This matching fund is going just great. So far, with what I don't have to spend on matching donations to a worthy cause, I can still buy these gorgeous sapphire and diamond earrings that I have my eyes on. Woot!
"With thousands feared drowned in what could be America's deadliest natural disaster in a century, New Orleans' leaders all but surrendered the streets to floodwaters Wednesday and began turning out the lights on the ruined city — perhaps for months."
I think it's going to take longer than that. For all the help that government can give, it's the people of a town that put it back on its feet. Do the people of New Orleans have the gumption to roll up their sleeves, scrub that place clean and make it home again?
The chaos in New Orleans is worsening, with looters laying siege to the Children's Hospital:
Children's Hospital under siege
Tuesday, 11:45 p.m.
Late Tuesday, Gov. Blanco spokeswoman Denise Bottcher described a disturbing scene unfolding in uptown New Orleans, where looters were trying to break into Children's Hospital.
Bottcher said the director of the hospital fears for the safety of the staff and the 100 kids inside the hospital. The director said the hospital is locked, but that the looters were trying to break in and had gathered outside the facility.
The director has sought help from the police, but, due to rising flood waters, police have not been able to respond.
Bottcher said Blanco has been told of the situation and has informed the National Guard. However, Bottcher said, the National Guard has also been unable to respond.
These looters are just "desperate people" -- desperate for some fine, hospital-grade dope, that is. They're not there for the Jello.
(Via Michelle Malkin, who has a ton of info.)
UPDATE:
"There is way too many fricking ... cooks in the kitchen."
- New Orleans mayor, Ray Nagin.
You suck, Nagin.
According to the mayor, Black Hawk helicopters were scheduled to pick up and drop massive 3,000-pound sandbags in the 17th Street Canal breach, but were diverted on rescue missions. Nagin said neglecting to fix the problem has set the city behind by at least a month.
"I had laid out like an eight-week to ten-week timeline where we could get the city back in semblance of order. It's probably been pushed back another four weeks as a result of this," Nagin said.
You had your chance, Nagin. Now you're in charge of squawking and acting like a fool. There's no New Orleans Corps of Engineers, no New Orleans National Guard, no New Orleans Navy. The Governor is supposed to be in charge, but she's been astoundingly limp throughout this crisis. Now it's looking like it can only be a military operation.
UPDATE II
From the Superdome to the Astrodome - the buses are on the way. Once again, good ol' Texas.
UPDATE III
Check out the highly-recommended blog Hurricane Katrina Refugee. It's described thusly:
This family up and left their house and drove 500 miles with what they could carry. They have no idea of when they will go back, or to what conditions.
I'll be keeping my eye on that one.
(From Baron in comments.)
UPDATE IV
Country Store says the time is now to start sacrificing virgins, and MailMan Bill left such a great comment on disaster relief, I have to include at least part of it:
It would be admirable should the United Nations propose assistance but of course they would have to first ask the US for the money to fund it and then the committee meetings necessary for final approval will take time.
Willie Nelson and Barbara Streisand could give a charity concert in Beverly Hills where the Big Spenders live. Sean Penn might travel to the Gulf Coast to reassure the residents. Jane Fonda may turn her bus around and head back to New Orleans to deliver speeches attacking George Bush's failure to divert "Katrina." Possibly Martin Sheen could avoid being arrested long enough to help her. Jessie Jackson is terrific at raising money from big businesses and his tactics could be a big help to FEMA, should they care to adopt them. Robin Williams and Alan Alda both like to be out front in displays of morality, all they need is some catchy signboards. Louis Farrakhan has the ability to march millions of men, why not down to Louisiana and Mississippi to fill and place sand
bags for levee repair? Hollywood and their friends should just jump on this issue since they are all so expert in gathering attention to their causes. Heck, Michael Moore could even do a documentary on them! I even have a title for him: "My Big Fat Blowhard".
My advice to these 'show boaters' is to "stand back and let the help pour in from people that truly care"!
Duane's fringed-leather, mystery-jammer is back, and this time Berry's with him.
Wail on, Skydog!
As I've written before, whenever there's a disaster, the Humane Society of the United States sends out emergency response teams. The HSUS holds a formal agreement with FEMA and the Red Cross to provide disaster relief for animals, and works side-by-side with them.
If any of my readers send in a donation to the HSUS Disaster Fund, the ASPCA Disaster Relief Fund, the Louisiana SPCA, the Greater Birmingham Humane Society, or the Houston SPCA; I'll match it. Just e-mail me the receipt they provide. When it gets to $1000, I'll holler.
The address for receipt-forwarding is: floridacracker61ATyahooDOTcom
*The Humane Society of South Mississippi doesn't have a way to donate online. Presently, even their snail mail is not being delivered.
I love buying myself expensive jewelry of every kind of gemstone. Surely y'all won't make me spend the whole $1000 on a bunch of soggy strays?
The tally so far:
Texas Gal, a Texan, $25.00 HSUS, $25.00 LA SPCA, $25.00 GBHS
Cracker is matching $75.00
Julie Green, an Alabaman, $50.00 GBHS
Cracker is matching $125.00
Amy P., a Floridian, $30 HSUS
Cracker is matching $155.00
Julia H., a Missouran, $50 HSUS
Cracker is matching $205.00
Lisa K., a Californian, $25.00 HSUS
Cracker is matching $230.00
Carl, a Georgian, $100.00 ASPCA
Cracker is matching $330.00
Sarah T., a Floridian, $25.00 HSUS
Cracker is matching $355.00
Mary W, of Massachusetts, $25.00 HSUS
Cracker is matching $380.00
John and Elizabeth, of Hawaii, $100.00 ASPCA $100 HSUS, $100.00 Houston SPCA (Which has taken over for the Louisiana SPCA)
Cracker is matching $680.00
Spot's Keeper in Arizona, $50.00 ASPCA
Cracker is matching $730.00
Kiki, a Kentuckian, $20.00 HSUS
Cracker is matching $750.00
Cathy, a Kentuckian, $100.00 HSUS
Cracker is matching $850.00
Patrick, an Idahoan, $20 straight, which I'm designating for the HSPCA.
Cracker is matching $870.00
Scott, a Texan, $50.00 HSPCA
Cracker is matching $920.00
Tara, a Floridian (yay!), $25.00 HSUS
Cracker is matching $945.00
John and Elizabeth in Hawaii, AGAIN, $100.00 GBHS
Cracker is matching $1045.00
Stephan P., in Rhode Island, $100.00 HSUS
Cracker is matching $1145.00
Dymphna, a Floridian, $50.00 HSUS
Cracker is matching $1195.00 and rounding up the donation to each charity to the nearest hundred, for a total of $1400.00.
John and Mrs. R, Californians whose receipt I had overlooked, $200.00 HSUS
Cracker is matching $1600.00
Abby, a Floridian with some receipt-sending difficulties, $25.00 GBHS, $25.00 ASPCA, $25.00 HSPCA, $25.00 HSUS
Cracker has matched that $100.00 by the magic of rounding up before donating.
***
Thanks, y'all. I'll post a wrap-up in just a bit.
***
I've finished sending the donations. Just as I love nice jewelry, I also love nice, round numbers.
For the HSUS, Cracker is matching $800.00
For the LASPCA, Cracker is matching $25.00 rounded to $100.00
For the GBHS, Cracker is matching $200.00
For the ASPCA, Cracker is matching $275.00 rounded to $300.00
For the HSPCA, Cracker is matching $195.00 rounded to $200.00
If any of y'all want to match me the difference of $205.00 $105.00, that would be awesome. (Thank you, Abby!)
