With Wednesday being Katrina-day, there’s gonna be a veritable flood of hand-wringing and other assorted wanking.  So be it, but let’s take the good with the bad.  Here’s an excellent piece by Brian Schwaner, the AP’s Louisiana news editor.

katrina, New Orleans | 1 Comment »

Some good news to kick of the new week.  Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has resigned.  He apparently tendered his resignation Friday.  In keeping with their longstanding policy of lying, however, the administration denied this as recently as yesterday.  Also typical is the handwringing: the NYT quotes an unnamed DOJ official as saying “The unfair treatment that he’s been on the receiving end of has been a distraction for the department,”.  Unfair, I love it.

Bush hasn’t named a replacement, but apparently will soon.  Lets just say I’m not getting my hopes up.

Link to NYT article 

politics, united states | No Comments »

Never thought I could laugh at something like Ray Nagin claiming that NOLA’s violence has the upside of “keeping the New Orleans brand ‘out there’” , but this cartoon is very, very funny. Sad…but funny.

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Yesterday, bribery charges were laid against Raul Miranda: a former Army Corps of Engineers officials who was overseeing the reconstruction of levees in the New Orleans area. I was at least happy to see that the guy is from Houston, so if anyone actually picks this story up it will be harder to dismiss it as the same old Louisiana corruption. Less happy was I to see that Miranda is cooperating as part of a larger investigation. If the guy who took the $300k is the *small* fish, it’s terrifying to think of what they’re actually trolling for.

You can read more about it at NOLA-dishu, along with many other heartening tidbits about the sorry state of NOLA’s levees.

katrina, New Orleans | 1 Comment »

Just in case you weren’t already in a pre-season Saints frenzy.  I found this clip of Marques Colston’s greatest hits over at World Class New Orleans. He works, he works, he works.  Moved me nearly to tears.  Have no doubt, this will be the year, and I am ready.

New Orleans, saints | 2 Comments »

This is very creepy. “The Lone Gunman” was an X-files spinoff show featuring the conspiracy theorist blogger/newsletter types which often acted as sources for Mulder and Sculley. I never watched the show, but Cliff Schecter just pointed out this YouTube summary of the plot of the show’s pilot episode. What is shown is the US government attempting to fake a terrorist plot to hijack commercial airliners and crash them into the World Trade Center, in an attempt to create conditions for ongoing war. I kid you not.

9-11, conspiracy | 1 Comment »

photo | No Comments »

Saw this in the bathroom today.  Thought I’d share.

academia, toronto | No Comments »

photo, sophie daum | 1 Comment »

Dean made hurricane this morning. The official forecast has him strengthening rapidly and crossing the yucatan peninsula as a cat 4. Officially, he’ll curve a bit north and slam onto land somewhere around the Mexico/Texas border. One of the models, however, GFDL, has recently started to sing a different tune:

As you can see, GFDL is currently predicting that Dean will head straight towards New Orleans, which it will hit as a strong Cat 4 Hurricane. Needless to say, this would be the end of the City.

It’s way, way too early to know what Dean’s gonna do. GFDL will be re-run to see if it is consistently making this prediction. The other models will also be run as well, to see if they are in agreement. Even if the basic track is correct, small deviations in the hurricane’s course can make all the difference.

But I’m worried.

dean, weather | No Comments »