This just in!

Michael Brown, former head of FEMA, has been nominated for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court!

A smug, self-satisfied President Bush delivered the announcement earlier today with his usual shit-eating grin, adding, "Brownie - he's a heck of a guy. I think about him every. single. day."

Brown, a lawyer whose qualifications for the Supreme Court also include being David Souter's roommate at summer camp in 1968, and a stint as assistant to the waterboy for the Dunkin' Donuts Donutholes in 1971, appeared on CNN to discuss his nomination, displaying his trademark charisma-laden mask-like facies.

"To be honest, I'm still in a state of shock," he said. "Not about the nomination, but about the tragic attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11, which I just learned about a couple of hours ago."

President Bush, whose approval rating dipped into negative percentages for the first time, declined to intelligently comment further, stating that he was "off to play golf with O.J.," and that he preferred to "leave it to (White House Spokesperson) Scott McLellan to further lie to you and evade your questions."

Shoots, Bush, and Leaves

I recently emailed a friend of mine who's teaching in Japan to see if there is any feeling there about the apparently incompetent US gov't response to Katrina. He said people there are following Katrina, but that there's not much talk about the incompetence angle, and that he hadn't heard much about it himself. He also said it seemed like a 'hot button topic' for me & was interested in hearing what the issue was. I thought I'd post my reply here ... does DIODE have an opinion on this? (About the federal response to Katrina, not about my posting the reply here!)

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Oh, you're damn right this is a hot button topic for me. As well it should be for every American.

In the days leading up to the levees' breakage, ALL of the major (and minor) news stations showed expert after expert stating that the levees were in danger of breaking and that New Orleans could soon be under up to 10 feet of water.

President Bush didn't even cut short his vacation for THREE DAYS after the Category 4 hurricane struck and wiped out entire towns in Louisiana and Mississippi. After most of New Orleans was submerged he went on national TV to declare, and I quote, "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."

Oh?

Here's a piece from National Geographic, April 2004:

http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/

Read at least the first few paragraphs of that. Sound familiar?

Here's a piece from the New Orleans Times-Picayune (A five-part series) from June 2002:

http://www.nola.com/washingaway/

In fact, here's a piece from 1832:

http://slate.msn.com/id/2125733/

And some more "anticipating" for you:

http://mediamatters.org/items/200509030001

Google the phrase "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees" and you'll find out just how much of an asshole truth-bender this President is, as if anyone needed any more proof.

EVERYONE knew the levees were likely to break if anything more than a Category 3 hit. And EVERYONE knew that this was going to be a 4 or 5.

There were things that could have gone better from the state and local levels, for sure. The feds, including the goulish Cryptkeeper-like head of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, say it's not in the federal government's agenda to usurp state and local authorities' powers. OH? Gee, I seem to remember a recent case of a brain-dead woman whose case spurred an EMERGENCY MIDNIGHT session of Congress so that the state gov't's decisions could be overturned. But I digress. It IS in the federal government's agenda to provide immediate assistance to overwhelmed local agencies, and if it ISN'T, it SHOULD BE.

FEMA did a fairly good job during the 90's, including the Northridge quake, because it was allowed to do so by the Clinton administration, and it was headed by someone who knew what he was doing. Read this article for more information:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/09/07/fema/print.html (you might need to sign in for the day pass).

Another great article from Salon:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2005/09/08/limited_government/index_np.html

With thousands of people starving at the Convention Center, and EVERY news agency carrying live feeds for at least 24-48 hours of this occurring, Michael Brown, head of FEMA, tells Paula Zahn and Ted Koppel that FEMA didn't even KNOW about the Convention Center until earlier that day. WTF?!!?!! And Bush was patting this guy on the back, saying "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job". FUCKERS!

So who is this Michael Brown who is heading FEMA now?