It'd be especially nice if someone did some donating to the Louisiana SPCA.
I've checked y'all's receipts, and someone's checked mine. I sent them off to John of WuzzaDem's lovely wife Mrs. R, of Are You Conservative?
Thanks so much for allowing me the opportunity to stretch your donations to aid those wet noses in Katrina Country who need a hand right now. Together we raised $3,100.00.
The donations have been dispersed and the fund is closed. The places I listed still need help, so those that can give, please do so.
Thanks for going off with me on this tear. It's been fun.
UPDATE 9/6/05
Wrestling News is offering matching funds to the HSUS. Give them a visit!
***
Follow-up postings:
The Florida Cracker Animal Relief Matching Fund
On a Brighter Note
Animal Relief Matching Fund
Authorities in New Orleans are going to soon find out what happens when you allow people into the Superdome with the understanding that they cannot leave until it is deemed safe to do so. I predict it's going to get ugly unless these people are cut loose. Then it'll get uglier when they are.
Some who are currently footloose and fancy-free in New Orleans are looting.
Even as conditions continue to degrade in New Orleans, so will the situation in the Superdome. Things got dicey at times in Lee County during Hurricane Charley when people weren't allowed to go back onto Fort Myers Beach. My money's on that concentrated group of refugees in a filthy Superdome turning into a mob.
Meanwhile, Mississippi got the snot kicked out of her, with 50, perhaps 80, people killed in Harrison County alone. Godamighty.
More at the Times-Picayune and WWL TV, with latest photos of Katrina damage here.
This man is rescuing his dog - the dog he left chained outside during a freaking hurricane. Asshole.
Please make a donation to the disaster teams of the Humane Society of the United States. They did good work here in Florida last year.
The American Red Cross could also use some help.
UPDATE
What's with this crap:
As dumbfounded hotel guests Tuesday watched from balconies and police officers stood several hundred yards away, dozens of brazen looters began ransacking flooded storefronts along New Orleans' famed Canal Street.
"We're so screwed," said one New Orleans police officer just before officers put on a show of force, brandishing shotguns and using batons to clear the growing crowd off Canal Street.
If martial law's been declared; shoot them.
A police officer tries to hold off looters at a drug store.
The Cotillion is up and is hosted this week by American Princess. Go check out all the great links!
Words and phrases expounded on tonight:
ramshackle, rickety, Vlad the Impaler, piece of cake vs easy as pie, submerged, flung, crowbar, murky, gutter, and bayou.
UPDATE
Also discussed: Names: Bud, Chuck.
Katrina has landed. 
The desktop coverage WWL TV in NO was providing went out. There's no way I'll be watching this on FOX. I like to hear what officials have to say, not look at some gloryhound reporter standing in the wind.
At least one NO resident found FOX annoying as well. Watch out who you give the microphone to, Shepard.
(Via InDC Journal.)
That figures. At the last minute, Katrina tried to find her way back to Florida and wobbled east.
UPDATE
The Super Dome's roof is peeling off?
UPDATE II
Some tough times in the sections where the levees broke:
"I'm not doing too good right now," Chris Robinson told the AP via cell phone from his home east of the city's downtown. "The water's rising pretty fast. I got a hammer and an ax and a crowbar, but I'm holding off on breaking through the roof until the last minute. Tell someone to come get me please. I want to live."
Looks so far like Mississippi got the worst of this.
Also blogging Katrina:
Overtaken by Events
Eye of the Storm
Brendan Loy
Boudicca's Voice
Michelle Malkin
***
Previous postings:
Katrina: When The Levee Breaks
Katrina: Encore Presentation
Piece of Cake
Katrina Coming In For Another Landing
Katrina Aftermath
Softly, Softly Came Katrina Calling
Katrina
"Crusty and eccentric"?
I did not know that about myself. Now show me a picture of the back of my hair.
Gates of Vienna, the blog of the incredibly smart husband/wife team of Baron Bodissey and Dymphna, have an annotated list of some of the best smaller blogs.
They've come to the same conclusion I have: bigger isn't necessarily better. Sometimes bigger is just bigger. A double CD of Phil Collins is just more...Phil Collins.
Check their list and click the links. You might find a really exceptional blog.
Glancing at my own blogroll, I see some blogs that I couldn't do without. In the first of a series, here are five of them:
Caption This!: Sometimes this is only laugh I get all day. V the K is a smart boy with a smart mouth.
What's a Kyer?: His outstanding, comprehensive blogging of the Beslan terrorist attack in Russia hooked me for good
The Coalition of the Swilling: Bloggers Mr. Bingley and Tree-Hugging Sister are each so complying, that nothing will ever be resolved on; so easy, that every servant will cheat them; and so generous, that they will always exceed their income.
With Cheese!: He constantly deletes fabulous posts. Visit often so you can catch them before they're gone.
Pious Agnostic: The soul of brevity, he writes perfect little posts like this.
More next week.
I'd be heading for hills if I were in New Orleans.
Some desktop coverage is here. The mayor of NO will be holding a press conference at 9:00. I wonder if he'll order the city evacuated. The governor of Louisiana is no Jeb Bush. I'm not seeing her do much leading in this situation.
Two more people have died in Broward. These ones from carbon monoxide from their generators.
UPDATE
Boudicca has summed things up nicely.
(Via Tammi.)
I'm watching the press conference:
FINALLY. The mayor of NO has ordered a mandatory evacuation. One day ahead of the storm.
"Authorities may commandeer any building for refuge of last resort and any vehicle for evacuating citizens." Glad the mayor finally got his ass in gear.
Ahh. President Bush called the Governor and told her to make sure there's a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans. He made the decision for these ditherers.
Oh, for heaven's sake. The mayor's not evacuating the hospitals for legal reasons. So the sick people are just going to lay there.
***
"There is only one tool needed for disaster recovery from a category five hurricane: A bulldozer."
Eye of the Storm, my favorite FSU meteorology student, is blogging Katrina.
"Haul ass and get outta here." - Jefferson Parish sheriff Harry Lee.
UPDATE II
Over the past couple of days I've been reading the weather forum at a NO television station. There are plenty of interesting discussions going on there, including a little bitchslapping of people who say they're not leaving:"Please take a black waterproof marker and write your name, Address, and Phone number of someone out of state on your torso. Not your arms or legs as they could be ripped off."
UPDATE III
Here's the latest satellite loop. It looks like hell.
***
And here's a newer loop.
Right now there are around 15,000 30,000 people in the Super Dome. Exactly how sturdy is that building anyway? Is it reinforced for Cat 5?
We had a hurricane shelter in Arcadia, the Turner Agri-Civic Center, that fell to pieces during Charley. That place was built to be a hurricane shelter, too.
UPDATE IV
Texas has sent a 90-member urban search and rescue team. Good ol' Texas.
Radar that pinpoints Katrina's current activity on land is here.
Also blogging Katrina:
Overtaken by Events
Eye of the Storm
Brendan Loy
Boudicca's Voice
***
Previous postings:
Katrina: Encore Presentation
Piece of Cake
Katrina Coming In For Another Landing
Katrina Aftermath
Softly, Softly Came Katrina Calling
Katrina
Laura Smolkin, associate professor for elementary education at the College of Education at the University of Virginia researches the genealogy of her cartoon characters thoroughly. This one is labeled "Anglo-American Father Reading to Son."
