September 12, 2008

Ike, Oil Refineries, and the 2008 Campaign

Obviously Ike is going to be a terrible storm. It looks like people are sure to die tonight, and the damage to Galveston could be devastating. Something else for us to keep an eye on though is how this will...
Posted by armand at 12:58 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

August 30, 2008

Gustav

As a child of the (sub)tropics, I have not been able to shake the need to know what is happening over the Atlantic as fall approaches. Even though I moved to the mountains some years ago, I still keep a...
Posted by binky at 07:07 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

August 28, 2008

Unsettling

Charts showing a potential double whammy. With two more right behind....
Posted by binky at 09:33 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

July 29, 2008

Regarding Those Taking the Bar in California

Do they get an extra minute or two if the exam is interrupted by an earthquake?...
Posted by armand at 05:33 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

July 12, 2008

A Brief Review of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."

George Lucas should never make movies again. Ever. Seriously. I'm not kidding....
Posted by baltar at 10:16 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 10, 2008

Lightning + Erupting Volcano

Some amazing pictures involving the eruption of Chaiten in Chile....
Posted by armand at 02:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 31, 2008

This is working very well for them

Via LGM and The Monkey Cage, a piece by a Stanford PhD candidate called Republican Vote Buying in the 2004 US Presidential Election (PDF). The abstract: In the aftermath of the summer 2004 Florida hurricane season, the Federal Emergency Management...
Posted by binky at 12:56 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 03, 2008

The Perils of Living on an Unplowed Street in the Winter

I guess I should find it kind of funny, right? I was hoping to go shopping today for a lot of winter wear. But I can't because my car is sitting on ice and refuses to go anywhere. So I...
Posted by armand at 01:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 05, 2007

Is It Ever Going to Stop Snowing Today?

I decided hours ago that I wouldn't go to the office today. But I'm supposed to go to Granville tonight to see Enchanted. Will I? Maybe - but it remains to be seen whether or not I'll be able to...
Posted by armand at 12:15 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

October 05, 2007

Amoebas

Deaths from amoebas are in the news, garnering attention because of public health concerns, and their possible relation to climate change. While in the last few years, if anyone had mentioned amoebas to me, I would have thought about intestinal...
Posted by binky at 01:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 26, 2007

Big Freakin' Hail

Really cool! Marble sized, all over the yard. This rarely happens up here. And rain! It came hard and fast, but we need it. I'll still be excited in the morning if there is no damage either to vehicles or...
Posted by binky at 10:23 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

August 20, 2007

Dean

Dean has been upgraded to a category five storm, and is boiling straight toward the Yucatan. Everyone is talking about the resorts, but I think about all the rural folks just inland, making their subsistence living on farming their milpas,...
Posted by binky at 09:07 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

August 19, 2007

Holy Martial Law, Batman!

Clergy response teams, because the bible helps people be calm in a time of crisis: For the clergy team, one of the biggest tools that they will have in helping calm the public down or to obey the law is...
Posted by binky at 09:59 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 26, 2007

"there's houses that have not been touched"

Coroner says that there are still bodies to be found in New Orleans, because "there's houses that have not been touched": We have found 25 or 26 I believe remains since a year, in the past year, since last April....
Posted by binky at 04:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 30, 2007

Paralyzed by Pollen

That was a nice vacation in Savannah, but ... I am someone who suffers from pollen. And while I was going to the land of cocktails, beaches, and Southern charm I also ended up stepping into the land of endless...
Posted by armand at 07:37 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 16, 2007

Another way the Bush administration's policies affect the average citizen

Budget cuts are gutting our ability to "understand and predict hurricanes": The two-year study by the National Academy of Sciences, released yesterday, determined that NASA's earth science budget has declined 30 percent since 2000. It stands to fall further as...
Posted by binky at 09:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 04, 2006

NOLA

One of the things we did in New Orleans is attend a benefit at Tipitina's to raise money for their foundation. I'm neither the first nor the last to tell you that there is still a long way to go...
Posted by binky at 12:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 29, 2006

Katrina's Lingering Impact on Mardi Gras

The problems of New Orleans remain far, far, far from fixed. The latest example of this? Planning is already underway for Mardi Gras 2007 of course, and a big brouhaha has developed over parade routes. Basically, the city doesn't have...
Posted by armand at 02:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 08, 2006

What Katrina Wrought - The Destruction of the Trees

I can't imagine New Orleans without its trees. It was so verdant, so lush, the green canopy was so deep ... but, sadly, no more.Jean Fahr, executive director of the New Orleans nonprofit Parkway Partners Program, said some foresters project...
Posted by armand at 06:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 22, 2006

Struggle for an Excerpt

There were so many, it was hard to pick only one. Last shift I worked. This is a crazy story, but it happens almost every day now. This psychiatric stuff, people going crazy. I had a man…police had a man...
Posted by binky at 09:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 10, 2006

6.0

I called my sister in Atlanta. Contrary to the CNN report she said she didn't feel the earthquake at all....
Posted by binky at 01:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 21, 2006

