Slashdot Mirror

https://www.nola.com/expo/news...

This woman claims she "had to" destroy a home due to sea-level rise from climate change, because "she couldn't sell it, even after reducing the price 11 times".

She bought the house just over 20 years ago. Sea level has risen 3" since then (at the most generous calculation). 3" makes this 80 year old home "unsellable"? Really?

Then check this:
https://blog.luxurysimplified....
which links to this GIS map https://www.luxurysimplified.c...

From that review, "...or fun, move to the "Historic Maps" layer and add the layer reflecting the map of 1680. The areas that are susceptible to flooding are exactly those that used to be marsh or creek. ..."

Don't build your house in a creek bed and then complain that it floods. Complain to the builder/seller that they didn't disclose your house is where water should be.

Veritas means truth. In that context, it is worth keeping in mind that this is James O'Keefe who runs it, a man who has repeatedly demonstrated his willingness to edit videos and take anything out of context http://www.cracked.com/article_20369_5-major-news-stories-that-forgot-to-tell-you-best-part.html https://www.npr.org/2011/03/14/134525412/Segments-Of-NPR-Gotcha-Video-Taken-Out-Of-Context are two detailed examples. This is a man who literally lied about who he was as part of an attempt to bug a US Senator's phone http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2010/01/acorn_gotcha_man_arrested_for.html. Pretty much anything he says should be assigned zero credibility. It may well be that Twitter employees are reading direct messages routinely, or even doing so for political aims, but anything by Project Veritas should not be taken as serious evidence for such a claim.

The Ars Technica article appears to be uniquely wrong on this point. The Sea of Japan is west of Japan, between Korea and Japan. No overflight necessary. Such overflights have occurred in the past with the missile landing somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, but not this time. This is a conventional straight line trajectory, not a cruise missile on a pleasure trip.

http://www.nola.com/national_p...

http://www.nola.com/business/i...

"Then, as now, connectivity could be a challenge. The little villages were wired to the phone lines, but rural residents had to wire themselves."

The smashing, violence, and beatings is overwhelmingly coming from the left. That's how it's been for many years.

I have to agree.

So you feel obligated to agree with a falsehood? Interesting. Why not challenge it? Why not consider how the FBI's report on right-wing violence was suppressed?

My personal theory is that many of the violent people have convinced themselves that their political enemies are in fact bad people and "fair game" for anything.

Yes, the right goes out of its way to declare that people on the left are, in fact, bad people, and see themselves as the martyred heroes for saving themselves from the dastardly villains. That was, in fact, the whole justification of Nazi aggression.

Ever so slightly interesting that you don't mention it.

But it's hardly unknown, it's even in this movie trailer.

It goes like this: It's okay to punch a Nazi; conservatives are all Nazis... and then comes the punching.

Actually, it's conservatives who go to tortuous lengths to declare that liberals are Nazis. It's terribly amusing, and rather pathetic. Not to mention the Muslim accusations, the Communist accusations, and more.

Of course, it turns out the people dumb enough to sell out to the Russians were Trumps, but we can't be paying attention to that.

Here is a web page linking multiple articles arguing that the violence used to prevent Milo Yiannopolous from speaking at Berkeley was justified. "Violence helped ensure safety of students" is a real headline. There was also this quote: "...some white nationalists got their ***** beat." (Just like the Nazi thing above, only this time using "white nationalist". Someone who wanted to hear Milo speak --> white nationalist --> someone it's okay to send to the hospital.)

Here's a video of those white Nationalists's major work:

http://www.pbs.org/video/2365957904/

Do see how they're behaving and justifying themselves.

Even the removal of statues leads to threats of violence.

Some people can't even worship in peace.

Yet you show not the slightest concern about that.

Also, the media coverage may tend to embolden these people. The people who smash things, light things on fire, and send people to the hospital are described as "protesters". The people who wanted to hear Milo speak are described as "alt-Right extremists". I don't want to overstate the contribution of the media but I think it's a part.

The media coverage of the feigned victimization of right-wing speakers was indeed a part, people actually started to believe it was a real problem, or some sudden development, until it petered out, as comments by Milo that even the right-wing couldn't stomach came out, and he, the poster-child for the supposed martydom, became a persona non-grata. So it petered out.

Personally I think that the correct remedy for bad speech is counter-speech.

So not walking away? Not ignoring them? You don't say they're unacceptable, but why not correct?

But ok, enjoy my speech.

Violence isn't acceptable to prevent speech, even if you really disagree.

So is h

Pull up Google earth and look at all of the Oilfield canals in the coastal marsh. The 1st offshore oil well in the world was drilled south of Morgan City and offshore drilling was born there. http://www.rigmuseum.com/charl... The problem is the US Government has stolen all of the money from offshore drilling in Louisiana's waters from the 1950's to today. States that do not allow drilling in their own waters get a cut of what is rightly Louisianans money. It will not cost the Fed anything. Just give LA the royalties from the existing infrastructure.

http://www.nola.com/politics/i...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
http://www.thetowntalk.com/sto...

But as a percent of income the rich buy less, thus paying less taxes. That's why sales taxes are considered regressive, hitting the poor and middle class more.

For the most part, this is simply due to the tax on investment income (capital gains) being taxed at a lower rate than income you make from say your actual job. The more you have, the more you're likely investing it, the more it becomes the largest part of your income. And please note, I'm discussing "long term capital gains", not short term. For anyone interested, there's a good article explaining the rates here...
https://www.fool.com/retiremen...

NYT does a good historical story on it here http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01...

So, the question becomes, does it make sense to have a lower rate on investment income? There are arguments against it, primarily focused on "fairness", and how the govt. could increase it's tax base. The opposing side argues that it's better for the economy as a whole to keep the lower rates...
http://www.nola.com/business/i...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/h...

If progtards had brains, they wouldn't equate racial and sexual quotas with equality.

When you count by race and sex, you're by definition racist and sexist.

Then that makes Dr King a racist 'progtard' —
"A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for the Negro."

Well, like it or not, laws against owning and carrying firearms were first created to stop black people from being armed. That's a sad genesis for the rabid gun control groups out there willing to see thousands die each year in Chiraq, with their dream gun control laws fully in place there.

That being said, I hope you can discern between NRA leadership (which botched the Castile case), and NRA members, who were also outraged:

http://www.nola.com/crime/inde...

"This time, however, the NRA faces an internal division as its members argue the group did not do enough to defend gun owners' rights by speaking out on behalf of Castile."

Let's also remember that the shooter in Castile's death wasn't a white guy - he was, however, a blue guy. And that's the problem - blue guys have too much power over us. We should not outsource our personal self defense to blue guys, and we should have much stricter rules of engagement for blue guys. I get it, it's a shit job and there is real risk of being shot in an ambush by thugs, but *that's the job*. The past few notable unjustifiable cop shootings I've seen have been driven by jittery cops, not any form of systemic racism.

A few thoughts for reform:

1) end police unions - cops who shoot people have way too many union protections to allow them time to make up phony stories.
2) use tech to avoid risk - maybe video conference via drone to the driver suspected of some traffic violation "sir, please place your license and registration in the slot", and have the drone return it to the officer who is a safe distance away from any possible ambush, or just use facial recognition to find someone's license and registration, instead of asking them for a fucking paper copy.
3) national right to carry - when seconds count cops are just minutes away
4) no more "broken tail light" crap stops - unless you're going to fix it on the spot for the person. We've got traffic laws built for revenue generation rather than public safety, and the unintended consequences (as well as the intended ones), are bullshit.

The fact is that even if every American citizen biked to work, carpooled to school, used only solar panels to power their homes, if we each planted a dozen trees, if we somehow eliminated all of our domestic greenhouse emissions, guess what - that still wouldn't be enough to offset the carbon pollution coming from the rest of the world.

If all the industrial nations went down to zero emissions...it wouldn't be enough, not when more than 65 percent of the world's carbon pollution comes from the developing world.

-- John Kerry

Well, it's a good thing that Trump wants to bring those factories back home where we can keep an eye on them. Plus, think of all the other good effects from making our own products again. Good thing Hillary the crooked globalist didn't win, eh? Her idea was to go ahead with TPP and shove even MORE globalism down our throats. Hurrah for democracy!

Yeeeeeah. Because Trump and his partners are totalllllllly going to keep an eye on things. We're also going to accept a 30% price increase for paying a living wage, we're going to accept that we need massive amounts of tax investments at your expense to pay for these new factories, and you're personally willing to buy a gas mask for the days where there is no wind.

Oh, and when the rest of the world levies sanctions on us because we refuse to follow the environmental treaties we signed, followed by massive economic depressions, you're going to accept that, yes?

TL;DR version: The "dystopian future has really arrived" because the US Supreme court disagrees with you.

your own house and garden suddenly become public places where your asshole neighbor can film you and your children

It's not happening suddenly. It happened twenty years ago.

Annoying people is sometimes illegal, sometimes not, but the law doesn't (and shouldn't) consider using "shitty tech gadgets" any worse than lawnmowers, drums, or a ladder. At the same time, the US has strong legal protection for people who want to take pictures, videos or otherwise gather information. You can't make it generally illegal do those things without infringing on the freedom of the press.

All the discussion about drones specifically is due to the human tendency to see actions as being tied to tools. It is the same fallacy that drives laws to be disproportionate where a crime is done "with a computer." Even if you get laws to protect your privacy in your back yard "from drones," you will still have your privacy invaded completely legally by people with actual airplanes, or ladders, or model airplanes, or mini-blimps.

The core issue is defining what the law should treat as your right to privacy. (Not what tools people might use to infringe on it.) So far, the courts have determined that you have property rights extending about to shotgun height above your property and you have the right to privacy where you are not visible or try to keep yourself from being visible from public property. (The air above your backyard is public property at sufficient altitude.) For example, it's perfectly legal to take pictures of your neighbors if they're in front of an open window (or their backyard.) It's illegal to take the same picture if they have blinds on their windows which are failing to actually hide the people on the other side. (Indeed, you in some states, even being naked at home in front of an open window is illegal.

If a 95lb criminal can grab an officers gun in same position and kill the officer, what do you think a 300lb man with a gun in his pocket can do? http://www.nola.com/crime/inde...

Robert Lewis Dear is neither Republican or liberal. He's just fucking nuts.

If 91% of the students are in charter schools it is hard to claim that they are only taking the cream of the crop, isn't it?

It's not that much harder. Just have to look a little deeper.

http://www.nola.com/education/...

There were 63,252 students enrolled before, compared to 44,686.

Also worth noting is that the state was spending $6,509 per student (= ~7800 in 2015 dollars), but that has increased to $8,859 per student. So much for private sector being more efficient and saving taxpayer money.

Further research got me this:

http://thelensnola.org/2014/02...

The state as a whole is losing people (and yet it's increasing spending per student... ). Many who left because of Katrina simply didn't return. Something tells me it's mostly the poor who don't return, since they're the ones least likely to find employment (while welfare is present in every state if they're the lazy type, so no need to move). The link seems to agree, as it suggests that immigrants are amongst the people entering the state, instead of long time residents returning. Immigrants who would brave moving long distances to the US (and to Louisiana at that) tend to be a self selecting lot. Wouldn't surprise me if their kids are more disciplined and perform better in schools, chartered or otherwise.

In short, there are other factors that can explain the improvement in performance. The crop was already trimmed by the time charter schools showed up.

Unfortunately there have been 5 deaths hunting in Wisconsin this YEAR.

...

And that would merely be a moderately bad AFTERNOON for Chicago.

Or Baltimore.

Or New York.