She helpfully adds "It is our policy at WIL to recognize and honor America's wonderful diversity through the pictures we select. Please let us know if we have inadvertantly included pictures you cannot use in your particular cultural setting."
Now that's diverse!
What would happen if a big hurricane hit Louisiana? Something like this.
All the more reason for them to sit this one out, and let Mississippi take the hit.
This New Orleans station has live desktop coverage. They're not acting hysterical, which is a step above our own local coverage during storms.
Stay safe up there, y'all.
***
Previous postings:
Piece of Cake
Katrina Coming In For Another Landing
Katrina Aftermath
Softly, Softly Came Katrina Calling
Katrina
Now that the hurricane's gone by, Val of Babalu blog breaks out his surfboard.
Missing record-producer Christian Julian Irwin has been found, naked in a canyon, raving about being pursued by Nigerian Internet scammers.
It does feel that way sometimes, doesn't it?
Two men from a Miami houseboat colony who chose to ride out Katrina aboard their vessels perished in the storm. Others barely survived. Still others are missing, including one idiot who got his dogs killed:
Also missing and feared dead: John ''Go John'' Nye, 61.
He told his friend Fred Grothe that he thought the storm would be ''a piece of cake'' and that he wouldn't even need to take down the sunshade on his deck.
But when dawn broke on Friday, Nye's two-story house boat had broken away from its anchor, drifted to the other side of the island and flipped upside down, Grothe said.
There was no sign of Nye or the three dogs that lived on the boat with him.
Early on Friday, Grothe said a search diver told him that he'd viewed the outside of Nye's boat from beneath the surface, and that it didn't look like there were any air pockets inside the mangled cabin.
One of the people here in Broward who went out for a car ride and perished, also took his dog along with him to the Great Beyond:
In Broward County, the storm killed four people and critically injured a fifth. Falling trees killed a man in his 20s in Fort Lauderdale, a 54-year-old man in Plantation, and a woman in Davie, officials said. A 79-year-old Cooper City man, James Paolillo, and his dog were killed when his car struck a tree.
Some fools from Lee County decided to put their three children on a boat and outrun the storm. Their boat ran out of gas. Luck was with the Larsens, though. They managed to beach their boat in a clump of mangroves until the Coast Guard came to fetch them after a dangerous search in the storm. A rescue swimmer came down from a helicopter and sent each one of them back up in a basket. I do hope Mr. Larsen is presented with the bill for all this.
Katrina is now a Category 3 hurricane. If a Cat 1 can kill at least seven people here, then I hope the people on whose doorstep she'll next show up have enough sense to get to a safe place and then stay inside until she's long gone. If they choose to roll the dice, I hope the children and animals that depend on them don't have to pay the price for their folly.
***
Previous postings:
Katrina Coming In For Another Landing
Katrina Aftermath
Softly, Softly Came Katrina Calling
Katrina
And the magic cone says...Mississippi! Yes!
Mississippi has been goldbricking for years with its hurricane duties, forcing the Florida Panhandle to pick up its slack. Don't get me wrong -- Mississippi is a nice state, but just like that one guy in your crowd who's sooooo slow to reach for his wallet when the lunch check comes, nobody's fooled by Mississippi's yearly hurricane dodge. Florida's not breaking out the plastic twice in one week.
Louisiana, you just sit back down and chew your Rolaids; you're not up to this.
Good luck to everyone in Katrina's road.
UPDATE
My excellent hellstorm photo made it into the Sun-Sentinel, credited to florida-cracker.org. They didn't make the link live, though. Darn it.
***
Previous postings:
Katrina Aftermath
Softly, Softly Came Katrina Calling
Katrina
For two years a newspaper in Carbondale, Illinois ran the sad letters of a little girl named Kodee Kennings to her father in Iraq. She begs him not to die. He does. Sometimes she also wrote letters to President Bush:
"I'm rily mad at you and you make my hart hurt,"' she purportedly wrote in one published letter to the president. "I don't think your doing a very good job. You keep sending soldiers to Iraq and it's not fair. Do you have a soldier of your own in Irak?"
It was all a hoax.
With Cheese has the story.
UPDATE
This Chicago Trib article is a must-read. It includes, among other things, the touching tidbit that her imaginary father's death had left her an orphan. Sniff.
(Via With Cheese's Marc in comments).
[Login for Trib article: frogram@mailinator.com/frogram]
UPDATE II
Here's the AP write-up.
(Via With Cheese's Marc in comments).
UPDATE III
The Daily Egyptian comes clean.
(Via Resistance is Futile.)
There's some great 'fessing up in there:
[Jaimie] Reynolds said because [Michael] Brenner paid attention to her she was willing to help [with the hoax], saying he "said all the things I wanted to hear. It wasn't a crush. But he looked at me, and looked twice. He became a friend and didn't care I was fat."
Reporter Brenner's studied professional response to this charge?
"Jesus Christ, that is completely not true."
Heh.
And another little girl pens a letter to the press. Smart aleck kid.
UPDATE IV
Tim Blair, along with his commenters, are in fine form with this one.
UPDATE V
Patrick Trovillion, the man who played Sergeant Dan Kennings, says he thought he was playing a role in a documentary. Jaimie Reynolds, who portrayed Colleen Hastings, the guardian of Kodee, gave him a script, a costume, and cash. He doesn't seem to have questioned the hidden camera issue, but he did wonder why he was never allowed to see the film footage after repeatedly asking to.
His real suspicions began when he called the youth pastor of a church where he and a congregation of actors had recently performed:
"I told her who I was and she acted like she didn't recognize my name," said Trovillion. "I told her that I was the guy that had played the part of Dan Kennings and she said 'Is this some kind of sick joke?'
Tawnya Hadley, the mother of a "crushed" Caitlin Hadley, who portrayed Kodee Kennings, is still trying to get a handle on her association with Jaimie Reynolds:
"We were friends; that is what makes this so hard," Hadley said. "I don't know if she befriended me to use my daughter or what to believe. We are just in shock about this. It's just unbelievable the scope of this and how far it reaches."
***
The Cast of Characters
Caitlin Hadley
Patrick Trovillian and Caitlin Hadley as Dan and Kodee Kennings
Jaimie Reynolds, in the dual role of documentary director and Kodee's guardian Colleen Hastings
Daily Egyptian editor Michael Brenner
Tawnya and Richard Hadley with daughter Caitlin
***
UPDATE VI
With Cheese details his theory of what happened: it's the story of a young editor tired of the sports-page ghetto, and the fat girl he used to get him that big story.
Also, how strange is this? According to this link to the Southern Illinoisan provided by Rhymes with Right, Michael Brenner quit his first professional job, sportswriting in Oregon, after only a few months, he says, so he could come home and be with Kodee.
That strains credulity.
UPDATE VII
Fact Checking "Rude," May Also Be 'Harsh.'
According to the St. Louis Dispatch:
SIU's School of Journalism is reviewing the incident, said director Walter Jaehnig, seeking to "look into the sequence of events and see where it broke down." He declined to speculate on whether any faculty could be reprimanded.
He might want to check the newsroom:
Zack Creglow, now the student editor of the paper, recalled: "You could never ask her ('Kodee') questions about her dad or her dead mom. There were all these guidelines that seemed reasonable at the time.