Saints vs. Cowboys on Monday Night Football

In case anyone was wondering what my mother's up to tonight, she and Chuck will be at this game in Shreveport.Given the date, the location, and the teams involved, the commentators will likely reference Katrina frequently. If they are going...
Posted by armand at 02:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 27, 2006

FEMA

Kevin Drum finds the Congressional recommendation on FEMA to be puzzling (emphasis mine): This is truly remarkable. FEMA was a fine organization for eight years under Bill Clinton, widely recognized as one of the best run agencies in the federal...
Posted by binky at 08:59 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 02, 2006

Mardi Gras 2006

What follows is a note from one of my good friends - a friend who until now would never, ever miss a Mardi Gras for any reason, ever. Now she doesn't think she's ever going to go back to New...
Posted by armand at 01:39 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

The Evidence

Hoffmania has the AP video on Katrina documentation....
Posted by binky at 11:54 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

February 10, 2006

Stealing Other People's Blog Posts Which Morphed Into A Long Rant

There's a lot in the news this past week. Bats Left Throws Right has a good summary: In the space of twenty-four hours, we get:• Libby says Cheney made him do it.• Bush says we saved Los Angeles a while...
Posted by baltar at 12:46 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Mmm Mmm Tasty

Crow, that is: In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Bush administration officials said they had been caught by surprise when they were told on Tuesday, Aug. 30, that a levee had broken, allowing floodwaters to engulf New Orleans. But Congressional...
Posted by binky at 12:17 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

February 01, 2006

"GAO Faults Federal Government for Katrina Response"

Remember all the protests about how the liberals were blaming the federal government for something that wasn't its fault, and how they were just using Katrina as an excuse to Bush bash? Despite plenty of advance disaster warning and decade-old...
Posted by binky at 02:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 25, 2006

Craven

Yellow-bellied, lily-livered, sap-sucking, chicken-hearted, pusillanimous... The Bush administration, citing the confidentiality of executive branch communications, said Tuesday that it did not plan to turn over certain documents about Hurricane Katrina or make senior White House officials available for sworn testimony...
Posted by binky at 12:42 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 18, 2006

Over 3,000 still missing

From Katrina....
Posted by binky at 10:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 07, 2005

Kinkster and the Pets

A hurried post to share a cute face, a good cause, and a very interesting Texan. The Texan? Kinky Friedman author, musician and now candidate for governor. The good cause? Friedman established a rescue for homeless pets including those from...
Posted by binky at 07:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 31, 2005

Well, I feel better!

Bush to unveil super-flu plan on Tuesday....
Posted by binky at 05:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 24, 2005

More Wilma

Strengthened overnight into a high Cat 3 storm, Wilma has made landfall on the west coast of Southern Florida. Now it's streaking across the peninsula and will come out on the other side. Steve Gregory of the Weather Underground was...
Posted by binky at 07:37 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

October 22, 2005

Wilma

Hurricane Wilma continues to hammer one of my favorite places in all the world: the Yucatan. In that photo the eye has degraded a bit, from land contact, but the storm will still hit the Ft. Myers area with a...
Posted by binky at 09:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 20, 2005

Let Them Eat, Uh, MREs!

Crooks and Liars is on the job with this gem about how FEMA head Brown put off dealing with reports from inside the Superdome because he needed more time to eat dinner in peace. Via Hoffmania....
Posted by binky at 04:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 18, 2005

Hurricanes Omicron and Upsilon?

Wilma is upon us, and hurricane season doesn't end until the end of November. So what names will future tropical storms be assigned presuming they develop in the next six weeks (as is highly likely)? Greek letters. Maybe in the...
Posted by armand at 02:42 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 10, 2005

Earthquake

It keeps coming. Kung Fu Monkey continues his blogging for relief. He pledges to match your donation, this time for the Kashmiri earthquake (past recipients, Iraq veterans and hurricane victims). DailyKos has a list of organizations that are in or...
Posted by binky at 10:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 03, 2005

More on What's Lost in New Orleans

These two lines jumped out at me from this story in the Washington Post on the future of the Ninth Ward: Of the 160,000 buildings in Louisiana declared "uninhabitable" after Katrina, a majority are in the New Orleans neighborhoods that...
Posted by armand at 01:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 23, 2005

Rita Information Update

I was going to post some linkage, but Majikthise already has: Here are some of the blogs/websites I'm using to follow the weather situation on the Gulf Coast: Check the NOAA's Rita update page for the latest meteorological observations, graphics,...
Posted by binky at 05:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Rita and New Orleans

Uh-oh."Our worst fears came true," said Maj. Barry Guidry of the Georgia National Guard. "We have three significant breaches in the levee and the water is rising rapidly," he said. "At daybreak I found substantial breaks and they've grown larger."...
Posted by armand at 01:23 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

September 21, 2005

Rita

More worries for the Gulf. Hurricane Rita has turned into a category 4 storm, and the pressure has dropped to 948 mb. This one looks like it's headed towards Galveston....
Posted by binky at 09:48 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

September 09, 2005

Hurricane Damage, Property Rights and Reconstruction

Lauren at Feministe asks the all important question: what is going to happen to people's homes when they have been evacuated from New Orleans? She posts about and links to this from Kathryn Cramer. Reading these two pieces reinforced the...
Posted by binky at 10:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A Day or So

Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau: "[A]rguably" a day or so of response time was lost due to the absence of the Mississippi National Guard's 155th Infantry Brigade and Louisiana's 256th Infantry Brigade, each with thousands...
Posted by binky at 08:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

More Katrina Fallout: Find the Idiot!

