striking near Beaumont, Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt said at a news conference to discuss storm damage and recovery.

Then again there are the poor souls that died of poor planning.

Posted 9/30/2005 07:44:00 PM by Douglas

Boy, that sure was a nice space station we built for the Russians.

With the Russian-built Soyuz rocket being fueled on the launch pad today in Kazakhstan's barren steppes, Russian and American officials held tough talks on the future of joint space missions, with NASA's chief warning that Moscow's demands for payment could end U.S participation.

A fitting end, really. Born out of cold war hysteria over Soviet supremacy, NASA's death knell looks like it may the very Russians that spawned it. If only they were supplying arms to Iraq and the Mujahadeen like we did.

Posted 9/29/2005 05:48:00 PM by Douglas

I can't believe the Harris Country and City of Houston idiots are going to get away with this.

Local disaster plans were "overwhelmed" by the 2.5 million people who fled in advance of Hurricane Rita, Harris County Judge Robert Eckels told a Senate committee Wednesday.

"We will be better prepared next time" with opening highway contraflow lanes earlier and creating a timed system of mandatory evacuations, Eckels told the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

Of the evacuation, which trapped thousands of motorists in hellish gridlock, Eckels said, "People were scared and they left, and I don't blame them."

Overwhelmed? Now the evacuation deathcount is up to 107. One Hundred and SEVEN people DIED. Are dead. Exist no more. Not because of the winds and rains of Rita. Because of government asshats like White and Eckels that thought evacuating 2.5 million people was a good idea, then suddenly became "overwhelmed" when we actually did.

Where's the accountability? Because for Mayor White (and Judge Eckels, if you wanna hitch your cart to this political nightmare) there is blood on your hands.

Posted 9/29/2005 05:30:00 PM by Douglas

The coolest pictures you're going to see all day. I'm partial to 6 and 7, for some reason.

Posted 9/29/2005 05:20:00 PM by Douglas

Sandcastle building gets complicated? Not really. It's called the angle of repose.

A lesson learned by centuries of beachcombers has been distilled to a physicist's formula: to make the perfect sandcastle, use eight parts sand to one part water.

The physicists' study, released on Wednesday before publication in the journal Nature Physics, is entitled, rather grandly, "Maximum angle of stability of a wet granular pile."

And while it deals with sandcastles, it could also help determine the stability of retaining walls and the material they hold back, one of its authors said.

Maybe, if he's a totally idiot that can't read. This is nothing new. Actually, it's the name of the 1972 Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction, and the concept of stacking wet mud on top of itself is hardly new, either.

Posted 9/29/2005 05:05:00 PM by Douglas

The storm that didn't come: 107 (so far) dead in Houston from the storm that didn't come. So far, One Hundred and Seven peopled died from evacuation.

A 2-year-old Houston girl crushed beneath the wheels of a pickup; a Sugar Land man and his two young children fatally pitched from their overturning car near Madisonville; a 92-year-old La Marque woman dead after losing consciousness while stuck in highway gridlock — Hurricane Rita's tales of sorrow rolled in as the death toll climbed.

A Chronicle survey of Houston-area counties and those along major evacuation routes to the north and west indicates that at least 107 people were killed by last week's hurricane or died in accidents or from health problems associated with the evacuation of 2.5 million people from their homes.

It's going to take a long time for me to not be pissed off about this, and it's certainly not going to go away as the death toll continues to mount.

First off, no one is going to say that evacuating the country's 4th largest city would be easy. But an evacuation plan for that many people must consist of something besides run! Because that's all we got at 8 A.M. on Thursday morning, and the roadways, all off the roadways, responded accordingly.

Also, if you don't have a plan to get people out, why call for the evacuation? Where did the surprise from the sudden traffic come from? The mayor tells people to leave the city, and people (try to) leave the city. Is it any wonder that every road out of town was choked with overheating cars?

Look, I'm not an emergency management planner, nor do I draw their government paycheck. But I would think that those that do would have put slightly more thought into the evacuation of the 4th largest city in America than I have. 'Cause I'm just some dumb schmoe that got caught in traffic trying to flee my low lying coastal community.

Posted 9/28/2005 03:28:00 PM by Douglas

I guess I'm going to get up extra early tomorrow morning and go to work on a huge mistake.

Asked by the daily USA Today if the decision to build a shuttle back in the 1970s, to replace the Apollo program, was a mistake, Michael Griffin said: "It is now commonly accepted that was not the right path. We are now trying to change the path while doing as little damage as we can. My opinion is that it was" a mistake.

"It was a design which was extremely aggressive and just barely possible. Had the decision been mine, we would not have built the space station we're building in the orbit we're building it in," Griffin added.

Time to move to Guam.

Posted 9/28/2005 03:03:00 PM by Douglas

For some reason that totally escapes me now, I've been reading about the Wannsee Conference and the Beer Hall Putsch. Of course, I ended up on Göring, and something about this quote stood out in my mind as being frighteningly topical:

Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.

Göring: Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

Shit! I think I need to go buy a Toby Keith CD before I draw too much attention to myself.

Posted 9/28/2005 02:56:00 PM by Douglas

Obviously, the Houston evacuation plan needs a bit of fine tuning, but why does Houston have 31 deaths from Hurricane Rita, and 17 from the actual evacuation?

More than half of those deaths — 17 of the 31 recorded so far — were of people evacuating to safer ground when they suffered some sort of medical distress, said Beverly Begay, chief investigator of the medical examiner's office. None of the deaths occurred during the storm itself, she said.

I realize you're not going to evacuate 2.5 Million people without a snag, but does this sound acceptable to anyone? Oh wait, I guess it does:

"Considering around 2.8 million people evacuated within a short amount of time, this is a relatively small, small number," Begay said.

What this is going to tell people in the future is that if you're traveling with anyone that's not in perfect health, you might as well stay. Hell, I'd much rather die at how from an airborne 2X4 than stuck in the biggest traffic jam the world has ever seen.

Posted 9/28/2005 02:47:00 PM by Douglas

It's decision time here at the blog. Which could I find a better use for: $80 bucks or five pounds of silly putty? It's a toss-up right now.

Quoth the wife: "Man, that's a lot of silly putty."

It sure is.

Posted 9/27/2005 07:57:00 PM by Douglas

Why is this guy still on the payroll, and why won't he shut his fucking pie hole?

"I have overseen over 150 presidentially declared disasters," said Brown, who is currently serving as a transitional adviser at FEMA with full pay. "I know what I am doing. And I think I do a pretty darn good job of it."

Brownie, what color is the sky in your world? Do you not get CNN?

"My biggest mistake was not recognizing by Saturday [Aug. 27] that Louisiana was dysfunctional," Brown said.

The more this moron opens his mouth, the more I'd like to see some of New Orleans' floodwater poured down it.

Posted 9/27/2005 07:52:00 PM by Douglas

Have you ever had the urge to text message a bronze statue so it could pee your name in a puddle? Yeah, me neither, but now I can!

Posted 9/27/2005 07:46:00 PM by Douglas

It's that time of year again, folks. Time for liberal hysteria to take over when it comes to how public money is appropriated for literature. Yes, of course, I'm talking about Banned Book Week. Ok folks, last time: When the government prohibits you from buying/owning/reading any piece of literature? Censorship. When local communities choose what literature to fund. . . that's just public planning.

Banning a book and choosing not to fund it are on opposite sides of the political spectrum.

Posted 9/26/2005 05:28:00 PM by Douglas

If nothing else, I can hope that there is a new word that is added to the national lexicon as a result to the recent hurricane disasters: The Mike Brown.

But then came Michael Brown. When President Bush's former point man on disasters was discovered to have more expertise about the rules of Arabian horse competition than about the management of a catastrophe, it was a reminder that the competence of government officials who are not household names can have a life or death impact. The Brown debacle has raised pointed questions about whether political connections, not qualifications, have helped an unusually high number of Bush appointees land vitally important jobs in the Federal Government.

Michael Brown (n). Someone appointed way past their skill set in a government position where lives are at stake. See also: incompetent.

Posted 9/26/2005 05:14:00 PM by Douglas

I hope someone holds Houston's public officials accountable for this kind of shit:

The biggest problem in Houston's painful evacuation last week was that perhaps a million people, almost half of those who left, ran from the wind. To make matters worse, the regional evacuation plan was missing a key element — pre-planned contraflow lanes that are a part of virtually every other hurricane-prone city's evacuation strategy.

Actually, I'd like to see the mayor's arms ripped off and used to beat him. With the bloody ends. But a little accountability would do for now.