"When you've got student reporters and student editors, no one thinks, 'Call the D.O.D. and check on this guy.' It just sounds, I don't know, rude."
Then he can address the public relations issue:
"Their credibility has just gone down," said P.J. McCarthy, 21, of Lake Zurich, Ill. "I was listening to the radio today and they were talking about this story. The (announcer) said 'credibility,' then played the sound of a toilet flushing."
Meanwhile, former editor Michael Brenner has kicked Jaimie Reynolds to the curb in the harshest way possible:
"I've erased her from my cell phone."
UPDATE VIII
Much like Austin Bay, With Cheese has thoughts.
Also, this isn't the first case of shoddy journalism at the Egyptian. There were two dismissals for plagiarism in 2004. What sort of idealistic young journalist would want to plagiarize Roger Ebert? Aim higher, young plagiarists; aim higher.
From the National Archives:
"Their sister Genevieve enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve as a Specialist (Recruiter) Third Class and, with her parents, visited more than two hundred manufacturing plants and shipyards under the auspices of the Industrial Incentive Division, Executive Office of the Secretary, Navy Department. According to a 9 February 1943 Navy Department Press Release, the Sullivans "...visited war production plants urging employees to work harder to produce weapons for the Navy so that the war may come to an end sooner." By January 1944, the three surviving Sullivans had spoken to over a million workers in sixty-five cities and reached millions of others over the radio."
Good morning! We're fine here.
Hurricane Katrina is continuing her tour of Florida. She crossed the state last night, but that didn't tire her much. She's now enjoying an invigorating dip in the Gulf of Mexico and will head north- to the scenic beaches of Mississippi or Alabama, hopefully.
UPDATE
They've found seven killed now.
***
Previous postings:
Softly, Softly Came Katrina Calling
Katrina
This Australian woman's picture is in the news because:
A. She invented a revolutionary new technique for open-heart surgery.
B. She has kangeroos loose in her top paddock.
C. She says she was stolen as a baby by dingos.
D. Both B and C.
(Via Fark.)
I thought Kanwaljeet Anand provided a cute quote in otherwise grim article, but USA Today and some others have it differently.
Did he say "They have literally stuck their hands into a hornet's nest" or "They have stuck their hands in a hornets nest"?
Don't take my funny away from me, guys. Literally.
Since I know that the world has come to rely on Florida Cracker's live hurricane blogging, I'll send this lead-up report to the main event:
It's raining.
I'm taking these potentially last few hours of precious, precious electricity to copy stacks of approximately nine million Allman Brothers concert CDs, and to upload pics of Saddam.
Stearing clear of Miami-Dade residents who might steal her eye, Katrina should land this evening here in Broward as a weak hurricane.
UPDATE:
It's windy.
UPDATE II
Katrina's now officially a hurricane.
Also, here it's both rainy and windy.
UPDATE III
There are others who are
hurricane blogging. But are they right in the middle of the hellstorm like I am?
UPDATE IV: Live photoblogging of Hurricane Katrina:
I would have stayed out longer but for an uncooperative camera crew:
UPDATE IV
Katrina made landfall by Ft. Lauderdale. Unfortunately, she's already killed two people here in Broward.
At least two men were killed in Broward by falling trees, police said. One man was struck outside his home in Plantation and another man died when a large tree fell on a vehicle carrying three people in Fort Lauderdale.
I understand Ace is having some horrible weather. ;)
UPDATE V
The wind has really picked up, with frequent hard gusts. The electricity is coming and going, and the dogs are whining incessantly about the situation. I'll go hang out with them until this ends.
For those of you in Katrina's road, please wait until well into the following day to check out the neighborhood. Give FPL a chance to get the powerlines out of the water.
UPDATE VI
According to the Sun-Sentinel weblog, an overpass has come down on the Dolphin Expressway. I hope no one was out and about in this weather.
UPDATE VII
OK, it's done where I am. Bands of rain will continue through the night, but the strong winds have all gone by.
The overpass that came down was partially constructed. It fell down on the Dolphin, but they don't think it hit anyone. The Dolphin eastbound is shutdown, and of course, there's a traffic jam. Even though it's late at night and there's a hurricane.
UPDATE VIII
Four people in Broward have died. All were outside, all were killed by falling or fallen trees.
Also blogging:
Florida Masochist
Cool Change
Eye of the Storm
Hog on Ice
Strange Women Lying in Ponds
Pamibe
***
Previous posting:
Katrina
***
Following postings:
Katrina II: Aftermath
Katrina: Reloaded
Katrina: When The Levee Breaks
Katrina: Encore Presentation
Piece of Cake
Katrina Coming In For Another Landing
Katrina Aftermath
There are a lot of happy worker bees this evening: tomorrow's been declared a hurricane day, and that situation will probably hold throughout the weekend. Right now it's like putting on an old coat and finding a twenty in the pocket.
It's also a chance to witness the craziness only the first threatening hurricane of the season can bring -- like lines of cars going the wrong way down a one-way street just to get in the line at the gas station.
This Katrina didn't bother forming over by Africa, but instead sprung up almost full-grown from the Bahamas. So here she is, and we've got coffee and movies, and we're feeling pretty snug tonight.
Hopefully it's not going to be too bad. Normally, the main problem around these parts is people getting electrocuted after it's all over.
***
Following postings:
Katrina: Reloaded
Katrina: When The Levee Breaks
Katrina: Encore Presentation
Piece of Cake
Katrina Coming In For Another Landing
Katrina Aftermath
Softly, Softly Came Katrina Calling
If you'd like to participate in a lengthy field study of a cigarette-based economy, leave a message like this for a government official:
"It's Michelle Ledgister ..... NIH is located where infectious agents are, and you guys now have anthrax spores. Toodles."
Miffed at the county tax appraiser for removing her Homestead Exemption for not residing in the state, National Institutes for Health employee Michelle Ledgister put her bratty inner-child on the phone and now she'll likely be heading off to the stripey-hole.
Toodles, Michelle.
Here's Duane with the Hourglass gearing up to play the Whisky.
What are the odds that 'Word Salad' was a jangly-guitared psychedelic band?
Wail on, Skydog!
Giving the Me Generation a run for its money, young Australian Muslims want to give new meaning to the date '9-11.' Why should that day be about the worst terror attack the world has ever known; an attack that killed thousands of Americans? From now on, it should be about them:
Islamic youth organisations that were not part of Prime Minister John Howard's summit yesterday say they have been working against extremism behind the scenes.
They have chosen a date for a planned day of action - September 11.
The group says it wants to try to change the date's association with extreme Islamic violence, and to highlight how mainstream Muslims have become victims of prejudice and bias.
Someone in Australia please ask these disrespectful sons-of-bitches if what's on their plate is so hellish that jumping out of a skyscraper would be preferable.
Yet another Able Danger team officer has come forward saying they did indeed identify Atta in 2000. It was this officer, Captain Scott Phillpott, who briefed the 9-11 Commission.
Commission-members were so unimpressed, they erased his visit from their memories. After having their memories jogged, they did recall the briefing, but said the information wasn't significant:
In its final report last year, the Sept. 11 commission said that American intelligence agencies were unaware of Mr. Atta until the day of the attacks.
The leaders of the Sept. 11 commission acknowledged on Aug. 12 that their staff had met with a Navy officer last July, 10 days before releasing the panel's final report, who asserted that a highly classified intelligence operation, Able Danger, had identified "Mohamed Atta to be a member of an Al Qaeda cell located in Brooklyn."