Via this New York Times story, we get this priceless quote: As New Orleans descended into chaos last week and Louisiana's governor asked for 40,000 soldiers, President Bush's senior advisers debated whether the president should speed the arrival of active-duty...
Posted by baltar at 09:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 08, 2005

More Katrina Post-Disaster Stories

While I can't vouch for the accuracy of the story, if this is true, it speaks very ill of the rescue effort and the nature of attempts to alleviate the problems in New Orleans. However, it's certainly worth a read....
Posted by baltar at 11:49 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

New Orleans to be Convention-less Until April

All city-wide conventions (those utilizing center space and three or more hotels) to be held in the Center are cancelled through March 31, 2006. The commitment of New Orleans to a flawless experience for our customers means unequivocally that we...
Posted by armand at 10:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 07, 2005

What the Sanctimonious Are Like

Well, with a title like "What the Poor Are Like," do you expect nice things? Like chocolate: sweet and delicious. Or maybe, like a puppy: loving and full of energy. No? How about these qualities that are designed to educate...
Posted by binky at 01:36 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

September 06, 2005

FEMA + Charity Funds + Death in Africa = Lining the Pockets of Pat Robertson

Just when you thought FEMA could not be both more cold-hearted and inept ... At least this was fixed - eventually. But that ever occurred is shameful....
Posted by armand at 09:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 05, 2005

At Least Ivan Wasn't the Big One

Archpundit has had a number of posts up over the last week noting changes that the local government (thankfully) put in place in its disaster-preparedness plans in the wake of Hurricane Ivan. This post contains the gist of this coverage....
Posted by armand at 03:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 02, 2005

If all else fails, blame the victims

From the Director of FEMA (added marks and comments mine): Michael Brown also agreed with other public officials that the death toll in the city could reach into the thousands. "Unfortunately, that's going to be attributable a lot to people...
Posted by binky at 09:32 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Homeland Security

If only the hurricanes had come in September....
Posted by binky at 09:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 01, 2005

Pork and Katrina

I have mostly avoided a "blame game" for the Katrina disaster. In hindsight, it seems clear that the Federal, State and City officials should have done more to prevent the ongoing chaos/anarchy that is New Orleans. How that blame should...
Posted by baltar at 09:43 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Another Way to Donate

Liberal Blogs for Hurricane Relief. Liberal Blogosphere for Hurricane Relief"There's nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed by what's right with America." - Bill Clinton.Hurricane Katrina destroyed thousands of lives. Together, we're raising $1 million for the Red Cross...
Posted by binky at 03:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Complete and Total Chaos

From CNN: Charity Hospital has halted patient evacuations because it has come under sniper fire, according to Dr. Tyler Curiel, who witnessed the incident....
Posted by binky at 03:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 31, 2005

Way To Help The Katrina Victims

For those looking for some sort of way to help the victims of Katrina, Kung Fu Monkey is matching the funds that are raised through the blog. This is not a new program. Kung Fu Monkey started it last month,...
Posted by baltar at 10:19 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

August 30, 2005

Katrina's Aftermath

The damage assessments are starting to come in. There is major devastation across the coastal communities of the northern Gulf of Mexico, among them New Orleans, Biloxi, Mobile, and Gulfport. Access is restricted and it will likely be some time...
Posted by binky at 10:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 29, 2005

Katrina Update

Katrina has made landfall. (Our previous coverage here. Keep up to date with local news channel WWL. They report that hurricane shelters are suffering major damage: "Chalmette High shelter is losing its roof, and St. Bernard High has plenty of...
Posted by binky at 08:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 28, 2005

Katrina

At about this time last year, I posted about hurricane Frances. Same time, next year, and the obsession and worry are back. It turns out that the links I posted last year are permanently refreshed satellite views, and will now...
Posted by binky at 03:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 19, 2005

The Biggest Explosion in Centuries

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime event. We have observed an object only 20km across, on the other side of our galaxy, releasing more energy in a 10th of a second than the Sun emits in 100,000 years," said Dr Fender....
Posted by armand at 06:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 14, 2004

Palm Beach County

That's right: natural disaster. They can't even test the voting machines in Palm Beach County. And Theresa "Butterfly Ballots" LePore is still there. I don't want to go through another four years fending off cracks about my home town. Aargh!...
Posted by binky at 04:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 23, 2004

The Alabama State Police

Assisting in the relief work in the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan, or directing traffic at the Auburn game? Where do you think the Alabama State Police were last weekend?...
Posted by armand at 01:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 02, 2004

Frances

This has nothing to do with Bloodless Coup's usual fare, but I am obsessed with worry about this hurricane, mostly for family and friends, but also for everyone else. Despite the worry, I can't help but look at images like...
Posted by binky at 02:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack