BREAKING NEWS

New Orleans Mayor Trapped in Rising Floodwaters

New Orleans, LA – After claiming victory in a pitched battle for control of the city with fascist, unelected federal officials, Mayor R.A. Noggin has found himself trapped on the last short bus out of town. In a move worthy of Moses, he had stubbornly gathered his scattered citizens unto him to repopulate the Crescent City, only to find himself rapidly agreeing that buses should be used before they get wet, not after.
“I’ll be hot-damned”, Hizzoner said. “That sh$t comes up quick! And it stanks, too. Now, somebody needs to call that fat little Coast Guard admiral and tell him send a helicopter.”
General Russell Honore, when queried about the dire situation, was quoted as saying “I called in the Stupid Street address where they’re stuck. That’s as much as we can do. Stanky flood water makes it a Coast Guard show.”
Vice Admiral Thad Allen was unavailable for comment.

©2005 TOWACA PRESS INTERNATIONAL

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Reporter Fired For Refusing To, Er, Report

So of course he’s suing:

A former ABC News correspondent accused the network of dropping his contract because he refused to go to Iraq and other war zones, and he sought $4.2 million in lost earnings at an employment tribunal Friday…
While he had frequently covered conflicts, including those in Bosnia and Chechnya, earlier in his career, Gizbert said he became increasingly reluctant to do so as his children grew up.
“A lot of people stop doing it when their kids come along,” he said. “I stopped doing it a little later than that, when my kids started asking me why I was doing it and I really couldn’t come up with a good answer.”

Here’s one: it’s your goddammed job. If you don’t want to do your job, then you tend to lose it (note: this does not apply to politics or baseball commissioners).

A Constant Wind

But pretty benign, considering our recent standards.

Thank goodness.

Interesting Chart

We’ve had four Cat 5’s already this decade. That looks like a lot, until you go back forty years. Music wasn’t the only thing rockin’ in the 60’s…

Personally, in Normal Circumstances

…I think Wayne LaPierre is a complete jack-ass. But boy, oh boy, whatever it takes to shut this bullsh$t down, I’m with him.

The police superintendent’s comments were echoed by the city’s Deputy Police Chief Warren Riley, who told ABC News: “No one will be able to be armed. We are going to take all the weapons.“

Yes, that’s the second in command of New Orleans’ finest. The same finest who should be around protecting folks?

“Things are worse at night, and people say their gun is the only source of comfort they have, the one thing they can depend on to save themselves and their families,” Mr. LaPierre said, noting that a “third of the New Orleans Police Department walked off their jobs” during the Katrina emergency.

Oh yeah. That’s them. When they’re not at Wal-Mart.

Glub, Glub

That would be breaking news in New Orleans.

Dozens of blocks in New Orleans now under water. Details to come

UPDATE: If only more people were like this guy…

Glynn Stevenson, who swam out of his New Orleans house with belongings taped to his body, had just gotten settled into a trailer provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency when the call came for him to uproot again.
“It’s nothing to get mad about,” he said. “Just keep a cool attitude and help your brothers.”

Don’t get mad. Help somebody. What a concept.

If I Might Add My Two Cents

Beldar is holding down the fort in Houston and his traffic snafu analysis, along with snippets from other Houston bloggers, has been pretty fascinating. Something in his post caught my storm weary eye, however, and I wanted to mention my take on this:

Katrina + news media hysteria = lots of folks in non-flood-prone areas of Houston, who otherwise would have hunkered down altogether or at least waited until tomorrow to evac, instead hitting the road yesterday afternoon, last night, and today = avoidable degree of gridlock.
IMHO, local media have done a very bad job of distinguishing between “mandatory evacuation” areas (truly coastal counties, storm-surge areas) and elsewhere. Some of the adjacent coastal county officials are already bitching (publicly and unproductively) at Houston/Harris County officials for “ignoring the plan,” which was to get the coastal zones evac’d first. Since so many Houstonians are also on the road (“early,” in the view of those adjacent county folks), congestion is much worse for everyone. But I think the “fault” for that, if fault there be, can be laid more at the feet of the breathless media rather than Houston/Harris County officials. And ordinary folks are hyper-receptive to the hype because of Katrina.

