I first began thinking about this when I started hearing about relatively large numbers of former residents of New Orleans being transported to places like Denver and Kansas City after the Astrodome was deemed full but it didn't fully hit me until last night. It seems to me there may end up being a long term demographic shift as the ripple effects of this disaster unfolds. Here's my thought: thousands of people facing the prospect of months or perhaps even years away from the town they ca...

As I blogged on Friday, an evacuatee from New Orleans reported that a barge had breached the 17th Street levee canal , which led to much speculation both here and on other sites. Within the past few days, a couple more reports have mentioned a barge being involved in a breach of not the 17th Street levee but the Industrial Canal levee, though no photographic evidence of such an event was available. Until today that is. This image has been both cropped and reduced in both size and ...

I cannot confirm the veracity of this, however, about two hours ago, I read a report from someone who had gotten out of New Orleans a few hours before the official evacuation order had been put out, and he has put forward the following claim: I just learned a construction barge rebuilding the Hammond Hwy bridge at Bucktown broke loose from the bridge and punched a hole in the New Orleans-side of the levee. It is entirely possible that were it not for this incident, the system in the main ...

I just got really angry at CNN for the way they were sort of making fun of Dogs Playing Poker. "They aren't even painted on Velvet!" was Miles O'Brien's off-the-cuff remark as they were reporting that two of the 16 painting series of "Dogs Playing Poker" were sold for almost 600 thousand dollars. Yes, I am willing to admit that its not fine art, nothing that would hang in the Tate or the MOMA, but dammit, I really do like them. They are a little hokey, but what do you expect from Advertis...

I guess it's ok to post this, as I received it as part of an email(as did probably 10K other people). Basically, I am a member of DotTK, and they were just explaining the reason for a recent little disturbance in service.... and I have to say, it was a pretty good reason. The satellite used for all communication, the Intelsat 804, disappeared from the sky mid January because of a technical problem. The satellite 804 could technically not be controlled any longer by Intelsat, the satel...

At about 12:30EST, 4 bombs went off at 4 Madrid gas stations... perhaps signalling a new round of terrorist activities in Spain by the ETA. Of course, these bombings follow two weeks of raids against the group's holdings in France during October which netted: 652 kilograms (1,434 pounds) of dynamite 148 grenades 32 grenade launchers 277 guns -- including assault rifles and Uzi-type machine guns thousands of rounds of ammunition and nearly $90,000 in cash. This is in addition to 2...

mmmmmmmmmmm..... chocolate! Yes, that's right.... a chocolate factory in Germany has built a a room entirely out of chocolate... it seems that a house and then a full town are just on the horizon. WOOHOO!

Because of the fear of large fines, almost 1/3 of the United States will not have the choice to watch a film on network television which is much in keeping with the spirit of this day, instead getting a rerun of an interview with Pvt. Jessica Lynch, the movie Coming to America or episodes or the TV movie "Return to Mayberry", and there is nothing that says Veteran's Day more than an Andy Griffith Show reunion! ABC aired Saving Private Ryan uncut in 2001 and 2002 -- both times on Vete...

I love this story.... there was a guy in England who got ticketed for going 115 mph in a Fiat Punto and he successfully fought the charge by arguing that there was no way he could have gotten one up to that speed. Now, if you haven't seen a Punto, it looks like this: In all honesty, I don't think you could get one of those to go 115 mph if you strapped booster rockets to it and dropped it from space. The guy who fought the law and won was a law student who fully admitted that yes...

I was just reading a story on The Wargamer (amongst other places) about a recent ordinance that is going to have a hugeimpact on cyber-cafes in Los Angeles, an ordinance that is forcing theseestablishments to basically change the way they do business. At first, thisdoesn't seem to be relevant for most of the people here... after all, themajority of us are at home or at an office or school using the internet, so itwouldn't affect us. What bothers me is the suspicion that these places arebecom...