“Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we’re going to move to
Houston.What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. 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 (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them.”
Source? Lots — for example here.
Well, well. This from a CNN report dated September 8:
President Bush issued an executive order Thursday allowing federal contractors rebuilding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to pay below the prevailing wage.
In a notice to Congress, Bush said the hurricane had caused “a national emergency” that permits him to take such action under the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act in ravaged areas of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi.
Bush’s action came as the federal government moved to provide billions of dollars in aid, and drew rebukes from two of organized labor’s biggest friends in Congress, Rep. George Miller of California and Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, both Democrats.
“The administration is using the devastation of Hurricane Katrina to cut the wages of people desperately trying to rebuild their lives and their communities,” Miller said.
There’s a silver lining in every dark cloud — for Halliburton at least. Thanks to CD for the link.
… first install Internet Explorer Version 6.
Truly, one couldn’t make this up. Anyone wishing to register online for disaster relief at the FEMA disaster aid website is first greeted with this message:
In order to use this site, you must have JavaScript Enabled and Internet Explorer version 6. Download it from Microsoft or call 1-800-621-FEMA (3362) to register.
No, I am not making it up. I’ve just been to the site — which is where I got the quote. No wonder the Yanks are in trouble.
From Wired News…
In comments on Thursday, President Bush said, “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.”
But LSU engineer Joseph Suhayda and others have warned for years that defenses could fail. In 2002, the New Orleans Times Picayune published a five-part series on “The Big One,” examining what might happen if they did.
It predicted that 200,000 people or more would be unwilling or unable to heed evacuation orders and thousands would die, that people would be housed in the Superdome, that aid workers would find it difficult to gain access to the city as roads became impassable, as well as many other of the consequences that actually unfolded after Katrina hit this week.
Delicate souls, avert your gaze now. And do not under any circumstances read this report of what Microsoft CEO said about Google.
Those made of sterner stuff may read on…
Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer vowed to “kill” internet search leader Google Inc. in an obscenity-laced tirade, and Google chased a prized Microsoft executive “like wolves,” according to documents filed in an increasingly bitter legal battle between the rivals.
The allegations, filed in a Washington state court, represent the latest salvos in a showdown triggered by Google’s July hiring of former Microsoft executive Kai Fu-Lee to oversee a research and development centre that Google plans to open in China. Lee started at Google the day after he resigned from Microsoft.
The tug-of-war over Lee – known for his work on computer recognition of language – has exposed the behind-the-scenes animosity that has been brewing between two of high-tech’s best-known companies.
Ballmer’s threat last November was recounted in a sworn declaration by a former Microsoft engineer, Mark Lucovsky, who said he met with Microsoft’s chief executive 10 months ago to discuss his decision to leave the company after six years. After learning Lucovsky was leaving to take a job at Google, Ballmer picked up his chair and hurled it across his office, according to the declaration.
Ballmer then pejoratively berated Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Lucovsky recalled.
“I’m going to f—ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again,” the declaration quotes Ballmer. “I’m going to f—ing kill Google.”
In a statement, Ballmer described Lucovsky’s recollection as a “gross exaggeration.
Mark’s decision to leave was disappointing and I urged him strongly to change his mind. But his characterization of that meeting is not accurate.”
Editor’s Note: chair-throwing is a recognised and respected therapeutic procedure at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Wa. Please do not be alarmed, or conclude that the man in charge of the company that makes your software is deranged. On the other hand, if you do use his software, perhaps the time has come to make an appointment with a therapist.
Thanks to Chris Walker for the link.
If you want to see the chasm between the Federal government and what’s going on on the ground, just read this digest put together by CNN yesterday. Here’s a sample on conditions in the Convention Centre:
FEMA chief Brown: We learned about that (Thursday), so I have directed that we have all available resources to get that convention center to make sure that they have the food and water and medical care that they need. (See here for the lowdown on friend Brown.)
Mayor Nagin: The convention center is unsanitary and unsafe, and we are running out of supplies for the 15,000 to 20,000 people.