But the statement, which did not identify the officer, said the staff determined that "the officer's account was not sufficiently reliable to warrant revision of the report or further investigation" and that the intelligence operation "did not turn out to be historically significant."
With his comments on Monday, Captain Phillpott acknowledged that he was the officer who had briefed the commission last year. "I will not discuss the issues outside of my chain of command and the Department of Defense," he said. "But my story is consistent. Atta was identified by Able Danger by January-February of 2000. I have nothing else to say."
Will this swiftboating of the 9-11 Commission never cease?
***
Previous posting:
Atta Report Slips 9-11 Commission's Mind
National Geographic has a large video collection of people featured in their Inside 9-11 documentary. Check Glenn Garvin's review of where this documentary excels and where it falls flat.
The other thread is too long to update. There's news on the black box, the faulty door, and what the F16 pilots saw:
It seems that no discussion has been recorded in the second black box of the Helios Boeing, which crashed killing all 121 on board. According to sources, in the discussion recorder in the pilot’s cabin there were only three calls for help (the mayday signal), heavy breathing and groans, reportedly of flight attendant Andreas Prodromou who tried to land the aircraft. Moreover, warning sounds are heard from the aircraft’s instruments. At the same time, in the Athens morgue, the autopsies have been completed, while the procedure for giving the victims’ personal belongings to their families is in the last stage. In the meantime, according to a report by Chief Engineer of Helios, which is published in the Sunday edition of Ethnos, the aircraft arrived in the early morning hours of August 14 to Larnaca from Great Britain with serious damage to its door. Also, the testimony of the leader of the F-16 formation in Eleftherotypia newspaper is shocking.---
At the same time, the report of Helios Chief Engineer in the Sunday edition of Ethnos is shocking. According to the article in its previous flight the Boeing returned to Cyprus with damage on its back door.
In particular, at 04:15 in the morning of August 14, when the aircraft arrived in Cyprus from Luton Airport, UK, the cabin crew complained of a strong noise coming from the back door.
This damage is connected to the decompression problem, since the noise indicates that the door does not seal well and thus air can enter. The aircraft was checked, but the three engineers did not find a problem, and five hours later it departed for its fateful flight.
The report of the F-16 pilot, who flew next to the Helios aircraft, is just as shocking and it is published in an article in Eleftherotypia newspaper.
According to the article, the 36-year-old pilot initially uses the standard air terminology (ie "the aircraft is at 10,000 feet"). As minutes go by, the tone of his voice becomes agitated, subsequently breaks down and shouts, "We have a fall of a civil aircraft."
Moreover, he states that the oxygen masks in the passengers’ cabin have dropped and a man is moving in the area. Following, the aforementioned person enters the pilot’s cabin, sits in the position of the pilot and tries to control the airplane, while another person also enters the cabin and takes the seat of the co-pilot. However, none of them is wearing headphones, a fact which is indicated in the lack of communication with the aircraft.
This report as well as the evidence from the black box is expected to contribute to the investigation of the tragedy’s causes, while they show the heroism of Andreas Prodromou and efforts to prevent the accident.
I'm off to weed the garden. After that I might move to Guam. Have a nice time talking behind my back.
The thinking now is that there was no sudden catastrophic decompression on Helios Flight 522, but perhaps something more in line of a very slow leak, maybe from a bad door. Or the compressor that makes the thin air piped in from outside breathable may have malfunctioned. They're also wondering why the plane's air conditioners had to be repaired five times in two months. There were also electrical problems caused by the overheating generated by poor ventilation. People had been saying all along that it couldn't have been sudden decompression or the F16 pilots wouldn't have been able to see through the windows -- they'd have been iced over like the Payne Stewart plane.
The cockpit recording device did record voices and, understandably, they're not releasing at this time, as it's said to contain cries for help, along with heavy breathing. The voice is believed to belong to flight steward Andreas Prodromou. Prodromou tried to land the aircraft and was occupied in doing this when the plane ran out of gas. His blood was in the cockpit, and he'd motioned to an F16 pilot that he was going to make the attempt. What a guy.
This is hard for me to understand, so someone correct me if I'm wrong, but there were three types of emergency oxygen on board. The kind for the pilots drew from some line with a valve, the kind for the cabin crew was a portable chemical exchange sort, and the type used for passengers had a 15-minute supply. I can only guess that the cabin crew's supply is set up as it is because they're expected to move around, while the pilots and passengers would be expected to be seated.
There are still three remains missing, including the pilot. The pilot was not in the cockpit, and may have commited the very bad error (from the Pilots' Forum at least) of getting up out of his seat to check on things, perhaps the oxygen line. If it was a slow leak and the cockpit's supply of emergency oxygen wasn't working properly, this might be more understandable. His thinking would have been muddy. His last words on the radio were, "It's OK."
Flight International has published the sequence of events given them by Cpt. Akrivos Tsolakis, head of the Greek Air Accident Investigation and Aviation Safety Board, as follows:
09:05: Take off from Larnaca.
09:11: Pilots report air conditioning problem.
09:1?: Climbing through 14,000ft (4,270m), the cabin altitude warning alert activates and is not cancelled by the pilots for the duration of the flight. It self-cancels when the aircraft eventually descends through 10,000ft.
09:16: Last radio communication with pilots as aircraft climbs through 22,000ft.
09:24: Aircraft adopts cruise at flight level (FL) 340 (34,000ft/10,360m), probably flying on autopilot with direction from the pre-programmed flight management system (FMS).
09:35: Cyprus ATC tells crew to contact Athens as it approaches the flight information region (FIR) boundary.
09:37: aircraft enters Athens FIR near Rhodes. Radar picture shows aircraft on time and on track at FL340.
10:07: Athens airport tries to contact the inbound aircraft because it should have begun its descent. No reply.
10:20 (approx): Aircraft enters holding pattern at the VOR on Kea island south east of Athens, probably still on autopilot/FMS.
10:25: Athens airport contacts search and rescue services.
10:30: Minister of Defence and Greek air force alerted.
10:55 (approx): Two Lockheed Martin F-16 fighters scrambled.
11:25 (approx): F-16s formate within a metre of the 737, report no captain in seat, copilot slumped on controls, two other people in cockpit, passenger oxygen masks deployed, no movement in cabin.
11:50:45 Aircraft begins descent, leaving holding pattern flown by the air steward, a student pilot with only a few hours’ experience on light aircraft. It is believed he maintained consciousness by using the portable oxygen equipment stowed in the cabin. The aircrad turns right out of the hold, passing over Evvoia island and the Aegean Sea to the north east of Athens.
11:??: Engines flame out for lack of fuel as the aircraft descends through 7,000ft. Aircraft turns left toward Athens airport.
12:04: Aircraft crashes among hills at Grammatikos.
***
Previous posting:
Helios Flight 522
Helios Flight
Helios Airways
Even some Freepers, who as conservatives should know better, are overly concerned at the size of other people's homes.
As far as I can tell, it's perfectly legal to buy yourself a big, fat house to rattle around in. What should have been against the law was George Harrison's musical toilet seat that played "Here Comes the Sun." That was an ostentatious display of bad taste. Ruined the song for me too.
I'd love to find out what happened with that pizza bomber mystery, but I feel my life force ebbing whenever I watch Geraldo Rivera.