Ever hear of Bunny Friend Park shooting? Probably not - as it doesn't fit any desired narrative. 17 people - including children - were shot by gang members in New Orleans.

http://journalstar.com/news/lo... http://www.nydailynews.com/new... http://www.nola.com/crime/inde... http://www.derbytelegraph.co.u... http://www.local10.com/news/mi... http://thenationonlineng.net/c... http://www.wowt.com/home/headl... http://www.nydailynews.com/new... http://ktla.com/2015/07/23/pol... http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/u... http://www.theage.com.au/victo... http://kdvr.com/2015/03/16/wom...

Nice try.

Bush tried to send the National Guard. The governor of Louisiana (a democrat) said no. Only after the corpses started piling up did she consent.

Seriously. Think about what would have happened if Bush sent the military into a state, against the will of a woman democrat governor, into a city with a majority black population.

Not only a woman Democrat Governor. But a black Democrat mayor. Remember "Chocolate City" Ray Nagin. Who by the way is in PRISON right now.

  http://www.nola.com/crime/inde...

I'm so glad you cleared that up for us.

Stories of regular cab drivers sexually assaulting riders:
http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2014/12/tourist_says_cab_driver_raped.html/
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/exclusive-brooklyn-woman-recounts-traumatic-rape-taxi-article-1.2101285/
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/exclusive-alleged-victim-recounts-rape-cabbie-article-1.1772138/
http://www.local10.com/news/fort-lauderdale-cab-driver-accused-of-rape/29941056/
http://globalnews.ca/news/1801977/taxi-ride-leaves-woman-shaken-police-investigate-sexual-assault/
http://fox4kc.com/2014/10/01/woman-claims-cab-driver-robbed-raped-her/

It seems that meeting the licensing requirements doesn't magically protect passengers from drivers. As a side note, meeting strangers who advertised in traditional newspaper classified ads doesn't provide any magical protection over meeting strangers who advertised on craigslist. Also, Teslas don't actually catch fire more than any other kind of car. Media sensationalism is exactly what it says on the label.

Several cases of assault by drivers and even a rape in india are documented occurances in the Uber ecosystem that seem to be shrugged off by the company as "isolated incidents."

In fairness, they are pretty isolated. How many Uber rides have you read about where nothing happened? One of my friends here was getting a ride and she asked her driver how her experiences have been . She once got a passenger who had her go out to an isolated area then tried to drag her out of her car and into hell, but she was able to escape (and continued driving, actually). What you're describing, people being violent towards each other, is not something unique to Uber. Believe it or not, but assaults and rapes have actually been occurring since before Uber was a thing. The fact that they still occur doesn't mean that Uber failed, it means that we still have sociopaths among us who are willing to victimize other people. And it's not as if drivers attacking passengers are limited to Uber.

But, in the case of the Uber drivers attacking people, or in the cases where passengers attack the drivers, with Uber at least you know exactly who your attacker was (unless they stole someone's phone or carjacked someones car and decided to turn on Uber) which is going to lead to an arrest, but even without violent crime or the police getting involved the rating system should (in theory) remove the abusers from the system. I don't see any flamebait or troll comments on Slashdot, for example, but that's not because they aren't here. I just have my settings configured so that the system doesn't even show me them.

In Uber, there is no palpable consequence for driving a family of 4 to a corn field instead of Disney land because once hes finished his negative review of you, you're now stranded somewhere without a taxi and locked out of uber.

A single negative review doesn't lock you out of anything. But, even so, let me know when you come across a story of an Uber driver abandoning a family of 4 in a corn field.

A better link would be this one: http://www.nola.com/politics/i... from the Times-Picayune

With Yahoos like this running around?Sometimes, the best thing is to NOT have a gun.

Home protection? Maybe. Although, it's hard to get to a gun when it's locked up and unloaded while the "bad" guy is kicking down your door.

I prefer baseball bats and mace.

Bullets go through walls and kill innocents - even a .22 long will go through a plaster board wall if you're not lucky enough to hit a stud.

And some people with their 9mms, .223s or even 7.62mm for home protection?! WTF are they thinking?! I guess they want to take out whoever is in the house from another room?! Sight unseen - spraying bullets?!

I'm a gun FAN; not a gun NUT - I respect when and where they are appropriate for use.