CNN Producer Kim Segal: It was chaos. There was nobody there, nobody in charge. And there was nobody giving even water. The children, you should see them, they’re all just in tears. There are sick people. We saw… people who are dying in front of you.
Evacuee Raymond Cooper: Sir, you’ve got about 3,000 people here in this — in the Convention Center right now. They’re hungry. Don’t have any food. We were told two-and-a-half days ago to make our way to the Superdome or the Convention Center by our mayor. And which when we got here, was no one to tell us what to do, no one to direct us, no authority figure.
Surprise, surprise: a Republican zombie. Splendid Boston Herald story by Brett Arends:
The federal official in charge of the bungled New Orleans rescue was fired from his last private-sector job overseeing horse shows.
And before joining the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a deputy director in 2001, GOP activist Mike Brown had no significant experience that would have qualified him for the position.
The Oklahoman got the job through an old college friend who at the time was heading up FEMA.
Brett goes on to record that
Before joining the Bush administration in 2001, Brown spent 11 years as the commissioner of judges and stewards for the International Arabian Horse Association, a breeders’ and horse-show organization based in Colorado.
“We do disciplinary actions, certification of (show trial) judges. We hold classes to train people to become judges and stewards. And we keep records,” explained a spokeswoman for the IAHA commissioner’s office. “This was his full-time job … for 11 years,” she added.
Brown was forced out of the position after a spate of lawsuits over alleged supervision failures.
“He was asked to resign,” Bill Pennington, president of the IAHA at the time, confirmed last night.
Soon after, Brown was invited to join the administration by his old Oklahoma college roommate Joseph Allbaugh, the previous head of FEMA until he quit in 2003 to work for the president’s re-election campaign.
Lovely stuff! Pity there isn’t more of it in the US media.
Here’s an interesting quote:
The boxes are stacked eight feet high and line the walls of the large, windowless room. Inside them are new body bags, 10,000 in all. If a big, slow-moving hurricane crossed the Gulf of Mexico on the right track, it would drive a sea surge that would drown New Orleans under 20 feet of water. “As the water recedes,” says Walter Maestri, a local emergency management director, “we expect to find a lot of dead bodies.”
Q: Where did this appear?
A: in an article in Scientific American — published in October 2001.
Here’s another interesting quote:
It was a broiling August afternoon in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Big Easy, the City That Care Forgot. Those who ventured outside moved as if they were swimming in tupelo honey. Those inside paid silent homage to the man who invented air-conditioning as they watched TV “storm teams” warn of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing surprising there: Hurricanes in August are as much a part of life in this town as hangovers on Ash Wednesday.
But the next day the storm gathered steam and drew a bead on the city. As the whirling maelstrom approached the coast, more than a million people evacuated to higher ground. Some 200,000 remained, however—the car-less, the homeless, the aged and infirm, and those die-hard New Orleanians who look for any excuse to throw a party.
The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead, pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain. The water crept to the top of the massive berm that holds back the lake and then spilled over. Nearly 80 percent of New Orleans lies below sea level—more than eight feet below in places—so the water poured in. A liquid brown wall washed over the brick ranch homes of Gentilly, over the clapboard houses of the Ninth Ward, over the white-columned porches of the Garden District, until it raced through the bars and strip joints on Bourbon Street like the pale rider of the Apocalypse. As it reached 25 feet (eight meters) over parts of the city, people climbed onto roofs to escape it.
Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.
Q: Where and when was this published?
A: In National Geographic Magazine, last October. Thanks to Dave Winer and Doc Searls for the links.
I’ve seen some daft signs in my time, but this takes the biscuit. ‘Bigger’ I can understand. But ‘fresher’?
From BBC NEWS…
A father died after he allowed his seven-year-old son to drive at 70mph along a motorway, an inquest heard.
Peter Mourier, 50, of Kingshill, Kempsey, Worcestershire, was killed when the car left the M5 and crashed into a tree on 4 March.
The boy was driving from the passenger seat when he hit an object between junctions 12 and 11a. He, and his two brothers in the back seat, were unhurt.
Gloucestershire coroner Alan Crickmore recorded a verdict of accidental death.