Posted 9/26/2005 04:50:00 PM by Douglas

A billion here, a billion there. . . .pretty soon we're going to start talking about some real money.

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said on Sunday she would ask the federal government for at least $11.5 billion for infrastructure repairs and $20.2 billion to protect New Orleans from future flooding after the passage of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Man, I wish we had saved our receipt. Is it too late to get our money back from the French?

Posted 9/25/2005 04:34:00 PM by Douglas

Houston Texas, Thursday, September 22, 2005. The parking lot on Beltway 8 just south of the 290 toll-way.

Posted 9/25/2005 04:22:00 PM by Douglas

Here's the official re-vacuation plan for Houston. Looks like it's going to be a long and lonely week.

Posted 9/25/2005 04:18:00 PM by Douglas

Maureen Dowd was on Meet the Press this morning, and I can't watch her and not laugh. Partly because she's hilarious when she tries to get others to take herself seriously, and partly because this quote.

Take the two leading liberal columnists at the New York Times, Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman. As we all know, one's a whining self-parody of a hysterical liberal who lets feminine emotion and fear defeat reason and fact in almost every column. The other used to date Michael Douglas.

Ha!

Posted 9/25/2005 04:00:00 PM by Douglas

Forget inept government, if you really want to blame someone for the storms, why not the Russian Mafia?

"The Soviets boasted of their geoengineering capabilities; these impressive accomplishments must be taken at face value simply because we are observing weather events that simply have never occurred before, never!" Stevens wrote on his Web site. "The evidence of these weapons at work found within the clouds overhead is simply unmistakable. These patterns and odd geometric shapes seen in our skies, each and every day, are clear and present evidence that our weather has been stolen from us, only to be used by those whose designs for humanity are rarely in alignment with that of the common man."

Hell, why not?

Shiny side out, dude.

Posted 9/25/2005 03:57:00 PM by Douglas

Someone please let me know when Houston's mayor and Governor Perry answer this guy's questions:

First, we can celebrate the remarkable spirit of the people who were caught up in it, sweltering in heat, panicked about running out of gas as a Category 5 hurricane appeared to be chasing them, frantic about their children, their elderly parents, their pets.

These people were frustrated and angry. But to their credit, they did not take out their anger on their neighbors.

They cursed the authorities.

Well, it's just easier isn't it? They have the authority (and supposedly better information about the storm, but the internet has taken away that ace up their sleeve) to call for the evacuation, so why don't they have the foresight to enable it?

Posted 9/25/2005 03:41:00 PM by Douglas

A third of a million people still without power.

As of early today, Houston-based CenterPoint Energy estimated 300,000 of the 700,000 who lost power during the storm were still without service. The utility counts 1.9 million customers in its service area. Those still waiting for electricity were scattered across Harris, Galveston, Chambers, Liberty and Montgomery counties.

Don't come back, it's still pretty damn hot here with no A/C.

Posted 9/25/2005 03:13:00 PM by Douglas

Well it looks like Texas in general fared pretty well in this last round of Hurricanes, and besides sitting on the Beltway for nine hours on my way to West Texas only to give up and hunker down in Jersey Village, I must say that I am personally unscathed. It's pretty obvious that in the umbra of Katrina, a hurricane hitting the Texas coast didn't come as a surprise to anyone. Houston spent so much time focusing of the refugees from Louisiana that it would appear that their own evacuation planning went out the window with that last corn-dog they had in the freezer.

As I've ranted in the past regarding Katrina's issues, the probles begin and end with this statement: governments failed. Whether it was the post-storm aid at Katrina or the pre-storm evacuation of Houston, no one seems to have any clue as to what is going on. Sure, it's easy to point fingers and blame people on TV at the press conference, but that's their freakin' job! We don't elect these people for ribbon cutting ceremonies at the new park or for naming streets. We elect them and give them the authority to seize property and take people to jail because sometimes, that's what we need. Here are just a few examples of what I saw personally that should be addressed:

• Why the hell did Mayor Bill White call for the evacuation of Houston at 8 A.M. Thursday morning? Northern Galveston County and low-lying areas right on the water weren't called to be evacuated until Thursday at Noon, and when I was on the Beltway trying to get out, my route was slowed to about ½ a mile an hour by the massive influx of Houstonians, who undoubtedly live much higher above sea level than I do. Also, if the Mayor of the 4th largest city in the country going to call for an evacuation, why wouldn't the resources to establish the contra-flow lanes along I-45 and I-10 already be in place? He called for the evacuation, then put the plans to work to establish contra-flow along I-45 sometime after Noon on Thursday along I-45, and much later in the afternoon along I-10 West. Why wasn't this huge evacuation anticipated when, oh, I don't know, when he called for the fucking evacuation?
• On Friday morning, Rita was looking more and more like a non-event for Houston, and the freeways were a complete ghost town, yet the mayor was then telling us to "shelter in place." Why? You could have driven anywhere you wanted to go in and out of Houston in record time, yet we were told to "stay put," even though the first clouds of the storm were a good 12 hours away. Why?
• I was getting a little relieved when Rita's track was taking it out of the Galveston area, but I was still very worried about getting back into Galveston county after the storm passed. Was there going to be DPS enforcing the mandatory evacuation? Luckily I found the Leauge City office of Emergency Management's phone number on the web. It went unanswered on Thursday, but on Friday, I was able to call and speak to someone about returning after the storm. They didn't know. But then I asked if they had a recording line that had pertinent information like this that I could call to find out about updates to the situation in League City. The answer (and I'm quoting here), "Oh no, that would be too easy. We've got 30 people in here answering the phone." Even for inefficient and bureaucratic city government, this is unbelievable. A category 4 hurricane is headed right towards us (at that time) and instead of an $100 multi-line answering machine, 30 people are put in harms way to answer the same question all day. Why?

I think I could sit here and whine all day about this, but I don't much see the point. City, state, and county officials are going to stand around sucking each other's dicks and about what a great job they did, and at the end of the day, it was successful, but only because Rita changed direction in her last 24 hours before landfall. So instead of relying on luck, how 'bout we put some time and money on some emergency management planning instead of blind luck. Is that too much to ask?

Posted 9/24/2005 10:50:00 AM by Douglas

We survived! We lived through Rita and we're back home to a house with NO damage. It's been a long couple of days. There will be plenty of time in the future to point out the utter helplessness of our local government (and believe me, I'll rant about that in due time) but for now I'm going to crank down the A/C and sit on the couch.

Posted 9/21/2005 08:10:00 PM by Douglas

Holy shit

...RITA BECOMES THE THIRD MOST INTENSE HURRICANE ON RECORD...

DROPSONDE DATA FROM AN AIR FORCE RESERVE UNIT RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT AT 623 PM CDT...2323Z...INDICATED THE CENTRAL PRESSURE HAS FALLEN TO BELOW 899 MB...OR 26.55 INCHES. THE DROPSONDE INSTRUMENT MEASURED 32 KT/35 MPH WINDS AT THE SURFACE...WHICH MEANS IT LIKELY DID NOT RECORD THE LOWEST PRESSURE IN THE EYE OF RITA. THE CENTRAL PRESSURE IS PROBABLY AT LEAST AS LOW AS 898 MB...AND PERHAPS EVEN LOWER. FOR OFFICIAL PURPOSES... A PRESSURE OF 898 MB IS ASSUMED...WHICH NOW MAKES RITA THE THIRD MOST INTENSE HURRICANE IN TERMS OF PRESSURE IN THE ATLANTIC BASIN. SOME ADDITIONAL DEEPENING AND INTENSIFICATION IS POSSIBLE FOR THE NEXT 12 HOURS OR SO.

RITA CURRENTLY RANKS BEHIND HURRICANE GILBERT IN 1988 WITH 888 MB AND THE 1935 LABOR DAY HURRICANE WITH 892 MB.

FORECASTER STEWART

Thanks, Stewart. That's just what I needed to hear.

Rats? Meet the sinking ship. Sinking ship? Meet Houston.

Posted 9/20/2005 09:18:00 PM by Douglas

Also, I've now got several square feet of blank plywood covering my windows. If anyone can think of some really clever things to spraypaint on it, you know, the kind of stuff that's going to get me on CNN, let me know!