Turns out, he's a "failed former lawyer--a man with a 20-year-old degree from a semi-accredited law school who hadn't attempted to practice law in a serious way in nearly 15 years and who had just been forced out of his job [as commisioner of the International Arabian Horse Association] in the wake of charges of impropriety." How did he get this job? By having the right college roommate. Read this article:

http://www.tnr.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20050919&s=campos091905

As for who is really supposed to be in charge during a such a disaster (State or Fed)?

http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001784.html

Here's Barbara Bush talking about those black people stuck in the Astrodome (mp3 via the link):

"The former first lady toured the Astrodome Monday, and along the way she opined that many of the refugees from New Orleans were so poor to begin with that they ought to be pretty happy with their temporary digs in Houston. "What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas," Barbara Bush said in comments first aired on the public radio program "Marketplace" and reprinted by Editor & Publisher. "Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."

In the midst of that last line, you can hear the former first lady chuckling."

And the "blame game"?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/09/08/press/index.html

What else? Haliburton has already been awarded the lucrative job of rebuilding naval bases down there. Bush says he's looking forward to Trent Lott's NEW house in New Orleans, which he predicts will be more fantastic than the previous one (which was destroyed). More tax cuts for the rich. And dead people are floating down the streets.

Look, I'm not saying that the state and local officials did a super job. It's clear that things could have been better. But it was obvious that they at least seemed genuinely AFFECTED by what was going on, on an emotional level, and were TRYING. These are their people dying, after all. Contrast that to the ROBOTIC actions and statements produced by Michael Brown, Michael Chertoff, George W Bush, and the White House. These aren't THEIR people dying, after all. Just some indigent blacks, right?

The main problem that I and others have with Bush & Co. is that it is obvious that THEY DON'T GIVE A FUCK about anyone but themselves, their pocketbooks, their financial peers, and their reputations. There is so much deception, wordplay, deceit, nepotism, ineptitude, patronization, and just plain ARROGANCE ... People are PISSED. Treat us like INTELLIGENT ADULTS, you fuckers.

And DON'T get me started on IRAQ!!!!!!! (But read this if you're interested: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/09/05/hitchens/index_np.html )

No can do :-(

Well, the guys from Gillware.com called me today to tell me that my hard drive is physically damaged and needs cleanroom work. Apparently this is where they scrub in to an operating-room-like environment where there is no dust or other particles that can damage the electronics inside the drive. This costs $300 more, on top of the $379, but only if they can get data off. (Still MUCH more reasonable than other companies' cleanroom/data recovery fees).

Not too long after that I got another call, this time saying that the parts for my particular drive (Western Digital 200GB) aren't going to be obtainable for the foreseeable future, and that they aren't going to able to help with the drive at all. They're going to send it back without charge.

So that's the end of that. At least it seems like they're an honest company that isn't out to cheat their customers by charging them for things they don't need. In fact they said I might want to try other companies, who have been around longer and so might have the parts they need already in their inventory, and the guy gave me the name of Eco Data Recovery to try. I looked at Eco's website and they charge a flat fee too, though they list $775 for a 40GB hard drive. Would probably be lots more for a larger drive. I requested a quote for fun, though I really doubt I'm going to be trying any other companies.

I also asked the guy at Gillware what he thought about different brands of hard drives. He said that they see a lot of Western Digital and Maxtor drives there, and not very many Seagate drives. Something to be aware of, I guess ... I'm probably going to replace my current WD 300GB drive with a Seagate one if I can find one for a good price. Then I can sell the WD drive on eBay or something like that ...

As for the data on the dead drive ... Guess I'll have to try to piece it together from whatever I've got lying around on my old drives. At least I saved $679!!

Hurricane Katrina Video

Here's a video I found on the net:

http://g005e.zippyvideos.com/3695252841009476/hurricane_katrina_video/*g005e

Downloadable here: http://216.86.150.60/videos/0/100947_1f582.wmv

Note: The original file was 22 MB (640x480), which I converted with WinMPG Converter to 8MB (320x240) and downsampled the audio a bit. The host, http://www.zippyvideos.com/, provides free video hosting up to 20MB.