There's a new thread up on the pilots' forum for those of you who are intrigued by the Helios crash mystery.
The baffled authorities have ruled out carbon monoxide poisoning, for which I've glad. The cabin would have been a bad scene. They've not ruled out other toxic fumes.
The black box containing the cabin voice recorder has been found. Originally they'd only found the outer case. Those things are made to withstand a tremendous impact, but evidently this one was a dud.
Also, some Greek papers are asking how a plane that made no radio contact could be flying around in their airspace for so long without authorities realizing there was an emergency. There's a little bit of security breach there, for sure.
UPDATE
Heads are indeed rolling over the security breach, with Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis late yesterday purging the leadership of the country's Civil Aviation Authority. He seems to be more worried about negligence lawsuits than anything else, though.
There's also news on Andreas Prodromou, the air steward who is believed to have tried to land the plane:
A flight attendant on board the doomed Cyprus airliner that crashed near Athens killing all 121 on board last week has been identified as the mystery person who apparently tried to land the plane at Athens airport, reports said on Saturday.
Andreas Prodromou, a trained small aircraft pilot standing in as cabin crew, and his flight attendant girlfriend, Haris Charalambou, have been identified as the pair in the cockpit from video footage taken by two F-16 fighter planes ordered to intercept the plane.
Blood discovered by investigators in the cockpit of the plane has undergone DNA testing and has been positively matched with Prodromou.
Brave man. He's a hero for trying.
He almost had it too, if the plane hadn't run out of gas.
(I don't know the reliability of the last link. It's a newspaper, but that might not mean much.UPDATE: Google works in mysterious ways - some paper in the UAE had this story this morning, while CNN didn't get it until this afternoon.)
***
Previous posting:
Helios Flight
Helios Airways
Kudos to John Bolton for calling the UN out for its funding of the Palestinian banners and t-shirts reading "Today Gaza, Tomorrow the West Bank and Jerusalem." Theoretically the UN's job is to help maintain peace, not to give shit a nice big stir.
A big head thump to the fanatics in Gaza for fighting with, and throwing things at, Israeli troops carrying out their orders. And for these drama queens to place their children front and center in scenes of confrontation is disgraceful. This ain't Masada.
These antics give their real enemies great satisfaction. Walking out of their with their heads held high- after they'd burned everything to the ground- would have bummed out all the right people.
The folks pulling these shenanigans are the same ones who get wavers from serving in the military, forcing everybody else in the country to pick up their slack -- mainly to protect them. Think that doesn't engender resentment in their fellow Israelis? Guess again.
The only benefit to this withdrawl is for once seeing Israel portrayed in a positive light in the media. They're clearly doing all they can for peace.
Will it be enough for the Palestinians? Of course not.
The male of a geriatric hippy couple pressing a librarian to answer the question "If we pay taxes for books, why can't food be free?"
What can I tell you? If you find a baroque personality troubling, then you're in the wrong place:
*I'm sure I've mentioned this reference site before, but its large database will keep you coming back. Be sure to check out their "last words" page. Some of it's sweet, some of it's sad, some of it's funny as hell.
*Yale has a browsable online collection of Romanov family albums. These aren't the formal portraits- just the casual pics of an extremely camera-happy group of people.
*In Michigan, they've upped the ante by naming a little ol' 3 1/2 ft. gator "Osama bin Gator." Florida will now start calling all its gators "Satan."
The Underwater Times will get you up to snuff on this and all the other latest gator and shark news.
Hopefully the New Zealand government's love affair with Jackson Browne has run its course.
Days after their former Prime Minister, David "No Nukes" Lange dies, the NZ Navy is doing maneuvers with its big, mean, nuclear cousin. We disinvited them to our little get-togethers after they disinvited us to their ports in 1985.
I recall the "Eyes Only" rubber stamps in our communications unit that had the 'NZ' shaved off. They were officially out of the loop, but that didn't mean anybody was springing for new rubber stamps.
Of course, they always had a big neighbor holding an umbrella over their head, a situation we here can relate to.
If this means they're coming back to the Anglosphere, then I'll extend my welcome.
(Via FR.)
It's now being reported that at least one passenger, a child, survived whatever happened in the air, and the subsequent crash, only to die from the brushfire after the crash.
The F-16 pilots said one of the two flight attendants signalled to them by hand gesture that he would try to land the plane.
The decompression scenario seems to be fading, if there were crew walking around.
On the pilots' forum there are a lot of stumped professionals trying to figure this one out.
Condoleeza Rice has phoned the Greek and Cypriot governments offering investigative help.
UPDATE
The the two flight attendants said to have been seen in the cockpit are Andreas Prodromou, who trained as a pilot, and girlfriend Haris Charalambous. He wasn't scheduled to work that flight, but wanted to hang out with Charalambous.
Other reports are saying it was another stewardess, chief flight attendant Louiza Vouteri, who was found in the cockpit, so it's up in the air. So to speak.
***
Previous posting:
Helios Airways
It's those pants again, now paired with some sort of black, crocheted tanktop.
What can I tell you about his sartorial choices?
Twiggs saw this machine and had to have a pic.
Wail on, Skydog!
UPDATE
YO found this one for us. Thanks, YO!
I'd like to introduce you to the work of some of the fine sponsors of my Wooden Leg Fund.
They got together and sent me popsicle sticks and Elmer's glue! Hurray!
*V the K visits a scary, scary circus.
*The Grizzly Man wanted to become famous as "The Bear Whisperer," but instead he became a bear fart. Hah! Was it the same bear that ate my leg?
"Treadwell claimed to have identified 21 vocalizations and body languages in grizzlies. If that's the case, says Bartlebaugh, the one he didn't recognize was the most important: 'It was the one that says, Leave me alone.'"
*Keggin connects the dots and theorizes that PETA aborted my leg.
*Kyer brings us photos of a new Russian weapon. President Carter, make them stop!
*Go, all the little Boy and Girl Scouts in Iraq.
Until next time - later, gators!
Because these homeowners fought the confiscation of their homes, the city of New London is now going to take their last red cent.
Thieves.
(Via With Cheese and Reason Hit and Run.)
***
Previous posting:
Eminent Domain Abuse
The Cotillion is underway. This week's hosts are A Mom and Her Blog, Mary Katharine Ham, Girl on the Right, and Not a Desperate Housewife.
Go see what's the rumpus.
UPDATE
Michelle Malkin should join just so I can watch her try to decide which of her posts that week would be the most Cotillion-worthy.
The crash of that Cypriot Helios flight is certainly strange. If it hadn't have crashed, they would have had to shoot it down as a "renegade" -- a plane that entered Greek airspace without making radio contact. A pretty standard procedure in these days and times. It's sure the Prime Minister is glad he didn't have to make that call.
The F-16's took a video of what they saw through the windows. It was a female flight attendant who was trying to get control of the plane. Poor lady. What a nightmare for her. Hopefully the passengers were blissfully unaware of anything being wrong.
Something happened to make the oxygen masks deploy. If it wasn't decompression, what else could it be? Something bad in the air?
UPDATE
It appears to have been an air steward, who was a trained pilot, and his girlfriend, a stewardess, who tried to save the plane. Two people were filmed by the F-16s and evidently this pair was found in the cockpit. Don't know how legit it all is, but it's a sad story if true.
UPDATE II
This pilots' forum has an interesting discussion going on about what might have happened.