Posted 9/20/2005 09:16:00 PM by Douglas

Hurricane Rita has cleared the keys and entered the Gulf with all the media fanfare that I would have expected from a Hydrogen bomb exploding at the ship channel. Ok, Katrina made people a bit punchy, and it's always better to err on the side of caution, but this is ridiculous. I have been outside hanging too many sheet of plywood to provide linky goodness, but I've heard way too many stories on the news about what could happen as opposed to what's likely to happen. For example, 130 mph wind in Sugarland, 25 foot storm surge in League City. People. Take a deep breath. Stop listening to people on TV that get paid to scare the shit out of you. Go check the National Hurricane Center (that's where all the talking heads get their info, anyway) and take a look at their predicted track. It's headed towards Matagorda Bay. If that holds true, we'll get some wind, some rain, and probably a lot of flooding, but no fire and brimstone, I promise. Of course, it's essential that you're prepared, but now is not the time to crap your pants and start running around yelling "the sky is falling!" We reserve that task when it shifts 150 miles East towards Galveston Bay.

Posted 9/19/2005 10:54:00 PM by Douglas

Rita. Fucking Rita. Ya know, If I thought my house was going to be leveled by a storm named after a woman, I would have never guessed it would have been Rita. Rita was a special Ed teacher in my elementary school, and she dealt with retards all day and reeked of old-lady perfume. No, if I want to lose my house, I want the name to fit accordingly. Esemeralda, Victoria, or Kandice. So who knows? Katrina doesn't sound all that menacing, either, but tell that to the thousands of homeless people in Mississippi and Louisiana.

After numerous phone calls and much driving, I finally found The Home Despot that had half inch plywood, so I got a shit load. The rest of the week will be filled with preparations. Preparing to leave, or preparing to stay, and that's what scares the shit out of me right now: Both of those eventualities. If I stay, I've got to ride it out, and if I leave, I've got to eventually come back to god knows what's left over from the wind, rain, storm surge, looters, and my worthless neighbors that I just know have been eyein' my bar-b-que grill ever since I moved it in.

For a while now I was thinking that a Cat 3 isn't that bad. Then I'm reminded of Mr. Saffir and Mr. Simpson that have taken a lot of the thought out of that particular decision making process. Cat 3? It'll probably be alright, right?

Holy crap, what part of 111 MPH winds do I think is going to be OK???? I defer to the great Ron White for advice in this matter. When a particularly strong man was going to "ride out" a hurricane, Ron offered up this advice:

"It's not that the wind is blowing, it's what the wind is blowing. Because if you get hit by a Volvo, it doesn't really matter how many push-ups you can do."

Truer words have never been spoken.

Posted 9/19/2005 04:32:00 PM by Douglas

Crap! Houston, we have a problem.

Defiantly not what I wanted to do this weekend.

Posted 9/19/2005 06:26:00 AM by Douglas

Arrrrrrr!

Posted 9/18/2005 11:03:00 PM by Douglas

To my faithful readers: yes, both of you. It looks like I'm guest blogging over at The People's Republic of Seabrook for a while. We'll see how long before Jack pulls the plug on me, but it should be interesting. Check it out!

Posted 9/18/2005 06:51:00 PM by Douglas

I would have never guessed that I would have been 31 years old before I found out that ground up beetles were used to color yogurt. But here we are. . .

This is not a joke: there are ground up red beetles being used right now as a food coloring ingredient in yogurt, ice cream, juice drinks and many other grocery products. The ingredient is called "carmine."

Further proof that there is a near infinite array of things out there that you don't know.

Posted 9/18/2005 06:46:00 PM by Douglas

Here, in all its glory, is the Navy's Safety Center's Photo of the day. The guy standing on the railing of his platform to hang the safety banner has to be my favourite, but the guy with the gas cannister that came through the rear window of his pick-up rings home with a big of Newtonian "I told ya so."

Posted 9/18/2005 06:26:00 PM by Douglas

This article has been sitting in my mozilla tab since Friday, and I still don't know what to say about it.

Look a few hundred miles to the west, at Houston — a well-run city with a widely diversified economy. Without much in the way of old culture, charm or tradition, it has far outshone New Orleans as a beacon for enterprising migrants from other countries as well as other parts of the United States — including New Orleans.

Houston has succeeded by sticking to the basics, by focusing on the practical aspects of urbanism rather than the glamorous. Under the inspired leadership of former Mayor Bob Lanier and the current chief executive, Bill White, the city has invested heavily in port facilities, drainage, sanitation, freeways and other infrastructure.

At least in part as a result of this investment, this superficially less-than-lovely city has managed to siphon industries — including energy and international trade — from New Orleans. With its massive Texas Medical Center, it has emerged as the primary healthcare center in the Caribbean basin — something New Orleans, with Tulane University's well-regarded medical school, should have been able to pull off.

It looks as if there are three distinct possibilities:

• Rebuild the city exactly like it was and act like nothing happened.
• Rebuild it without any balls and make it look like Houston.
• Let it slide into the sea.

Monty, can I see what's behind door number four?

Posted 9/18/2005 05:57:00 PM by Douglas

Houston without Astroworld is like Astroworld without baking in the sun on black-top asphalt, hyper-inflated ticket prices, and a $4 Coke. So why do I already miss it?

Similar scenes played out across Six Flags AstroWorld on Saturday, the park's first day of operations since Monday's announcement that the Houston landmark will end its 37-year run after Oct. 30. Six Flags plans to sell the 109-acre site where so many Houstonians got their first jobs, first kisses and first cases of roller-coaster-induced nausea.

Anywhere outside is a horrible place to be in the middle of the day in Houston in the summer. I have no idea who is going to take control over it after Six Flags leaves (I can't imagine it getting bulldozed), but if the beautiful October through March weather isn't exploited, then they're destined to have the same heat stroke victims that weren't spending money there before.

Posted 9/17/2005 01:23:00 PM by Douglas

Lord knows I'm no art critic, but I think I can understand some of the brewing controversy over this one.

A statue of a naked, pregnant woman with no arms has been unveiled on Trafalgar Square's fourth plinth.

The 12ft (3.6m) marble sculpture, "Alison Lapper Pregnant", is already dividing opinion among art critics and disability campaigners.

Maybe it's just me and my delicate puritanical sensibilities, but I don't think I'd like to drive by this every day on my way to work to see a 15 foot tall deformed pregnant woman.

Posted 9/17/2005 01:13:00 PM by Douglas

What an exciting time to be alive in the world of razors.

Gillette Co. Wednesday unveiled its newest shaving system, a five-bladed razor called Fusion with a trimmer on the back of the cartridge aimed at the 50 percent of men who have mustaches and beards.

Fusion is Gillette's latest product geared at maintaining the company's leading share of the world's razor and blade market.

It has one more blade than the Quattro sold by rival Schick, a unit of Energizer Holdings Inc., plus a trimming blade on the back of the pivoting cartridge for shaping facial hair, trimming sideburns and shaving under the nose.

I know I'm not the first person to notice this, but the R&D boys over at Gillette obviously read the onion.

Would someone tell me how this happened? We were the fucking vanguard of shaving in this country. The Gillette Mach3 was the razor to own. Then the other guy came out with a three-blade razor. Were we scared? Hell, no. Because we hit back with a little thing called the Mach3Turbo. That's three blades and an aloe strip. For moisture. But you know what happened next? Shut up, I'm telling you what happened—the bastards went to four blades. Now we're standing around with our cocks in our hands, selling three blades and a strip. Moisture or no, suddenly we're the chumps. Well, fuck it. We're going to five blades.

I just can't help but think that the marketing meeting at Gillette sounded exactly like that.

When SNL made fun of the new double blade in their premier episode with their Triple-Trac because, you know, people will believe anything. There was also a commercial on SNL, and for the life of me, I can't google it, in response to the first 3-bladed razor. Theirs had an astounding 23 blades, and was pretty damn funny. Obviously, it's just a matter of time.

Posted 9/17/2005 10:58:00 AM by Douglas

Mmmmm. . . . .beer! Is there anything it can't do?

Legions of thirsty beer-lovers flooded Munich for the start of its world-famous Oktoberfest on Saturday, bent on bacchanalian excess but vowing to stagger to the polling booths for Sunday's elections.

Over the next 17 days Munich, the capital of the southern state of Bavaria, will welcome around 6 million devoted drinkers, expected to consume enough beer to fill around six Olympic-sized swimming pools.

"You feel pretty sloshed by the end of the night," she said.

I'm thirsty, and I don't know why.

Labels: Oktoberfest

Posted 9/17/2005 10:44:00 AM by Douglas

Tired of having a laptop that's compact, efficient and doesn't tell the rest of the world that you have a tiny penis? Well run right out and get yourself a Hummer Laptop!

Just as tough, reliable, and go anywhere as a HUMMER, this laptop is the perfect addition to your HUMMER lifestyle! Featuring the latest in mobile technology, it's ergonomically styled, and passes the military standard 810F test for operating temperature and vibration. We invite you to explore the rugged sophistication of the HUMMER Laptop...