And I also know when to not LOOK for or WANT trouble.

The oil that 'spilled' into the gulf in 2010 was a naturally occurring substance, as evidenced by how easily the environment dealt with it.

OK, let's kill this "naturally occurring substances cannot be pollutants" meme.

Arguably *every* substance is a naturally occurring substance. But even substances that are normally found in a habitat can be a pollutant if they enter that habitat in amounts that disrupt it. The classic example of CO2, which is a normal and necessary part of the atmosphere, but is toxic to humans at a rate of as low as 1000 ppm. What's more, moderately elevated levels of CO2 that humans would not notice change the behavior of insects and benefit some plants over others. In a moderately elevated CO2 world, poison ivy wins big but soybeans lose. This is a *natural* response to an *unnatural* situation. The unnatural mix of species is the result of *natural* biological processes, *because that's the only kind of biological process there is*.

Likewise nitrogen and phosphorous are elements that are crucial to life and ubiquitous in the marine environment, but fertilizer runoff can cause dead zones where algae blooms deplete the water of oxygen. The algae and nutrients are a natural feature of the environment; were they not already ubiquitous in the environment then the environment couldn't respond in this unnatural way.

You do raise an interesting point in that crude oil is something that occurs naturally in the habitat of the DWH spill, albeit not in such quantity. Arguably the dispersants used to reduce the impact of the spill may have been as bad as the spill itself. One reasonable definition of a "disaster" is a situation in which every alternative action or inaction seems bad.

As for the environment "easily" dealing with the DWH spill and its aftermath, it's true that there is no longer an oil slick covering the Gulf that is visible from space. But there are many, many documented anomalies in marine mammals, crustaceans, corals and fish. The evidence connecting these anomalies to the DWH spill and cleanup efforts is circumstantial, but the parsimonious explanation is that the aftermath of DWH is causing many of these anomalies (e.g. unusual mutations). At the very least oil is still being found in wetlands around the gulf. The most recent article I could find about ongoing DWH oil problems was dated sixteen minutes ago.

Just because you aren't paying attention doesn't mean the effects aren't there.

And in other 180 degree news, Republicans blame Obama more than Bush for Katrina response:
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/08/polls_show_louisianians_disapp.html

We flipped phase a long time ago.

Hey, Why not? I mean the state of Louisiana has been doing this for a while. ( http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2011/12/louisiana_will_begin_issuing_t.html ) I'm usually fairly pro-business, but this is just flat out abuse of the working and working poor. I am irate that one of my employers was listed as someone who does this.

Unless of course, you're a leftie arguing for gun control, in which case you're allowed to break the law:

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/12/dc_police_investigating_nbc_co.html

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/01/nbc_host_will_not_be_charged_f.html

Unless of course, you're a leftie arguing for gun control, in which case you're allowed to break the law:

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/12/dc_police_investigating_nbc_co.html

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/01/nbc_host_will_not_be_charged_f.html

Iran marching toward a nuclear weapon

And what do you propose Obama should have done? Invade Iran?

Egypt and Libya handed over to the Islamists on a silver platter

The new Libyan government is not Islamist. I have no idea where you got that. Besides, Gaddafi was rabidly anti-American. Any new regime is bound to be more pro-US. As for Egypt, Morsi's cabinet has many secular officials from Mubarak's party

45% increase in debt.

Because of the Bush tax cuts.

Regulatory policies strangling business

Name one.

That perfect health care for all, casuing businesses to not hire and drop coverage to put more people on the dole.

Give evidence: a scientific study.

Unemployment above 8%

GDP Growth below 2%

Changed his mind four times on that OBL kill, which was set up by the hardwork of Bush, Bush worked 8 strong, Obama got the save.

It was under the Bush administration that the army screwed up royally at Tora Bora. We had OBL surrounded at let him get away. Bush had nearly eight years to get OBL, and yet you want to give Bush credit for something that happens three years after his term is up? I certainly don't blame Obama for being hesitant to call in the raid. Operation Eagle Claw was a massive failure and embarassment and he was worried about a similar thing happening. (Combined with lots of anger from Pakistanis.) Don't foget that it was Defense Secretary Gates, originally appointed by Bush, who was most against the raid.