I've been asked what I think about Cindy Sheehan. Been there, done that, saw the movie:
As...mother-turned-war activist X, Burnett buries her legendary elastic face and broad gestures with startling, subtle conviction and lends bitter truth to the quietly distraught but unstoppable X, a woman on a mission who learns to fight back with every untruth she is being fed.
Ned Beatty provides able support as the dutiful, grief-stricken husband...Less committed to tackling government indifference and lies, he shows the inner turmoil of a man forced to stand in the shadows of his wife's newly-found obsession and celebrity, a move which threatens home and hearth. Timothy Hutton effectively portrays the neglected younger son who handles his grief in silence as well.
That time it was Schwarzkopf that was being portrayed as the nemesis. Only he wasn't. He was, as we all came to know him to be, a good man and a good officer. Peg Mullen was a political activist whose officer son was killed by friendly fire. She was sure there was some big coverup. Only there wasn't.
At the time is was a big media circus.
I'm old.
Carol Burnett would probably be pretty good playing Cindy Sheehan in the movie to come from the book that will be written. Judging from the divorce papers where her husband Patrick Sheehan is asking for alimony, the smell of money is already in the air.
***
Also posting:
The folks at Lonestar Times, who are blogging their little hearts out on the topic.
Detroit is so bad, not only are people abandoning their houses in droves (12,000 stand empty at last count), apparently even the dead are fleeing:
Perhaps the biggest challenge to luring the middle class from the area's swank suburbs is overcoming racial tensions, said Stephen Vogel, dean of the school of architecture at University of Detroit Mercy.
"Suburbanites are taking the bodies of their relatives out of cemeteries because they're afraid to come to the city," Vogel said. "There are about 400 to 500 hundred (being moved) a year which shows you the depth of racism and fear."
The racist resurrection men.
(Via FR.)
A Marine in Boston fires a warning shot at a crowd of rowdies that had broken his window and the authorities charge him with intent to kill? Nonsense. He's a Marine; if he'd intended to kill anybody, he surely would have done it. Don't tell me he was bent on killing if he fired close-range into a whole mob of people and only managed to wing a couple. Sheesh.
Keith Wasserstrom, a member of the Hollywood, Florida city commission, an august body with much practice at using force to separate property owners from their property, says new laws to restrict eminent domain use are unneeded and meddlesome because commissioners only invoke it for the best of reasons:
When deciding whether or not to invoke eminent domain, lawmakers must weigh the cost against the benefits. Every city commissioner is keenly aware of and deeply troubled by the fact that someone will lose his property, but there are other factors that we must consider as well. How many new jobs will be created by this shopping center? How many middle class families will benefit from the increased tax flow? How many lives can we make better by inconveniencing one property owner?
Glad you mentioned the shopping center, Keith. That's why local politicians have to be restricted by state or federal laws -- they can't seem to be able to understand that the public doesn't consider a shopping center to be worth taking someone's land for if they don't want to sell it. It's not a bridge, it's not a highway, it's not a school. It's another shopping center, just like the one a quarter-mile down the road. And that commisioners are willing to instigate legal proceedings against private citizens to take their land and give it to a developer for uses such as this is the reason there must be state and federal laws to reign them in.
Sometimes circumstances force a deadbeat dad to step up and say, "That's my child!" OK, maybe not when the kid's mother dies and he has to go live with relatives, but definitely when there's a potential $7.5 million payout from the city that hinges on paternity. In that case, there might be a couple of dads stepping up to do his fatherly duty by that child, or crawling out of the woodwork; however you want to put it.
There's a whole lot of dog-blogging going on every week over at Mickey's.
Odds are I'd rather look at a pic of your dog than read your take on the Plame affair. I'm pretty sure about that.
Speaking of which, here's a repost of humans, dogs, and disasters from this time last year:
A timely move:
Ali Rowand,45, and her pet toy poodle Bunny Sue, look over the devastated remains Saturday afternoon of the Harbor Inn in Port Charlotte where they had a room. Rowand, her husband Gary,and Bunny Sue, left the hotel as the storm intensified and moved inland to survive its impact. They returned Saturday morning to find the room demolished. "We're just happy to be alive," said Rowand.
A good Samaritan:
Sherry Kicklighter holds her dog Skittles after being blocked from staying at a hurricane shelter in Port Charlotte. Her home and car were destroyed in the Maple Leaf Golf and Country Club in Port Charlotte following hurricane Charley. Kicklighter and her dog were offered alternate housing by a person who noticed her situation.
A hard job:
Canine specialist Bill Kidd of Miami Dade Fire Rescue sends his dog Tenshi through a hole in a mobile home to search for victims of Hurricane Charlie in Punta Gorda Saturday.
IMMINENT DANGER: Charley to strike Sanibel with 145 mph winds before crushing mainland
IMMINENT DANGER: Charley is over Captiva with 145 mph winds; will blitz mainland within the hour
IMMINENT DANGER: Charley is over Pine Island with 145 mph winds; mainland siege is next
Charley took everyone by surprise. Against predictions, at the last minute it both decided to change course and to strengthen. A bad time for a lot of good people lay ahead.
My mother-in-law is fond of dropping off leftover meat for our dogs; usually in the form of grilled T-bones or spiral-cut hams.
Last weekend it was the ham, with a few slices missing. The dogs had ham in their breakfast and dinner dogfood, and had pieces stuffed into their mouths in-between times as that nagging sense of unease I felt became ever stronger: two dogs and one hambone. Hambone day was approaching.
Yesterday, the pre-cut meat was finished. This morning I was sawing off big pieces of the remainder.
That's it. Today must be the day.
I left the still-meaty but at-the-end-of-its-journey hambone on the counter, trying to put off the inevitable.
This afternoon, during a rainstorm, I decided to quit stalling, and took the bone and the dogs out onto the back patio and we all sat down together on the floor. I set the bone down.
Lilly hulked over the giant bone, as I knew she would -- the dominant dog. She sawed the meat between her enormous jaws, unable to pick up the hambone as it was still too heavy. I kept reaching over and prying off pieces to feed to the much smaller Shiloh.
Mr. Cracker came home and stood in the patio doorway, upset. "There should be two hambones, he said. "Two dogs means...two hams." Two hams? "Mom should know better than that," he continued. He stared anxiously at Shiloh for a while, at last saying to her, "Don't worry, I'll get you your own bone."
He left, to where I didn't know. Was he going to find her some other treat to take her mind off things? He soon came back, though, carrying a smashed cardboard box and a hatchet. "I'm going to make her a bone," he said. "There's no way she's not having any marrow."
With Shiloh standing by expectantly, he laid the bone on the cardboard, and with a couple of chops, had hacked it in two. Shiloh scrambled for her half. "She knew what I was doing," he said, smiling. "I could see it in her eyes."
Shiloh brought her hambone inside and settled down on the livingroom carpet for a good chew. I looked over at Mr. Cracker, eyebrows raised, thinking of my carpet.
"She should be comfortable after all that," he said. The carpet shampooer again. I relented.
Lilly naturally decided to bring her's in too. "Hmmm," he said, making a move as if to block her.
"Now, now," I said, grinning. "That wouldn't be fair to Lilly, now would it?"
The Wildman from Borneo, one of Kinky's Village Irregulars and highly-photogenic, has a new gig as link-dump presenter over at WuzzaDem's.
I'm so miffed I didn't think of it first.