It's huge, slow, and its 286 processors is so overclocked it requires 220 volts, so you have to plug it into your dryer outlet.

Posted 9/17/2005 10:36:00 AM by Douglas

Koo, Koo ja goob.

THE world record for balancing the most number of eggs on their end at one time has been cracked in Melbourne.

American Brian Spotts, who travelled from Colorado for the Guinness Book of Records attempt, began his feat at 6pm and finished 15 hours later after standing 439 eggs on end.

He succeeded in breaking the former record of 420 and also claimed the record for "fastest time to balance a dozen eggs" in four minutes, two seconds.

His mother must be so proud of him. Right now I'm having an unexplainable craving for an omelet.

Posted 9/15/2005 05:43:00 PM by Douglas

Woo Hoo! Texas is still Number One!

1. Galveston (Texas) Hurricane, 1900, estimated 8,000 deaths
2. Great Okeechobee Hurricane in Florida, 1928, estimated 2,500-plus
3. Johnstown, Pa., Flood, 1889, estimated 2,200-plus
4. Louisiana Hurricane, 1893, 2,000-plus
5. South Carolina-Georgia Hurricane, 1893, 1,000-2,000
6. Great New England Hurricane, 1938, 720
7. Hurricane Katrina, with the latest toll at 710.
8. San Francisco Earthquake, 1906, 700
9. Georgia-South Carolina Hurricane, 1881, 700
10. Tri-State Tornado in Missouri, Illinois and Indiana, 1925, 695

Yet only six of those happened in the 20th century. Is that significant? I think so.

Posted 9/15/2005 05:40:00 PM by Douglas

Is the DPS pulling over any cars that don't consent to a search?

Department of Public Safety troopers arrested two men Tuesday morning on money laundering charges during a traffic stop on Interstate 40 near here.

Troopers stopped a 2006 Cadillac TDS at 8:30 a.m. traveling westbound on Interstate 40, according to a DPS report. After receiving consent to search the vehicle, troopers found $114,930 in cash secreted in the lining of an ice chest in the back seat of the Cadillac, the report said.

The load is believed to have originated in Detroit and was headed for Tucson, the report said.

Long-time readers from the tin-foil hat brigade (you know who you are: you think I'm monitoring your thoughts, and I am) will see this as yet another example of the DPS monitoring cars with the mysterious automobile black box. Not that I'm giving credence to nor discrediting this assertation, but it's kinda kooky that this sort of thing happens all the dang time along I-40.

Labels: EDR

Posted 9/15/2005 05:40:00 PM by Douglas

---

Another update, 4/30/06 Post was totally deleted. May the googling stop. Please?

Posted 9/15/2005 05:35:00 PM by Douglas

Bizzarre. Maybe he really wanted a Toyota.

A participant in an East Texas contest popularized in a 1998 documentary film left the event early today, broke into a nearby store, retrieved a shotgun and killed himself, police said.

Richard Vega, 24, of Tyler left the "Hands on a Hardbody" contest at Patterson Nissan around 6 a.m., about the time that a break was called, said police Sgt. Carlos Samples. The rules of the contest require participants to lay one hand flat on a truck at all times. The contestant who holds out longest drives the truck home.

Vega crossed the street to a Kmart, broke the glass in the front door, climbed through, then went to the sporting goods department and took a 12-gauge shotgun, police said. Officers called to the scene were coming in the front of the store as Vega approached from the back.

I'm sure this has something to do with regular unleaded being close to $3 a gallon. . . in Texas.

Posted 9/15/2005 05:33:00 PM by Douglas

I don't really have anything against menstruating women (I don't have anything for them, either, hardy har-freakin' har), but after reading this article, I'm not sure we're shunning the right people.

Women's rights activists in Nepal have hailed a Supreme Court order to end discrimination against women during their menstrual cycle.

There is a tradition in parts of Nepal of keeping women in cow-sheds during their period.

The practice is common in far western districts of the country.

The Supreme Court has ordered the government to declare the practice as evil and given it one month to begin stamping the practice out.

You gotta give Nepal credit where credit is due: this may not be a bad idea, and that's not just a phallocentric opinion. I know there are countless women that would rather hang out in a barn when Aunt Flo is in town rather than deal with the rest of you brain-dead fucks.

Let's bring this to America, but don't shun them, but give them the option to hang out in a barn for four days a month. While we're at it, give me four days of exile a month! I'd take it. I have a feeling it would go a little something like this:

"Dude where were you?"

"Ya know, it was my time. . . I was hanging out in a barn for four days."

"You missed the big meeting with the VP. We have a new quality policy you have to memorize!"

"Damn!"

And. . . . scene. I'm just saying I could use four days off work hanging out in a barn, that's all.

Posted 9/15/2005 05:12:00 PM by Douglas

Google BlogSearch. It was just a matter of time. It's a Beta, but my trial run shows it's pretty ineffective.

Posted 9/15/2005 05:10:00 PM by Douglas

Is it just me, or are the endtimes among us? Looks like I'm going to have to postpone my trip to Seattle now:

An important seismic event imperceptible to humans has begun in the Pacific Northwest as predicted, according to the government agency Geological Survey of Canada.

The chance of a major earthquake is 30 times higher now for a roughly two-week period, but the odds are still remote, scientists say.

The event is called episodic tremor and slip (ETS). It involves a slow movement of the Juan de Fuca and North America tectonic plates along the Cascadia margin of southern British Columbia. Faults associated with the plates have been the sites of major earthquakes -- akin to the colossal tsumani-causing quake last December in Indonesia -- every 500 years or so, the geologic record shows. The last such temblor in the area struck on Jan. 26 in the year 1700.

If there were any geologists that read this site, they'd tell me why this is an over-blown exaggeration of something that's not an issue. Or if it isn't. . . RUN!

If only I knew a geologist. . .

Posted 9/14/2005 05:53:00 PM by Douglas

After being in office for almost five years now, President Bush offers up his first mea culpa.

"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government and to the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Bush said during a joint news conference with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

Hollow lip service because his approval rating is scraping the bottom of the bucket, or a genuine apology for things he's done wrong. Yes and no.

Aside from his better parking spot, he has about as much to do with the goings on of the entire federal government as you do. He may be the executive in charge, but that doesn't mean he's aware of things going on in the empire on the microscopic level. Say, for example that the levees would be breached. But does that matter? As a mea culpa, this one left me kinda flat. Except for the fact that this is the first time in his 5 years as president (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong) that he's ever admitted his administration has made a mistake.

It's a start, isn't it?

Posted 9/14/2005 05:48:00 PM by Douglas

I could care less about stem cell and its associate issues, but this article really scared the crap out of me:

The proof is projected on the screen. The x-ray shows a teratoma, a naturally occurring tumor that grows from an egg or sperm cell. Like an embryo, a teratoma produces stem cells. But the teratoma does not have the right balance of gene expression to create a fully integrated organism. So it grows into a dense ball of teeth, hair, and skin, a ghastly grab bag of organs like some randomly constructed Frankenstein. Hurlbut points to the x-ray. "They're about the ugliest thing in medicine," he says, "but they might offer us a solution to our stem cell dilemma."

Ok, maybe the article isn't that disturbing, but don't do a google image search for "teratoma" if you've just had spaghetti.

Posted 9/14/2005 05:14:00 PM by Douglas

There are millions of cross country trucks on the road right this very second. So why is it that the Department of Public Safety can pull over a truck driver, with surprisingly regularity, search his truck, and find 110 pounds of cocaine?

Texas Department of Public Safety troopers found 50 kilograms of cocaine inside a tractor-trailer during a traffic stop Friday morning along Interstate 40 near Groom.

Troopers stopped a 1997 Freightliner tractor-trailer at 8:45 a.m. Friday on eastbound I-40 about 6 miles west of Groom for a traffic violation, the report said.

After receiving consent to search the vehicle, troopers found the cocaine in two U-Haul boxes located under a bed in the sleeper cab of the tractor-trailer, the report said.

A traffic violation led to "consent to search the vehicle?" Why? And if you knew you had 110 pounds of coke in your truck, why on earth would you ever give consent to search?

This same story shows up once a month in the Amarillo Globe-News, and I just don't understand why.

Labels: I-40 Drug Bust

Posted 9/14/2005 05:04:00 PM by Douglas

Two and a half weeks after Katrina hit the coast, FEMA is still making the worst of a horrible situation.

Not long after some 1,000 firefighters sat down for eight hours of training, the whispering began: "What are we doing here?"