Domestic energy production hamstrung, while billions of tax dollars wasted on masturbatory green energy companies, run by his cronies.

Because of the moratorium on oil drilling? Gas prices barely changed: http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2011/01/gno_inc_study_says_economic_im.html

A racist running the Justice Department.

Ah, the classic "black man is racist against white people."

Hundreds of Mexican citizens and a US law enforcement officer dead because of Obama/Holder's agenda on guns.

I'm surprised that you care about Mexicans considering the xenophobic vibe that comes from the rest of this post. Or maybe you are implying that one US life is equal to hundreds of Mexican lives?

Photo ID laws being challenged because they interfered with typical Democrat voters, the Dead and Illegal Aliens.

We don't live in a third world country. Voter fraud is extremely rare in the US: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/16/opinion/la-ed-voter-id-laws-20120716

I live in a hurricane prone area. In my experience with massive power outages like this it's typically high voltage transmission towers going down.
It's not really economical to bury those.
Fixing something like this is apparently not easy and takes time.

Just hope they don't use the same Chinese drywall we got stuck with in New Orleans, after Katrina....*cough*....

Just hope they don't use the same Chinese drywall we got stuck with in New Orleans, after Katrina....*cough*....

For example, it's less than a third of the number of people murdered in New Orleans in 2010. The city proper has a population of just 336000.

On August 31, flood levels started to subside. The water level in the city had reached that of Lake Pontchartrain, and as the lake started to drain back into the Gulf, some water in the city started to flow into the lake via the same levee breeches they had entered through. In 19th century lake floods, the water soon flowed back into the lake as there were no levees on that side.

as humans, what makes us special is not just our ability to adapt, but to adapt the environment around us. If we never lived anywhere there was a threat of disaster, I am not sure where you could live(definitely not Texas, or a few other places. And those maps don't even include floods (the most common natural disaster), for that threats see this map of flood hazards for the US.

That is interesting.

The US and the UK have a similar legal system with different actors.

I don't think the US Supreme Court would accept that standard for criminal liability of directors.

In US criminal trials, the prosecutors are always looking for emails or wiretaps that would prove the higher-ups had specific knowledge.

In Connick v. Thompson, the US Supreme Court just reversed a lower court decision, http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2011/03/us_supreme_court_rejects_14_mi.html that held the New Orleans prosecutor civilly liable for withholding evidence in a case that sent an innocent man to jail for 18 years, including 14 years on death row. That was a civil case, not a criminal case, so Thompson had to meet an even lower standard of evidence.

As I understand it, the lower-level prosecutors who withhold evidence are committing perjury, and I think they should be disbarred and sent to jail. I can't think of a case in which it's happened.

I think the major problem that Smith identifies is that Murdoch has leveraged his media empire for political influence, which he then uses to break the law with impunity. In the US, it's fairly easy for a manager to insulate himself from criminal charges through subordinates. He may not be able to get away with that in the UK.

I'm reminded of when Bobby Jindal made fun of "Volcano research" and then a few weeks later a volcano erupted.

Nearly any spending can be made to sound wasteful when you gloss over important details. The government spent $47k on nintendo Wiis? I don't know what that's about but here's two wild guesses:

1. The government funds some services for children, like orphanages, hospitals, day cares, holding facilities, and schools, and someone thought that spending $200 on a wii to pacify the kids was a good investment (compared to maybe the kids getting bored and causing damage to the facilities in vandalism, costing more.)

2. A massive conspiracy in which congressmen and women and their staff do nothing but play videogames, made in some backroom deal with Nintendo.

Probably number two now that I think about it.

At any rate, lets not be simpletons and start foaming at the mouth because a valid reason for some of these expenditures don't immediately pop out at us.

I have never heard of a police officer going to jail.