While that’s true to a certain extent because of the ‘flooding’, I think a fair amount of those folks might well have seen the pictures of what 140mph+ sustained WINDS can do to a house and lack the confidence in their homes’ construction. Hysteria perhaps, but it would be a crap shoot to stay around and then have the walls come down around your ears. Too late to reconsider then. I’m not sure what the building codes are in the Houston area as far as wind mitigation, but I’ll bet they’re nowhere near what they are even in the Florida panhandle (and ours are considerably lax compared to South Florida). Or, if you’re not sure your engineer/contractor even built to code. One word. Andrew. That was no storm surge. That was howling winds, pure and simple, flattening those homes. If Casa Sister hadn’t been new construction (read: hurricane strapping, braced facades, rebar reinforced brickwork, 140 mph rated garage door, etc.), we would have had to seriously consider leaving Banglacola before Ivan. The houses here ten years and older took a sincere beating, with many of them completely destroyed. So it could well be that these folks aren’t even thinking ‘water’, they’re thinking

“when the garage door blows in, which then blows my roof off, which collapses the exterior brick/clapboard/sheetrock walls inward…do I really need to be here?“

If you’ve the means to leave? Probably not.
Via Instapundit.
UPDATE: Found this pertinent addition to my argument, courtesy of Bingley’s link in a previous post…

Meanwhile, as the storm moved over western Harris County, its most dangerous winds, well in excess of 120 mph even inland, would lash the Interstate 45 corridor, including Clear Lake, the Texas Medical Center and downtown.
Many older buildings could not withstand such winds.

Like I said, it’s not just the water.

The Mobile/Pensacola Radar Loop

Yeesh. Kinda creepy when it sits just off-frame.

Oh These Poor Poor Folks

20 elderly folks killed when the bus they were in caught fire.
Tragic.
UPDATE: Oh man, it seems the situation went from fire to explosion by virtue of the oxygen tanks exploding that the seniors had with them.

Early indications were that the bus caught fire because of mechanical problems, possibly overheated brakes, then passengers’ oxygen tanks started exploding, he said.

Via Major Dad.

Oh, Act Like a Man, For God’s Sake

Palmeiro reportedly blames teammate for ’roid
Orioles star tells arbitration panel name of player who gave him substance
Baltimore Orioles slugger Rafael Palmeiro, who was suspended earlier this season for a positive steroid test, told a baseball arbitration panel that a teammate gave him an unknown substance, the Baltimore Sun reported Thursday, citing two unnamed sources.
Palmeiro named the teammate to the arbitration panel, the Sun reported, citing one of the sources, but apparently did not link the substance to his positive steroid test.

“HE made me do it!” doesn’t begin to cut it when you’re 41 years old and a gazillionaire, who made his fame and fortune playing a game. We should all be so blessed. I talked to the guy that hooked him up. He says it was cough medicine and I’ve no reason to doubt him, not being an ‘ulterior motive’ kinda guy. So act like a man and STFU already, you whiney cheater.
UPDATE: Pffft. The Orioles finally say SEE YA!!

BALTIMORE – Rafael Palmeiro’s tumultuous season came to an end Friday when the Baltimore Orioles, tired of the distraction stemming from his suspension for steroids, told him he was no longer welcome on the team.

Ritalin Makes Life Easier

…and just might keep you out of jail if you’re a thief with ADD. Always helps if you can remember where you stole the car from to begin with.

Gas station employee Pam Pease recognized her car Tuesday night when it pulled up to the fuel pump as she swept up cigarette butts.
It was the same beloved blue 1994 Ford Escort station wagon. The one with a missing hub cap. The one with the Missouri license plate that she had reported stolen less than an hour earlier at the Parade gas station at 3050 North W Street.
And there it was, pulling up to pump No. 7.
“It just blew my mind, but there they were,” Pease, 49, said of the two suspects in the theft. “Maybe they forgot where they stole it from. I’m glad it was low on gas.”

(Continued in the extended section as the local fishwrap is being pissy about loading.)

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Public Servants…

Serving themselves:

BATON ROUGE, La. — Police found cases of food, clothing and tools intended for hurricane victims at the home of the chief administrative officer for a New Orleans suburb, authorities said Wednesday.
Officers searched Cedric Floyd’s home because of complaints that city workers were helping themselves to donations for hurricane victims. Floyd, who runs the day-to-day operations in the suburb of Kenner, was in charge of distributing the goods.

I’m sure he’s the victim of a misunderstanding.
Kind of an interesting fellow, though:

CAO Floyd was the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Data Center, a national demographics information system company specializing in Redistricting of Election Districts.

Hmm, there’s something about that line of work that just screams corruption.
But maybe I’m just cynical.
It seems he liked to use his city credit card though:

Sparks began flying as McMyne set up displays showing dozens of credit card bills from Mayor Capitano and CAO Floyd – expenses that did not include information on the business purpose of the bills.