As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for firefighters - his own are exhausted after working around the clock for a week - a battalion of highly trained men and women sat idle Sunday in a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta.

Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers.

Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA.

On Monday, some firefighters stuck in the staging area at the Sheraton peeled off their FEMA-issued shirts and stuffed them in backpacks, saying they refuse to represent the federal agency.

What a spectacular waste of their time. I hate to say it, but maybe they should have volunteered their time to Wal-Mart? You know those guys would have put them to good use, and probably had more authority.

Posted 9/12/2005 05:46:00 PM by Douglas

If it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press, and if it's Meet the Press, it's Tim Russert hitting some double speaking politician like a piñata. This week: New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin:

MR. RUSSERT: Many people point, Mr. Mayor, that on Friday before the hurricane, President Bush declared an impending disaster. And The Houston Chronicle wrote it this way. "[Mayor Nagin's] mandatory evacuation order was issued 20 hours before the storm struck the Louisiana coast, less than half the time researchers determined would be needed to get everyone out. City officials had 550 municipal buses and hundreds of additional school buses at their disposal but made no plans to use them to get people out of New Orleans before the storm, said Chester Wilmot, a civil engineering professor at Louisiana State University and an expert in transportation planning, who helped the city put together its evacuation plan." And we've all see this photograph of these submerged school buses. Why did you not declare, order, a mandatory evacuation on Friday, when the president declared an emergency, and have utilized those buses to get people out?

MAYOR NAGIN: You know, Tim, that's one of the things that will be debated. There has never been a catastrophe in the history of New Orleans like this. There has never been any Category 5 storm of this magnitude that has hit New Orleans directly. We did the things that we thought were best based upon the information that we had. Sure, here was lots of buses out there. But guess what? You can't find drivers that would stay behind with a Category 5 hurricane, you know, pending down on New Orleans. We barely got enough drivers to move people on Sunday, or Saturday and Sunday, to move them to the Superdome. We barely had enough drivers for that. So sure, we had the assets, but the drivers just weren't available.

First and foremost, shut your fucking pie hole.

Secondly, no drivers could be found to "stay behind" with the hurricane bearing down on New Orleans? Are you listening to yourself?? I know hindsight is 20/20, but I'd bet 100 times the amount I've given to the Red Cross this week that there were hundreds of willing drivers, many of which might even be licensed bus drivers, that were willing to take those buses out of New Orleans, full of people that would now be eternally grateful. Has anyone told Mayor Nagin about the story of Jabbar Gibson?

Finally, no one is going to debate that there were 550 buses left flooded in New Orleans. That's a statement of fact and a testament of his poor planning and execution of his own City approved emergency evacuation plans. The debate will be why there were 550 buses left flooded in New Orleans when the City of New Orleans knew there was no other way to evacuate the people that lacked the means to get out if in fact a storm of this magnitude was headed their way, which didn't come as a surprise to anyone.

Cry for (and mispronounce) the [Federal] cavalry all you want, but that fails to erase your own lack of preparations before the storm got to your parish.

Posted 9/12/2005 05:10:00 PM by Douglas

Brownie got his pink slip. Finally.

Posted 9/11/2005 04:34:00 PM by Douglas

Interesting, if not virulent op-ed on the 4th anniversary of 9/11/01.

TODAY the Pentagon will hold the America Supports You Freedom Walk, ostensibly to commemorate the victims of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and to show support for members of the armed forces. Nothing could be better contrived to show the high price Americans have paid since that day of infamy.

The Freedom Walk is limited to those who register and submit to being searched. The route of the march will be fenced and lined with police officers. No one can join the march en route. No one can leave it. The press cannot walk along the route. The walk to proclaim Americans' freedom reveals how much freedom we have lost.

The march concludes at the National Mall, where country singer Clint Black will perform a concert. Black is known for his recent hit Iraq and Roll . Commemorating thousands of deaths on 9/11 with a concert of country music seems less solemn than the occasion demands. It shows the administration's desire to portray an upbeat mood no matter what the circumstances.

But even stronger than their desire to put an upbeat spin on it, it's their desire to somehow link the 9/11 attacks with their misguided war in Iraq. Iraq and Roll? Give me a freakin' break. That's just downright offensive.

Posted 9/11/2005 04:07:00 PM by Douglas

The things you learn from the Food Network. Alton Brown used to direct music videos:

He shot commercials for lots of big-name products and also directed several high-profile music videos, including "The One I Love" by R.E.M.

Rachel Ray may or may not be hot. I haven't decided yet. I don't think she can shut up long enough.

Posted 9/11/2005 04:05:00 PM by Douglas

Here's a list of new laws that take effect in Texas on September 1st. One of notable interest is HB 823 which basically makes it legal for anyone to carry a concealed weapon in their car. How? Because the original statute [section 46.15 (b) (3)] says that you can carry a concealed weapon if you are "traveling." The 75th legislature has now clearly defined what "traveling" is. And I quote:

(i) For purposes of Subsection (b)(3), a person is presumed to be traveling if the person is:

1. (1) in a private motor vehicle;
2. (2) not otherwise engaged in criminal activity, other than a Class C misdemeanor that is a violation of a law or ordinance regulating traffic;
3. (3) not otherwise prohibited by law from possessing a firearm;
4. (4) not a member of a criminal street gang, as defined by Section 71.01; and
5. (5) not carrying a handgun in plain view.

I'm sure this would rile up a lot of the anti-gun crowd, but they're not going to read this, anyway. The Vermont-style is the way to go, but if the laws are going to be on the books, they need to be clearly defined and not covered by a vague term like "traveling."

The question now is why bother to get a CHL permit at all? I'm "traveling" all the time, as defined by HB 823. So do I need to start packin'?

Posted 9/11/2005 03:53:00 PM by Douglas

Some things that I'm grateful for on this Sunday, September 11th:

• It's been four years since this happened, and there haven't been any repeats.
• My house isn't under 10 feet of water.
• The Texas Longhorns.
• Plumbing, but more specifically:
• The fact that I live where I can rent one of these on a Sunday morning.
• And, as always, air conditioning.

We were in deep shit this morning. Literally. It's quite amazing how overwhelming the news has been lately, but it's also quite revealing how quickly that sort of thing takes the back burner when you've got sewage coming up from your shower drain. But two hours and $40 at The Home Despot later, all things are flowing in the appropriate direction.

Posted 9/10/2005 10:58:00 AM by Douglas

Only in England.

It seems many school-entry boys have greater difficulty picking up on some emotions, such as anger.

Understanding these differences could be useful in class, scientists said.

"If teachers attempt to control boys by subtle means, such as raised eyebrows, and the boys ignore these cues, it may be that they simply are not able to read them and decode them accurately," explained Professor David Skuse, whose team at the Institute of Child Health in London conducted the research.

A similar study in the U.S. determined that American schoolboys didn't even respond when the teachers hit them with electric cattle prods.

Posted 9/10/2005 10:53:00 AM by Douglas

I sorta felt like I was getting smarter this past week. Know I know why.

Two genes involved in determining the size of the human brain have undergone substantial evolution in the last 60,000 years, researchers say, leading to the surprising suggestion that the brain is still undergoing rapid evolution.

The discovery adds weight to the view that human evolution is still a work in progress, since previous instances of recent genetic change have come to light in genes that defend against disease and confer the ability to digest milk in adulthood.

Clearly, this explains the recent rise in popularity of professional wrestling, chicken wings, and Paris Hilton.

Posted 9/10/2005 10:44:00 AM by Douglas

Why in the hell are we still readying stories like this? If there's a compelling reason why we should be refusing aid from anyone that wants to give it, I'd like to hear it.

Frustration mounted among European countries that have been stymied in their efforts to send aid to the United States in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, with tons of supplies sitting idly at airports awaiting a green light from Washington.

"Since last Saturday we have been waiting for permission to fly into the United States but so far we haven't got any response," lamented Claes Thorson, spokesman at the Swedish embassy in Washington.

Thorson said as soon as the United States appealed for foreign aid, his government loaded a transport plane with water purification equipment, temporary cell-phone networks, blankets and jerry cans.

But the Hercules C-130 has yet to be given permission to fly into the United States, despite repeated requests by Sweden, Thorson said.

"The only answer we get is that our request (to fly) has been suspended until further notice," he said.

Can they land it at the Astrodome?

Posted 9/10/2005 10:43:00 AM by Douglas

Here's a quite remarkable story.

President Bush's job approval has dipped below 40 percent for the first time in the AP-Ipsos poll, reflecting widespread doubts about his handling of gasoline prices and the response to Hurricane Katrina.

