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Post-Katrina Images on Google Maps
breadiu writes " Satellite imagery of New Orleans taken on Wednesday, August 31st is now available on Google Maps. Enter 'New Orleans' in the search field at the top of the page, or drag and zoom the map to the area. A red 'Katrina' button will appear at the top right of the map, next to the existing map buttons. Older images for the area are still available too - click the "Satellite" button to switch to those."
Bad troll! No cookie!
The enemies of Democracy are
You're saying that we have here the 21st-century version of an old-school newspaper scoop. (Note to hard-core slashdotizens: a scoop is the news reporters' version of "FR15T P05T!".) The company whose public databases are most rapidly updated to reflect reality can scoop its competition, drawing to itself customers who seek the latest information. (Note to non-native speakers of English: in that sentence, "latest" means "newest." Stupid, I know.) Were I a vice-president at google, I'd create a division that hired aerial photographers after any natural disaster, military attack, industrial accident, etc. solely to ensure that Google Maps stays current. (Note to readers from google.com: reply to this post if you want to hire me to implement this great idea.)
Iraq is almost twice the size of the UK. And thousands of miles away...
Besides, we don't need to drop water on all of Lousiana - just New Orleans. The City's area is about 1/500th the area of the UK, and 1/1000th the area of Iraq, and not all of that is flooded.
But let's not get in the way of a good metaphor, eh?