Seems like he’s got some more explaining to do now.

I wish more of the elected folks in the US Govt…

would understand this concept, but I am not holding my breath.

Kate, Stick With The Coke. Trust Me On This One.

Coke is much better for your health and finances than these idjits:

“Scientology has become quite proactive in reaching out to people,” says the source. “Kate is a woman who needs help {and her bank accoount is still flush – Ed.} and Scientology feels that they can steer her in the right direction.”

Little Bits of Rita Overhead

You can see the breezes picking up, too.

All Eight Lanes of I-45 Now Heading North

And not a moment too soon. Getting out of Houston is a very, very good idea.

The A320s nose wheel problem is not new…

as this report indicates.

Documents from Airbus indicated there have been three similar incidents in which A320 airplanes landed with the nose wheels rotated about 90 degrees. Examination of the steering control modules on two of the airplanes revealed extrusion of the selector valve’s external seals similar to that found on N628AW. Airbus had attributed the extrusion failures to the lack of a backup seal or the effects of aging on the seals. As a result of these incidents, Airbus issued Service Bulletin (SB) A320-32-1197 on October 8, 1998, to recommend replacement of the external seals on the steering control module’s selector valve on A320 and A321 airplanes within 18 months of the SB’s issuance.
At the time of the incident, neither the French Direction General de l’Aviation Civile (DGAC), or the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), had adopted the service bulletin as an airworthiness directive. The operator was not required to comply with the service bulletin, and had not complied with it.
On March 24, 1999, the DGAC issued Airworthiness Directive (AD) 1999-124-129(B) to require compliance with the SB. On December 17, 1999, the FAA issued AD 99-23-09 which was based upon the French AD, with a 12 month time of compliance for modification of the nose wheel steering control valve.

Makes you wonder if the fix did not fix it, or if the fix was ever applied. I also wonder if they ever improved the design? I would think the French taxpayers would want to get their francs….er…um…euros worth.

Interesting Marine article….

about the future USMC. Long and somewhat geeky, but gives you an idea of the Future the Corps sees.

Hurricane Porn

Rita be Cat 4 now.
UPDATE: Possibly Cat 5. 140 knot winds are, what, 160 mph? Wow.
UPDATE: The 10 p.m. CST reading has her at 175 mph and 897MB. Good Lord. What a monster.
Updated update: Bush new in February! Why wasn’t FEMA there then?!?!?!?!?

Jet Blue

My god, no airline ever had a better advertisement than watching the pilot just land that thing perfectly at LAX.
Fantastic job!!!
The pilot floated it down the runway and killed speed perfectly.

A Good Way to Start

…the most wonderful time of the year. So speakers up and boogie down. I about died laughing, make no bones about it.
A WARM Swill Salute to Mr. Summers for the site.

Sopranos Psychosis Kicks In

Oh man. Got a call via the ad in the paper for the Little Red Truck of Death and he wants to come see it. He said his name is Tony and he drives a white Lincoln…should I be worried?

There Is No Such Thing As “The Slippery Slope”

It does not happen in the real world.
Really.
(please note I avoided all references to jokes in this post. This I humbly leave to the endless wit of our commentators)

“You Are Stuck On Stupid”

Gen. Honore sums up the MSM in one sentence.
Go to Radio Blogger and listen. It’s beautiful

I Didn’t Want to Start a Panic ‘er Nuthin’

…but I noticed I got the last two boxes of Zatarain’s Red Beans and Rice at the commissary an hour ago. I know Bingley and Cruella have both been stealth hoarding just…in case the unTHINKable happened. Whew. I’m breathing a little easier after reading this. Just a little…

Hurricane Katrina has forced Zatarain’s to implement its Disaster Recovery Plan. While there is much suffering and disruption for our employees and our communities we are focused on continuing our operations and satisfying your needs. Our production, warehouse and office facilities in Gretna, Louisiana are in good condition. Our issues are electricity, access roads, other city services, and the ability to mobilize employees in Gretna. As a result we have set up temporary headquarter functions and operations in Dallas, Texas. We have a tremendous amount of resources available to us. These include the McCormick Dallas facilities as well as a number of co-packers in the immediate area and elsewhere. Our raw material suppliers are being contacted to redirect our needs to a variety of locations for continued production and distribution. And we have the resources of all of McCormick available to us.

Now, the question begs to be asked…if even the Red Beans and Rice folks have a “Disaster Recovery Plan”…Mayor Noggin? Wanna step in here? (Or have you stepped in enough already?)