Former police officer David Warren sentenced to 25 years in Henry Glover shooting

Mistakes, incompetence and mis-applied prosecutorial incentives are just a few of the reasons that this development should be viewed with prejudiced outrage.

The recent case of an innocent man, narrowly escaping capital execution on the basis of deliberate prosecution dishonesty and evidence manipulation should be enough to dissuade anyone who is burdened wit the notion that this "evidence" is just another publicly disclosed fact, that will be judiciously examined on objective merits.

In fact, the US Supreme Court overturned the judgement in favour of the Defendant in this case - effectively saying that collateral damage is an expected outcome in the Executive pursuit of law enforcement.

I am again reminded of the case of Harry Buttle, in the movie Brazil.

"For more than a week, the pace of real estate transactions in Orleans Parish has slowed to a crawl because of a computer glitch in the Civil District Court clerk's office. The problem, which has been traced to a failure in the hard drive, has kept researchers from the online data

'"The original real estate records HAVE NOT BEEN LOST," Atkins said Thursday in a written statement'

'when the computer malfunctioned, the indexing was lost. Consequently, for information about the period that hadn't been recovered by Thursday afternoon, "we have no idea how to find it,"` link

Because of the havoc that the storm [Hurricane Katrina] caused, Atkins' office had hoped to prevent future snafus by hiring a company called i365 to back up the data regularly. But, Atkins said, all that information wasn't being backed up.

When the problem was first detected, "we were told it was a system failure, and they could get us up and running," Atkins said. "I don't think the court was made aware of the severity of the problem until late last week."

What would have been due diligence on the part of the court clerk to verify that i365 was doing their job? And why hasn't this problem been resolved three weeks later? I can see why realtors have asked the governor of Louisiana to get involved.

Hate to reply to myself, but here's an earlier article from when the incident occurred. The article states: "The problem, which has been traced to a failure in the hard drive—" and "'The original real estate records HAVE NOT BEEN LOST,' Atkins said Thursday in a written statement." which suggests that it probably was a disk failure that wiped out at least the directory structure for the files or the index of the database in which the records were stored. So a "read-head crash" could be the actual culprit, but is probably outside the understanding of most of the readership of the site so it was shortened to "crash", something which is much more understandable to most people.

This whole thing reminds me a bit of the case of Nathaniel Dowl in New Orleans. He's a guy who figured out how to file fake quit-claim deeds and tax sale documents. After he filed these fake deeds he would then would use the courts and the police to evict the real owners. He also filed fake restraining orders and other documents.

The long and short of it is it's very easy to file fake documents and very expensive and time consuming to get them voided by the courts. With very little effort on his part he cost the real owners hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. The owners being targeted would have to check every day to see if new fake deeds had been filed.

He finally went too far when he tried to claim Katrina relief from the federal government on properties he didn't really own.
http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/05/man_gets_10_years_hard_labor_f.html

It happened last year.

Sorry, but the Australian spill didn't make them pick up their game and neither will the BP spill. Until they are forced to change costing them large amounts of money you can't possibly think they would change on their own? The reality is that they really aren't concerned about spills because there is no political will anywhere to really change the oil industry. Shell spills the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez oil spill every year in Nigeria and most people have no idea about it.

Inspectors should start paying attention instead of doing cocaine with oil industry funded hookers. Do I think that's going to happen though? Hell no, of course not, what could be better than hookers and blow?

it's called a waiver. the EPA gives them out all the time.

in fact, remember the "whale" boat, the oil tanker that was going to be the gulf's salvation, but was being held up by all that red tape? They got their waiver (took about a day) and, well, it doesn't work.

But, if it makes you feel better, go ahead and keep railing against the EPA.

Out of curiosity, where are you getting your information? You mean the last time there was a spill in the Gulf?

The oil spill off the Australian coast in August last year would seem to counter your claim entirely. Their procedures were lax and probably are still lax because those procedures are expensive. I'm not sure why people are so quick to dismiss the Gulf spill as a series of calamitous events when there is a ton of evidence to the contrary. Maybe people just want cheap gas too much and are willing to ignore all evidence so they don't have to face any consequences.