With gasoline racing past $3 a gallon, Bush's standing on dealing with those prices may be one of his biggest problems — seven in 10 said they disapprove.

And just over half in the poll, 52 percent, said they disapprove of the president's handling of the hurricane.

And by remarkable, I mean I'm surprised that it's that high.

Posted 9/10/2005 10:31:00 AM by Douglas

Finally! Brownie got sent home.

Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown was replaced Friday as the man in charge of the Hurricane Katrina federal relief effort.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff named Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen to replace Brown.

Wow, that only took a week. But he just got sent back to D.C., he didn't get fired.

Brown, under fire over his qualifications and what critics call a bungled response to Katrina, will return to his duties in Washington as overall FEMA chief, Chertoff said.

This is what I love: The FEMA director can bungle the country's worst natural disaster we've ever seen, he does such a bad job he gets yanked out of the field and sent back to his desk, and the big story now is whether he lied on his resume about the work he did for the City of Edmund, Oklahoma.

"I'm anxious to get back to D.C. to correct all the inaccuracies and lies," Brown told the AP.

Shut your fucking pie hole.

Posted 9/10/2005 10:30:00 AM by Douglas

I can say countless wonderful things about Wikipedia, but I'd rather bitch about its shortcomings: Its search capabilities suck, hard. I was looking for this article about odd units of measure that I had stumbled on previously, and I couldn't find it.

Why is the search bar so horrible, and what is google going to do about it?

Posted 9/08/2005 05:28:00 PM by Douglas

Build your own Hell! [via Brian]



This was kinda funny, because when ranking them, I had to choose between Okies and Aggies. Man, now there's a dilemma!

Posted 9/08/2005 05:18:00 PM by Douglas

Turns out, the government was quick to respond to Katrina victims. The Canadian government.

A Canadian search-and-rescue team reached a flooded New Orleans suburb to help save trapped residents five days before the U.S. military, a Louisiana state senator said on Wednesday.

The Canadians beat both the Army and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. disaster response department, to St. Bernard Parish east of New Orleans, where flood waters are still 8 feet deep in places, Sen. Walter Boasso said.

"Fabulous, fabulous guys," Boasso said. "They started rolling with us and got in boats to save people."

Two FEMA officials reached the parish on Sunday and the U.S. Army arrived on Monday, he said.

"Why does it take them seven days to get the Army in?" Boasso asked.

Is there some connection with Arcadiania here? Who knows. Who cares. At least they're getting some help. And it's coming from across the other border, too.

Forty Mexican army trucks crossed into the United States carrying Hurricane Katrina relief supplies, doctors and engineers in a peaceful but highly symbolic operation on US territory.

The convoy of ambulances, mobile kitchens and engineering equipment crossed from the frontier town of Nuevo Laredo into Laredo, Texas and then headed for San Antonio where the legendary battle of the Alamo was fought in 1836.

It is the first Mexican military operation in the United States since the two countries fought a bitter territorial war in the 1840s.

More than 150 years later, Mexican troops are back, unarmed and with help for their wealthier northern neighbors. A lot of Mexicans and other Hispanics are believed to be among the one million people displaced by deadly Hurricane Katrina.

Did I read that right? The Mexican Army entered Texas, drove past the Alamo, and headed to Louisiana to help displaced Hispanic Katrina survivors?

This is just getting weird.

Posted 9/08/2005 05:13:00 PM by Douglas

Don't think that this is the last we're going to hear about misappropriated pork. [Thanks, longtime reader!]

In Katrina's wake, Louisiana politicians and other critics have complained about paltry funding for the Army Corps in general and Louisiana projects in particular. But over the five years of President Bush's administration, Louisiana has received far more money for Corps civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion; California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than seven times larger.

Much of that Louisiana money was spent to try to keep low-lying New Orleans dry. But hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to unrelated water projects demanded by the state's congressional delegation and approved by the Corps, often after economic analyses that turned out to be inaccurate. Despite a series of independent investigations criticizing Army Corps construction projects as wasteful pork-barrel spending, Louisiana's representatives have kept bringing home the bacon.

The short answer to this is that government failed. How is it that Louisiana even gets almost two billion dollars? And then how do they get away with squandering it? Sadly, the answer to all this will be more government.

Posted 9/08/2005 05:10:00 PM by Douglas

Crap!

As NASA continues to assess the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the future of the shuttle program, at least one official is warning it could take up to a year before the next flight takes off.

MSNBC.com has obtained an “extremely preliminary” planning document written by Wayne Hale, NASA’s deputy shuttle program manager, in which he concludes: “Launch dates before the fall of 2006 may not be credible."

Let's get this show on the road, people.

Posted 9/08/2005 05:09:00 PM by Douglas

All hail, President Nero!

President Bush plays a guitar presented to him by Country Singer Mark Wills, right, backstage following his visit to Naval Base Coronado, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005. Bush visited the base to deliver remarks on V-J Commemoration Day.

Posted 9/07/2005 05:51:00 PM by Douglas

In New Orleans, the storm affected everyone and everything. But this story is a long time in coming: Won't somebody please think of the junkies?!

Heroin, cocaine and crack are no longer on the menu on Bourbon Street, and junkies strung out since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans are feeling the pinch.

On a sidewalk near Johnny White's bar on Bourbon Street, known for its raucous Mardi Gras party, an addict negotiates with a burly, black man dressed like a short-order chef with a stained apron and baseball cap.

Those in the know call him "The Man."

Looking shifty and nervous, the junkie pulls out a spanking new pair of jeans, with the Levi's tags still on them.

"Ask him does he have a 34-inch waist," another dealer who wants in on the trade shouts at "The Man."

Two pairs of jeans, looted from a store after hurricane Katrina hit the city, are handed over and the junkie gets what he needs -- a couple of morphine pills to feed his habit.

A woman drinking whiskey and coke outside Johnny White's said of the drug dealer, "He's probably got $8,000 in his back pocket right now. Business has been brisk here."

Maybe I'm a hard hearted cynic, but I just can't muster up much sympathy for these guys. If the storm, flood, disease, death, and destruction isn't enough to get you off the junk, then nothing is.

"I just want to get to Brooklyn," said Goffredo, who told a reporter he had friends who had offered money to pay for his passage to New York. There, he said, he could register with a Methadone clinic.

I'm pretty sure everyone in Texas can agree with you on this point, Goffredo.

Posted 9/07/2005 05:11:00 PM by Douglas

Anyone remember the good old days of September 12, 2001, when the attacks were over and all you could do was watch CNN with your jaw on the floor? But at least it was over. Well, it's now eight days after Katrina and it's still unfolding.

Officials named Vibrio vulnificus as a likely culprit in the deaths. The bacterium can lead to dangerous infections in people with open cuts and wounds who are exposed to such things as hurricane floodwaters, said Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC is also investigating a potential outbreak of norovirus, an infection infamous for causing stomach ailments on cruise ships, among refugees housed in the Houston Astrodome, Skinner confirmed.

The outbreak, along with a spate of diarrheal illnesses in Mississippi, is the first indication that infectious diseases may be beginning to hit people in emergency shelters across Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and other states.

Who knows, maybe the CDC is wrong. If this disaster does nothing else for the reputation of the federal government, I honestly hope it instills a severe distrust in government everywhere. I'd like to know the opinion of the average New Orleanian in the Astrodome as to whom they are more grateful: People like:

• Jabbar Gibson:

  What began as an act of sheer panic turned into what has been called a “magnificent journey” that placed Gibson among the heroes emerging from the horrors of Hurricane Katrina.
  
  “I knew how to get over the fence, and where the keys were, so I felt it was worth the chance,” said Gibson, whose age was given by another channel as 18.
  
  Although he had only eight passengers on board when he set off on Highway 10 towards Texas, Gibson picked up many more, young and old, stranded beside the road during the eight-hour journey.
  
  “By the time we gotten here we had all kinds of folk on board, from mothers with young babies to people in their seventies and eighties,” said Gibson, speaking from Houston. “And when we ran out of gas we had a whip-round and everyone gave me enough cents to fill up and get here.”

• Wal-Mart:

  Over the next few days, Wal-Mart's response to Katrina -- an unrivaled $20 million in cash donations, 1,500 truckloads of free merchandise, food for 100,000 meals and the promise of a job for every one of its displaced workers -- has turned the chain into an unexpected lifeline for much of the Southeast and earned it near-universal praise at a time when the company is struggling to burnish its image.
  
  Cliff Brumfield, executive vice president of the Brookhaven-Lincoln County Chamber of Commerce, said he was impressed with Wal-Mart's preparations.
  