The Washington Post has an interesting article on the bomb-sniffing dogs in the Metro. Before getting a single bite to eat, the dogs must find the explosives that their handlers have planted. I knew that toys are used as a reward for finding whichever odor it is they are trained to seek, but I was unaware of the use of the heavy-duty pairing of a successful seek with every meal. One police handler even said her dog's meals are hand-fed. That's as extreme as classical conditioning can get - there's no trick left in the bag after that.
These dogs are the Marines of the working-dog world.
(Avoid possible registration nonsense by clicking here.
There's a neat multi-media slideshow that goes with the article as well.
Tail-tip to Bill for saying to look at the Post.)
Terror-loving Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed has been banned from ever darkening England's door again. Global economy or not, if you can grow your own vipers bent on destroying you, there's no need to import them.
Bakri, who is a Syrian, got the news in Lebanon where he is on vacation. Even a guy who's been on welfare for the last 20 years needs to get away from it all now and then.
Syria took this time to send him a reminder that he's not welcome there either. Before moving to England, Bakri lived in Saudi Arabia -- until they kicked him out and told him to never come back.
***
Previous posting:
Bakri
If you want to be governor of Florida, you've got to know how to handle a possum. Some things just aren't negotiable.
Is there some reason the 9-11 Commission forget to mention that the military intelligence unit "Able Danger" had identified Mohammed Atta as a member of a US-based al-Qaeda terrorist cell a year before the attacks? Did the Commission think we might not be interested? Al Felzenberg, spokesman for the Commission's follow-up 9-11 Discourse Project thinks so:
"'Even if it were valid, it would've joined the lists of dozens of other instances where information was not shared,' Felzenberg said."
MI, warned off by nervous Pentagon lawyers, did not tell the FBI.
After first denying that the Commission had ever received any such information about Atta, Felzenberg is now saying they did indeed receive the info, but it's no big deal -- just "another instance where information was not shared."
He could just as well be referring to the 9-11 Commission and the American public.
Why did the Commission not mention the report on the terrorist who led the attack against us?
How could they possibly fail to tell us everything they knew about Atta?
UPDATE
Michelle Malkin has links to reactions from the blogging world, and links to newspaper articles are here.)
How can people with no fixed domicile be uprooted, you say? How can you even ask! Sometimes a fellow gets used to throwing down his cardboard in a certain spot:
There on the park's brick terrace, Brown and as many as 30 homeless people used to spread out cardboard and sleep undisturbed beneath sprays of palm fronds, cleaning up in a nearby fountain.
Now the Tampa park is closed for a year. For now, in the evenings, the homeless will have to spread out their cardboard somewhere else.
Brown heard them. But leaving isn't easy, not when he's developed a routine that revolves around Franklin and Tyler streets. Come night, he bikes to the Channel District.
Others, he said, aren't as mobile.
A few yards away, a Kmart shopping cart sits next to the boarded-up Albany Hotel. Shorts hang from the cart's child seat. Duffel bags stuff the undercarriage. A blanket is neatly folded.
Someone's cardboard bed is all rolled up. Rolled up and ready to go.
If this doesn't make you cry, nothing will.
Justin George of the St. Pete Times, you've written an astounding article about the heartbreak of people who've been spreading their cardboard at spot A and must now move it to spot B.
Swabbies are still brawling over who's the kissing sailor in the famous Eisenstaedt VJ-Day photograph. One's lately had scientists create a 3-D facial model and is claiming victory, but others disagree.
Did every sailor kiss a nurse in Times Square that day?
According to the Sun-Sentinel, FEMA paid for the funerals of 203 people whose deaths were unrelated the hurricanes. Those who had potentially stood to benefit from FEMA's largesse included "Super Freak" hipster Rick James, Rodney Dangerfield, and Christopher Reeve. Reeve's kin would have probably had FEMA hold off on processing the claim until it had been determined whether or not he would rise again.
Here's Duane with the Hourglass in their groovy threads.
Unfortunately, this isn't the last we'll see of the striped pants baby brother is wearing.
Like a bad penny, they'll turn up again.
Wail on, Skydog!
Somebody's been seen talking to small plastic replicas of human babies.
Hmmm. Anna Nicole?
Ever read the Strakalogue on FOXNews? Mike Straka writes a column every week where he's peeved. He's not an old man who could be said to be a lovable curmudgeon -- although curmudgeons wear out their welcome after a time ("Did you ever wonder..."). No, this writer's just peevish. Everything sets him off, and he walks around saying, "Grrr" in irritation. It's like if Felix Unger had a laptop and polymenorrhagia.
I'm just trying to figure out the appeal of a consistently negative column. Goldilocks was pretty picky about things too, but even she occasionally found things "just right."
What happens when the perception of danger causes your autonomic nervous system to grab control of your brain? You get incredibly strong...and incredibly stupid -- unlike the movies where you get to be Samson and Macguyver rolled into one.
This article should have been fifty pages long. It's good to have a thorough grounding in why grannies can do that crazy lifting-the car-thing when they need to.
The Cotillion ladies are putting on their girdles and heading out for the big dance.
This week's hostesses are Maxed-Out Mama, Darleen, and Baldilocks.
Check 'em out.
According to Miami Herald executive editor Tom Fiedler, Jim DeFede's tale of the taped telephone conversation that got him fired has undergone a mutation. While DeFede now states that he began recording out of concern for the well-being of Art Teele, Fiedler says that wasn't his original story:
Fiedler told the Times that DeFede had first told him that Teele "said nothing to Jim that would have led him to believe that Art was on the precipice of suicide. ... Yet in subsequent days, Jim has started saying that he sensed he was hearing the cry of a friend about to do something drastic," Fiedler told the paper. "I've listened to the tape that Jim made and I, too, wouldn't have sensed an ominous outcome."
He added that DeFede's alleged changing story "leaves me where I was a week ago in concluding that Jim couldn't ethically or legally justify turning on his tape recorder because there was no compelling journalistic purpose in doing so."
If what Fiedler says is true, then DeFede, like some of politicians he's covered, knows a few things about weaseling.
***
Previous posting:
DeFede Take Three
FrontPage has a interesting story from the UK Times about a reporter who went undercover to investigate terrorism-inciting Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed.
Today Bakri, a Syrian, fled England for Lebanon. While the general British populace is relieved at his going, you have to wonder why they allowed this clown to stay so long in their midst when he made it very plain, for 18 long years, that he hated their guts.
Those are some tolerant people.
UPDATE:
If you're very interested in what is going on in England, one of the best places you can go to read about it and discuss it is over at the Daily Ablution.
If you'd rather read about alligator attacks, I remain your girl.
UPDATE II
British blogger Gary Monro believes the crackdown on Muslim fanatics such as Bakri will be short-lived. I do hope he's wrong on this one.
(Via Dumb Brit, in comments.)
South Florida author Lynn Viehl should have used a picture of her son for the cover of her latest novel. His eyes look much more like those of a killer than the model's do.
My prayers go out to the Randazzo and Hardin families.
Connoisseurs of flakiness, be sure to check out the in-depth probe of supposed UFO-abductee Whitley Strieber over at Juan Paxety's site.
One of my favorite sites on the web is the Alexander Palace Time Machine.
I could spend all day there looking at photos of the lovely and doomed family of Tsar Nicholas II, clicking around the huge history archive, and touring the rooms of the palace.
Infocom could have used it to it to make Zork: The Underground Romanov Empire -- in every room I wanted to type "get all."
Fascinating stuff.