The sad reality is that oil is spilled everyday, Shell spills every year as much oil as the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska. Of course they spill it in Nigeria so no one cares.

Bringing down flickr would have been easy for the government if he were otherwise hosting the blog beyond USA jurisdiction. Though the photos are more than a month old his personal blog AND flickr pages are still up. Don't worry.

With that long for an oil giant + the government to act, and the plugged state holding steady 48+ hours, this is a non-issue now. Booking all the flights means only that airspace travel wasn't *completely* banned: this site clarifies the 3000 feet high flight restrictions and doesn't pose other limitations besides the land-based 20-meter separation from workers, boats and impacted regions. The photographer got special flight permission that day as required by the FAA. They can't take it back just because he's been slashdotted :)

Conservative propaganda? Facts are facts. Unfortunately the Lame-stream media will never touch something that may tarnish this administration. You have to dig deeper no matter how unpleasant it may be.
Sherlock.
All entities are clueless.
oh.
more.
Jones Act a non-factor.
If the want of a strong decisive administration, instead of a group of clueless community organizers, makes me a conservative, then so be it. It makes it easier to make fun of the bed-wetters. Eventually it will be exposed how this was all an elaborate plan to sabotage the oil industry to gain backing for the Cap and Trade bill to further the government take over of industry. Kind of a head scratcher as to why less than a month before the explosion and leak, the administration opens up previously restricted offshore areas to oil and gas exploration and drilling. Flies in the face of the environmental platform. Now we know why. More Government control.

Conservative propaganda? Facts are facts. Unfortunately the Lame-stream media will never touch something that may tarnish this administration. You have to dig deeper no matter how unpleasant it may be.
Sherlock.
All entities are clueless.
oh.
more.
Jones Act a non-factor.
If the want of a strong decisive administration, instead of a group of clueless community organizers, makes me a conservative, then so be it. It makes it easier to make fun of the bed-wetters. Eventually it will be exposed how this was all an elaborate plan to sabotage the oil industry to gain backing for the Cap and Trade bill to further the government take over of industry. Kind of a head scratcher as to why less than a month before the explosion and leak, the administration opens up previously restricted offshore areas to oil and gas exploration and drilling. Flies in the face of the environmental platform. Now we know why. More Government control.

Where to start...

Ok, when you say "we've been doing this for the better part of a cenury", define "doing this". Not all oil operations are equally risky, and I'd like to see a citation to back the claim that we've done deepwater drilling for the better part of a century.

Maybe more importantly, what do you mean "this has never happened before"? There have been many oil spills. Including from blown oil wells. Including in the Gulf of Mexico (1979). Here's a list of a few of them. If that's not enough, if you read the links from the submission you'll see that being neck deep in oil is pretty much the norm for Nigeria.

Oh, and when a company makes a decision to remove a safety mechanism and then suffers exactly the kind of failure that mechanism is meant to prevent, you can't file that under "things go wrong, period". BP took a risk (for reasons unclear - but if you'd like to bet against me, my belief is it had to do with someone's bonus) that they had no right to take; this is, in fact, the "evil corporation's" fault. (And no, the fact that the well might, maybe, eventually have blown out even with the safety fluid in place does not change the fact that it's BP's fault. BP could make that argument if they hadn't removed the drilling fluid.)

Certainly. I'll try my best.

Info on two plugs instead of three, damage to BOP seal, pushing for work to be completed sooner, and partial control loss of BOP: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6490348n&tag=related;photovideo
Key findings from that are here: http://www.hillmanfoundation.org/blog/fcp-embeds

Dead battery and other problems with BOP: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/j/d/jdf15/2010/05/oil-spill-stunner-bop-had-dead.php

Skipping test of cement linings: http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/costly_time-consuming_test_of.html

MMS letting BP fill out inspection reports: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/25/eveningnews/main6518694.shtml

Did I miss anything?

Costly, time-consuming test of cement linings in Deepwater Horizon rig was omitted, spokesman says pretty much tells who did or don't do what.