  "They were ready before FEMA was," he said

  OR
• Barbara Bush:

  Commenting on the facilities that have been set up for the evacuees -- cots crammed side-by-side in a huge stadium where the lights never go out and the sound of sobbing children never completely ceases -- former First Lady Barbara Bush concluded that the poor people of New Orleans had lucked out.
  
  "Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them," Mrs. Bush told American Public Media's "Marketplace" program, before returning to her multi-million dollar Houston home.

• Tom DeLay

  On Tuesday, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, sought to deflect criticism of the federal response before announcing that House hearings on the issue had been canceled -- and pressing for a joint review instead.
  
  "The emergency response system was set up to work from the bottom up," DeLay said late Tuesday.
  
  DeLay added that Alabama and Mississippi did a much better job of responding quickly than Louisiana. Alabama and Mississippi have Republican governors. Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco is a Democrat.

• George Bush:

  "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."

• Ray Nagin:

  Now get off your asses and do something, and let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country.

It's sickening, but let's compare and contrast, shall we? A private company responds quicker than the Federal Emergency Management Agency. A kid steals a school bus and probably saves dozens of lives, while a millionaire's wife says that diseased squalor is adequate for the underprivileged. Then there's the whiner that bitches at the federal government for more help, while the House Majority Leader of the United States Congress explains how Republican states are so much better cared for by their Republican Governors. Hey, Tom, how many of the Republican cities are still under water?

The blame game will go on for years, so can we at least wait 'till all the bodies in New Orleans are at least recoverable, and the people in Biloxi and Gulf Port have power again before we start pointing the finger?

None of the ass-hats are going to get fired, anyway, so let's just hope they don't become too much of an impediment before the real heroes can do all they can.

Posted 9/07/2005 05:10:00 PM by Douglas

Why does Bush insist on opening his mouth?

"Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house — he's lost his entire house — there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch."

Well, that's good and all, I guess, but what does Trent Lott have to say about Brownie?

Mississippi Republican Sen. Trent Lott couldn't help himself. He began attacking the beleaguered FEMA director.

"If he doesn't solve a couple of problems that we've got right now, he ain't going to be able to hold a job because what I'm going to do to him, ain't going to be pretty," Lott said.

Oh dear lord, please let this be pay-per-view. I can't think of a single household that wouldn't pay $29.95 to see Trent Lott kick the star-spangled shit out of Michael Brown. Well, a household that's got electricity and isn't under 10 feet of water, that is. Of course, the proceedes will go to the Red Cross.

Let the gloves come off. Literally.

Posted 9/07/2005 05:10:00 PM by Douglas

The cleanup has just begun, the people all over the gulf coast are just now beginning to assess the damage, and local, state and especially the federal government are at the receiving end of a lot of accusations for not responding quickly enough to hurricane Katrina. How does FEMA react? For starters, they apparently have yet to pull their heads out of their asses:

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.

Come. On! You can't be serious! Ya know, I'm not really placing a lot of blame on FEMA Director Michael "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" Brown, because he's obviously an old drinking buddy of the president. It's probably not even a big deal that his last job was President of the International Arabian Association. But I do find it hilarious that he was fired from the Presidency of the International Arabian Horse Association. I don't know, I'm just kooky that way.

Obviously, the same dolts in charge last week are in charge this week. It's just not as dire.

Posted 9/05/2005 05:04:00 PM by Douglas

We'll start off the week with the world of Magritte. This is not a web site.

Posted 9/04/2005 04:39:00 PM by Douglas

The blamestorming has gone into overdrive, which is to be expected. Like why do we see pictures like this:

Shouldn't these buses be at the Astrodome, or anywhere besides stuck in New Orleans under four feet of water? Obviously, I'm not the only one pondering that that one.

Posted 9/04/2005 03:28:00 PM by Douglas

Levees breaking all over the world.

The Ganges river has joined with a tributary in the Indian state of West Bengal, inundating a large area of land, officials say.

The Ganges breached an embankment on Saturday and has started flowing into the Pagla.

Local officials, who earlier denied the possibility of the two rivers joining, now say 20 villages are endangered.

"About 100 shops and scores of houses in these villages have been washed away," said district engineer PK Ray.

Mr Ray, executive engineer in the Maldah district of West Bengal, where the breach occurred, said: "It has washed away a huge tract of land."

Man, that sounds familiar.

Posted 9/04/2005 03:01:00 PM by Douglas

This morning on Meet the Press, Mike Tidwell discussed the situation in New Orleans, and answered a lot of questions that have been on everyone's mind. Why is it that New Orleans is below sea level?

MR. MIKE TIDWELL: Well, the question and the answer is: Why in the world is New Orleans below sea level to begin with? I think the media has sort of accepted it uncritically that this city is below sea level which is why we have this problem. Miami is not below sea level. New York's not below sea level. It's below sea level because of the levees. The levees stop the river from flooding and the river's what built the whole coast of Louisiana through 7,000 years of alluvial soil deposits. And if you stop that flooding, the other second natural phenomena in any delta region in the world is subsidence. That alluvial soil is fine, it compacts, it shrinks. That's why New Orleans is below sea level. That's why the whole coast of Louisiana is--the whole land platform is sinking. An area of land the size of Manhattan turns to water in south Louisiana every year even without hurricanes.

You can't just fix the levees in New Orleans. We now have to have a massive coastal restoration project where we get the water out of the Mississippi River in a controlled fashion toward the Barrier islands, restore the wetlands. If you don't commit to this plan which is this $14 billion, costs of the Big Dig in Boston, or two weeks of spending Iraq, you shouldn't fix a single window in New Orleans. You shouldn't pick up a single piece of debris because to do one without the other is to set the table for another nightmare.

No one really wants to hear more doom and gloom right now, but he's absolutely right. There's no sense "fixing" New Orleans, whatever that means, unless a massive project is undertaken to continue the Mississippi on its present course. The attempt to keep the river on its present course was most recently determined after the flood of 1927, and if we've learned nothing from that experience (and we haven't) it's that these tragedies occur because of federal funding, not from their shortage. Billions have already been spent to counter the primal forces of nature, and the results are now painfully obvious. Nature reminds us that she gets to bat last.

But even if the levees are repaired, the water pumped out, and business as usual resumes in New Orleans, who in the hell would want to go back? Why would any business or individual want to invest any money or time into a location that's only one big storm away from being flushed into the sea again?

Posted 9/03/2005 10:22:00 PM by Douglas

William Rehnquist, RIP.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who quietly advanced the conservative ideology of the Supreme Court under his leadership, died Saturday evening. He was 80.

The justice, diagnosed with thyroid cancer, had a tracheotomy and received chemotherapy and radiation as part of his treatment.

Ultimately, not a big shift on the court. Bush is going to replace him with a Rehnquist wannabe, anyway. But what's most alarming about this is that America's radical cleric, Pat Robertson, got his prayer answered.

Televangelist Pat Robertson has asked his audience to pray to God for three justices to leave the U.S. Supreme Court. He would like to see them replaced with more conservative justices.

On the Web site of his Christian Broadcasting Network, he said, "One justice is 83 years old, another has cancer and another has a heart condition. Would it not be possible for God to put it in the minds of these three judges that the time has come to retire?"

I know he was really hoping for a Souter, Ginsburg, or a Breyer.

Posted 9/03/2005 05:44:00 PM by Douglas

Houston, Texas 77230

A brand new city has arisen inside the Astrodome in Houston, Texas, population 15,000. Not the best address in America - they gave it its own postal code, 77230 - but it offers some benefits to its residents. It is almost clean, more or less safe and entirely dry. No longer are these people clinging to the roofs of houses above swirling waters or squatting on elevated roadways in the sun unsure if they will live or die.

And, happily, they are no longer cowering in the New Orleans Superdome, a place that turned mad with murders, rapes, suicide, abortions and the ammonia fumes of human waste. Or imprisoned in the convention centre without food or water, in the company of corpses. Those two places of sanctuary became hell-holes of a kind unthinkable in the United States of America. Until last week.

These people are never going to leave. Would you? Why the hell would anyone go back to New Orleans? It was under sea level before, it's under water now. Why go back?

Posted 9/03/2005 04:54:00 PM by Douglas

Shut your fucking pie hole.

At a moment when the dead on the Gulf Coast are still being counted, the German minister of the environment could think of nothing better to do than -- in an essay published Tuesday in the center-left daily Frankfurter Rundschau -- to blame the US itself for the catastrophe. The piece is 493 words long, and not a single one of them is wasted to express any sort of sympathy for the victims of the storm. The worst of it is that Trittin isn't alone with his cold, malicious tenor. The coverage from much of the German media tends in the same direction: If Bush had only listened to Uncle Trittin and signed the Kyoto Protocol, then this never would have happened.

