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Technology In Katrina's Wake
We've had many submissions about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It doesn't come easy writes "From 'the end justifies the means department', the BBC is reporting that bogus emails about the current situation in New Orlean contain links to websites that promptly infect the concerned reader's computer. From the article: 'The separate virus and fake donations bogus e-mails have been discovered by computer security firms SophosLabs and Websense Security Labs. They are similar to previous fraudulent e-mails connected to last year's Indian Ocean Tsunami.'" Less cynically, an anonymous reader writes "A Linux developer is organizing volunteers for a public 'web station' project to assist Hurricane Katrina victims. The plan is to create numerous Linux-based public kiosks that boot directly into the Firefox browser and display a special home page with links to various services. In addition to offering disaster relief information and news, the kiosks will provide basic email capabilities via Yahoo!, Gmail, Earthlink, MS Hotmail, and other web-mail services. They're looking for donations of time and money. If you're looking to donate more directly, tech companies across the country are maintaining pages with ties to respected charities. Yahoo is maintaining the Red Cross donation page, and everyone from Microsoft to IBM has a message on their frontpage."
And I don't get why every company now has a donation website for people? Why does Microsoft need a link for donating? Is it all PR bullshit? Is it in fashion to appear to be helping? Why doesn't Bill gates take some of his billions, and give? I am sure he will, but it seems like he can donate far more than the web page will raise. It is better to let the groups which have been around for so long do the job, the Red Cross and known charities.
Warric Dunn had a great idea. He is a running back in the NFL. He challenged every NFL player to donate $5,000. A drop in the bucket for guys making millions. It would raise over $8,000,000 for New Orleans. We will soon find out who the good guys are, and who the assholes are.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
"Virtually everything that has happened in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina struck was predicted by experts and in computer models, so emergency management specialists wonder why authorities were so unprepared."
While I'll do what I can, I find the fact that the scenario had been modeled disturbing in light of the disorganized response. The more so since President Bush has said no one predicted the levees being breached.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
The federal/state/local government wasn't prepared for Katrina (yes, even in spite of the drills) because the last Category 4 storm, Hurricane Charley, wasn't all that bad. I get the feeling that every single government agency in the country was gearing up to respond to that type of event.
Katrina has ended up like Charley^2, mostly due ot her size. And there's not nearly enough workers, rescuers, or responders to be able to deal with the situation.
In addition, Charley did not hit Tampa, Florida directly.
It seemed that all the meteorologists knew the impact of Katrina, even in the 18 hours before when we knew she would hit New Orleans, but that this didn't get through to the government that everyone is now blaming for failing to respond.
-Rob
Biblical fiscal responsibility
General Wesley clark sounds off on the disaster.
http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/9/1/123536/7907
time for one of them good ole friday flamewars
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
I thought I'd follow your cut and paste job up with one of my own:
Friday, September 2nd, 2005
Vacation is Over... an open letter from Michael Moore to George W. Bush
Friday, September 2nd, 2005
Dear Mr. Bush:
Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.
Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?
Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!
I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don't let people criticize you for this -- after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike?
And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!
On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.
There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.
No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!
You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.
Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
www.MichaelMoore.com
P.S. That annoying mother, Cindy Sheehan, is no longer at your ranch. She and dozens of other relatives of the Iraqi War dead are now driving across the country, stopping in many cities along the way. Maybe you can catch up with them before they get to DC on September 21st.
What about the oil companies? Oh, I don't know...call me cynical but wasn't the gas we're putting in our cars today bought, paid for and process a long time ago? Why aren't we paying those prices instead of prices today?
I'm not Mr. anti-corporation or anything...but since these companies are experiencing the biggest profits in years (before this crisis btw) couldn't they just come out and say "we're going to do our part and drop the price of gas a whole dollar until this crisis is over". Right? Couldn't that help a hell of a lot of people?
Meh...just wondering. I'll admit I know nothing about finance or big business or how these things work. I'm just a simple back-woods farmer from a small town in Virginia.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
As someone who lives and works in New Orleans and just tonite finally found a place with electricity and net access, I want to say thanks to everyone who is helping with the efforts. Things are really bad for many people.
Interestingly enough, our main NOC is located in the CBD of New Orleans and is still online as of now, running on a generator. I don't know how long it will last -- but since our generator is located no more than 10 feet above the street level, the water can't be that bad down there.
Two days ago we donated our generator for the backup NOC to a group that was doing search and rescue - it created a small outage of a few web sites that happened to be situated there (that we're mirroring now to servers out of state), but we felt it was better to put the generator to use to directly help people save lives, as opposed to keeping a few web sites up advertising restaurants that may or may not ever open again.