meta-roj

taking a page from long-neglected blog compatriot barry, i took a few seconds to approximate and overlay the current (5am edt) projected path of destruction for rita with the oil-resources map he presented from the wall street journal… it looks something like this:

with this map, it looks like it hurts a lot more.

an exercise in critical thinking…

despotism

what kind of community do you live in?

it is also the problem of us all.

[via joi via greg]

australia for all men

blues

american music, texas style.

it seems that the bush administration’s alternate-reality field (in which no americans die) extends to press coverage of the greatest human tragedy in the american homeland (i still hate that word).

this piece is quoted here in its entirety, because it represents an important official policy position of the united states government:

U.S. agency blocks photos of New Orleans dead [reuters, 2005.09.06]

The U.S. government agency leading the rescue efforts after Hurricane Katrina said on Tuesday it does not want the news media to take photographs of the dead as they are recovered from the flooded New Orleans area.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, heavily criticized for its slow response to the devastation caused by the hurricane, rejected requests from journalists to accompany rescue boats as they went out to search for storm victims.

An agency spokeswoman said space was needed on the rescue boats and that “the recovery of the victims is being treated with dignity and the utmost respect.”

“We have requested that no photographs of the deceased be made by the media,” the spokeswoman said in an e-mailed response to a Reuters inquiry.

The Bush administration also has prevented the news media from photographing flag-draped caskets of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq, which has sparked criticism that the government is trying to block images that put the war in a bad light.

The White House is under fire for its handling of the relief effort, which many officials have charged was slow and bureacratic, contributing to the death and mayhem in New Orleans after the storm struck on Aug. 29. (Additional reporting by Deborah Charles)

so long, little buddy

at this point, i simply have to put this in public. my department of homeland security is incompetent. my government is incompetent. if this is how we handle a natural disaster with four days warning, i can only imagine what we’d do without notice, when the earthquake hits los angeles or san francisco, or when the tsunami hits seattle.

there is no excuse.