Yeah, the hurricane happened because Bush didn't sign Kyoto. Was it William McKineley's trust busting politics that caused the deadliest storm in American history, the Galveston hurricane of 1900? There's plenty of blame to go around on this on, but let's point the fingers away from the tin-foil hats chorus of what caused the storm to those who really fucked up after the storm blew through and the levees were breached. Because really, that's the only story here.

After all, it's almost a week after Katrina blew through, and there are still people dying on the streets of New Orleans.

Posted 9/02/2005 05:24:00 PM by Douglas

Shut your fucking pie hole.

Rev. Bill Shanks, pastor of New Covenant Fellowship of New Orleans, also sees God's mercy in the aftermath of Katrina -- but in a different way. Shanks says the hurricane has wiped out much of the rampant sin common to the city.

The pastor explains that for years he has warned people that unless Christians in New Orleans took a strong stand against such things as local abortion clinics, the yearly Mardi Gras celebrations, and the annual event known as "Southern Decadence" -- an annual six-day "gay pride" event scheduled to be hosted by the city this week -- God's judgment would be felt.

“New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion -- it's free of all of those things now," Shanks says. "God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there -- and now we're going to start over again."

How do these people sleep at night?

Posted 9/02/2005 05:24:00 PM by Douglas

Something about the news makes me think of this story.

But all were only prelude to Sept. 17, 1875. The sea that had created and nourished Indianola rose in monstrous salty, gray hummocks, lashed by shrieking winds - HURRICANE! Nine hundred perished, and three fourths of the city lay in matchbox shambles. "Quelle tragedie", as the French say. Disaster on an unimagined scale.

But Indianola was too prosperous, too vital, to quit because of one freak tragedy. So they decided to wait for another. Larger warehouses were raised; new piers of heavier pilings sprouted. Eleven years passed before a brutal fact was driven home: the earlier black September was no freak. An even more savage storm sounded the city's death knell.

Indianola was literally gone. After this second catastrophe, even wreckage was scarce. The few citizens who somehow survived did not return. The county seat, in name, was moved to Port Lavaca for there was really nothing left to move.

One thing more, appropriately: a solitary rose granite statue of Rene Robert Cavellier, Sieur de la Salle. The French explorer was first to leave a bootprint on the sands of Indianola more than 300 years ago. Today his stone likeness surveys the same featureless, unmarked sands.

Also here and here. Also reminds me of the Charlie Robison song of the same name:

. . . to Indianola. . .
It's 50 years later, and nobody cares
About some old city, that ain't even there. . .

Posted 9/02/2005 05:11:00 PM by Douglas

I'm beginning to understand why the looters in New Orleans were are so pissed off

He said the hotel had stockpiled food, "and we knew the people outside knew that. We could see them looking up at us. We were afraid they were going to come in after us."

Mr. Ledford said New Orleans residents had initially been happy that the levee had held. Then came word that it had started to breach.

He said, "We could see the water coming toward us. That is when the looting really got bad."

He said they were escorted by armed guards as they switched to a taller hotel, the plush Royal Sonesta. They were placed in a second floor balcony room.

Mr. Ledford said the hotel manager, Hans, had some connections and somehow was able to arrange for two tour buses to come to rescue the hotel guests. He said the bus had to come at night because the gangs on the streets did not want them to leave.

He said they got on the bus in the dark, and it started out along the water-filled streets. He said it was one of the first vehicles to leave the city.

Mr. Ledford said residents at one point built a barrier to block the buses, but police officers drew their guns and moved the barrier out of the way.

He said they and the other guests were peering ahead watching the driver negotiate the narrow streets of the French Quarter through the high water. "We knocked over a few things in getting out," he said.

So the guests of expensive hotels in the French Quarter had "connections" to get their busses in and out of the city under the cover of darkness, all before the marauding hoards found out about their food supplies inside.

I'm not naive enough to think that the poor and the rich are afforded the same luxuries chances for survival, but I just can't help but wonder how many empty seats were on that bus as it "knocked over a few things" getting out of the French Quarter.

Posted 9/02/2005 05:07:00 PM by Douglas

All the hurricane story I can manage today.

Bush: "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."

Nobody knew? Geez, what balls. Even FEMA asses the levee problem with hurricane Pam in 2004. What a jackass.

Posted 9/01/2005 05:49:00 PM by Douglas

Shut your fucking pie hole.

I do not think — and only Allah [really] knows — that this wind, which completely wiped out American cities in these days, is a wind of mercy and blessing. It is almost certain that this is a wind of torment and evil that Allah has sent to this American empire.

Tell me, why is it that a Islomofacisist knocking on Katrina is much worse than when Christians do it?

Posted 9/01/2005 05:38:00 PM by Douglas

Why is this still happening?

Outside the Convention Center, the sidewalks were packed with people without food, water or medical care, and with no sign of law enforcement. Thousands of storm refugees had been assembling outside for days, waiting for buses that did not come.

At least seven bodies were scattered outside, and hungry, desperate people who were tired of waiting broke through the steel doors to a food service entrance and began pushing out pallets of water and juice and whatever else they could find.

An old man in a chaise lounge lay dead in a grassy median as hungry babies wailed around him. Around the corner, an elderly woman lay dead in her wheelchair, covered up by a blanket, and another body lay beside her wrapped in a sheet.

"I don't treat my dog like that," 47-year-old Daniel Edwards said as he pointed at the woman in the wheelchair. "I buried my dog." He added: "You can do everything for other countries but you can't do nothing for your own people. You can go overseas with the military but you can't get them down here."

If the National Guard has to come back from Iraqi to quell riots and martial law in Louisiana, ya know, that's what they get paid for. I just don't think we can save the world until we can keep people from dying on the streets of our own country.

Posted 9/01/2005 05:31:00 PM by Douglas

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert is featured on the blog's new special report, "Hey, shut your fucking piehole!" Here's why:

It makes no sense to spend billions of dollars to rebuild a city that's seven feet under sea level, House Speaker Dennis Hastert said of federal assistance for hurricane-devastated New Orleans.

``It looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed,'' the Illinois Republican said in an interview Wednesday with the Daily Herald of Arlington Heights, Ill.

He's right. New Orleans is below sea level, as is most painfully obvious right now. How 'bout waiting till the final body count comes in before making such statements?

Posted 9/01/2005 01:43:00 PM by Douglas

Yet another eerily prophetic article about a hurricane in New Orleans, again from 2001.

A major hurricane could swamp New Orleans under 20 feet of water, killing thousands. Human activities along the Mississippi River have dramatically increased the risk, and now only massive reengineering of southeastern Louisiana can save the city

Yep, that's about right, and that's just the sub-heading.

Now, let the finger pointing begin:

New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.

This topic isn't going to go away anytime soon. Could there have been something that could have saved New Orleans from this fate? Considering there are thousands of people along the Mississippi River valley that make a living by building homes with the sole intent of collecting federally backed flood insurance, it's pretty hard to commit this kind of money to flood mitigation. Plus, what else can be done? There's just so much dirt you can stack on the levees, and not even the Army Corps of Engineers can make water flow uphill. So what's worse than blowing $500 million on levees and pumping stations that may or may not be effective? Turn on CNN right now to find out.

Doing nothing.

Posted 9/01/2005 01:32:00 PM by Douglas

It's not a shock to anyone reading this, but most blogs suck. That doesn't really matter because you can spend as much or as little time reading them as you wish, since they take about seven seconds to load up. I guess it's not a surprise that there's a blog for literally everyone now. If you doubt this, check out the blog for the Air Conditioning Contractors of America.

This week I was made aware to a vast segment of the blogging community of which I was previously unaware: Mom Blogs. I was sent this link because I actually saw March of the Penguins, and as horrified as I was, I just couldn't stop reading this maudlin crap. And excerpt:

When the mamas get to a place where they can swim and cavort in the water and fill their bellies with fish, they look so joyful and liberated that you can't help wondering if maybe they're thinking about skipping the whole ghastly trudge back to the waiting families. "What if I never went back?" I once thought, alone for the first time since Birdy had been born, and driving to Whole Foods. But after 45 minutes of solo heaven in the cracker aisle, I was dying to see those rosy little faces again.

I'm one lucky penguin.

Wow, what a tough call. Your kid, or a box of crackers. Did she make the right decision? Aw, who gives a shit.