(A transcript of this trenchant op-ed piece is here at MSNBC’s site. Wow, I wish this man did book reviews…)
(thanks to Boing Boing for the link to the video)
This is useful.
The image’s resolution is high, at 2.4 meters per pixel. It is posted in a format that allows quick viewing of any area a user zooms in on. Users can quickly see what areas are under water and what structures are still standing.
The initial image was taken Wednesday and supplied by the company DigitalGlobe. AP will offer updated satellite images as as they become available.
The image is available here.
I have a feeling this story is going to likely to start attracting more attention in the days to come…
In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the [US Army] Corps [of Engineers] said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.
On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, told the Times-Picayune: “It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.”
…There was, at the same time, a growing recognition that more research was needed to see what New Orleans must do to protect itself from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. But once again, the money was not there. As the Times-Picayune reported last Sept. 22:
“That second study would take about four years to complete and would cost about $4 million, said Army Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi. About $300,000 in federal money was proposed for the 2005 fiscal-year budget, and the state had agreed to match that amount. But the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he said.”
I have never seen language in a National Weather Service statement like this before.
I’m thinking of all you folks down there (and in Mobile and Biloxi and all along the coast to Pensacola…)
Wherever you are, please be safe…
As for the rest of you who’re concerned: Please don’t just sit there — do something. The American Red Cross is going to need a lot of donations to their national disaster relief fund. Here’s the form where you can make one.
A few other useful links:
…the Department of Things I Wish I Hadn’t Seen Quite So Early in the Morning:
(eyeroll)
If you insist on going to http://www.bumpernuts.com, that’s your business. Enjoy.
Zazzah.com is supposed to be a way for people interested in doing freelance courier work to match up directly with shippers hunting couriers…thus cutting out the middleman in such transactions. Fascinating. (via John Resig’s weblog)
(Oh, yeah, and Worldcon was fabulous. More details, as promised, here.)
…This really is an issue of fruit.
In one hand, you’ve got an orange (evolution). In the other, you’ve got an apple (Intelligent Design).
If you engage in a broad discussion about fruit (why we exist), it’s proper to weigh the two. If you’re talking about citrus fruits (science), you steer clear of apples.
Why? The apple isn’t a citrus fruit. It’s a fine fruit – it’s kept many a doctor away, and knowledge of how to pie it made mom all-American – it’s just not a member of the citrus family.
The president, however, looked at both and said, “I think this apple just might be citrus fruit.”
…The laugh-out-loud line, though, comes at the end of the article. (With an “ouch!” attached.)
Ogg Vorbis is claimed to be a patent-clear, fully-open general purpose audio encoding format standard that rivals or surpasses the “upcoming” generation of proprietary coders (AAC and TwinVQ, also known as VQF).
…Vorbis is named after High Priest Vorbis, a character in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld: Small Gods novel.
And some of us know who “Ogg” is, too. 🙂
Rat the oarsman, neat Mrs. Tiggy Winkle,
Benjamin, pert Nutkin, or (ages older)
Henryson’s shrill Mouse, or the Mice the Frogs once
Fought with in Homer…
(Love the fountain in the right-hand column, too…)
As noted in the weblog of the noble and wise Neil Gaiman:
…the BBC article formerly entitled PRATCHETT ANGER AT ROWLING’S RISE has now transmuted into a much milder article entitled Pratchett takes swipe at Rowling, which no longer accuses Terry of very much at all, apart from “poking fun”.
…It’s definitely a good thing that online journalism is capable of revising itself to agree with reality, although it’s going to puzzle the hell out of all the people in the future who click on the links to the BBC page and are unable to discover what they’re meant to be outraged about.
Meanwhile, to everybody who’s visited Out of Ambit in the last couple/few days of this kerfuffle and friendslisted or otherwise bookmarked it: you’re entirely welcome. Please make yourselves at home.
Sci-fi fans gather for convention
Meanwhile, I wish I understood why the Java applet for the SECC webcam takes so long to load…
(A few other Glasgow webcams:)
