murraysovereign

Well, yeah... that's the thing about "live" cameras - they work best when it's light out. Try again in the morning, say around sunrise or later.

It's located on the northwest corner of the Squamish Terminals building, so it can't view the Chief, but you can pan and zoom over a pretty good range from the Smoke Bluffs, past Garibaldi, to the Windsurfing Spit, in real-time. If someone else is already using it, you'll have to wait your turn (watch the timer count down to zero), but click on the "take control" button while you're waiting, and it secures your place in line. There are presets already programmed in for Diamond Head and the Smoke Bluffs (see the little drop-down list below the picture), or just shoot it straight down the Sound to see what sort of weather is approaching. Apparently windsurfers and kiteboarders have lots of spare cash just lying around in piles, and they're always looking for new ways to spend it.

Argentina had this problem back in the late 80s - every time the government ordered another run of currency at the mint, the workers would print a double set, and keep the duplicate bills for themselves and their families. The government was having a hell of a time trying to get inflation under control and couldn't figure out why nothing was working, until a bank clerk spotted two bills with the same serial numbers, and they soon realized there was possibly twice as much money floating around as there should have been So if it's made at the mint, is it counterfeit? And I've had a handful of people bring in "North Fake" jackets for warranty - usually they bought them from some guy in the parking lot at Costco or Wal-Mart. They're pretty convincing, flimsy $10.00 pieces of crap, just like regular North Face product - the only sure way to tell they're not "real" is the missing seam tape.

Don't attribute much meaning to the CBC's use of that version of the story - they're on strike, so management is doing all the news work, which basically amounts to reprinting wire-service copy (in this case it's from AP) verbatim. They might just as easily have used the Village Voice story, or whichever other one came across the desk first.

Yeah, especially if you get a layer of fresh ice cream over top of the hoar layer, 'cause it can be really unstable - you can die if you're not careful.

And there's another difference between the US and Canada - up here we use strychnine instead of paraquat.

Yeah, it would be a dangerous precedent, all right, because if Canada extradites this guy to the US to face charges there, what's to stop the US from extraditing people to face charges here in Canada? I mean, really, where would it end? Next thing you know we'd be sending former SS prison guards back to Germany to face war-crimes charges even though the concentration camp they worked at wasn't even in Canada. Or murderers could be arrested in the US and extradited to Canada to stand trial even though the murder wasn't committed in the US. We certainly wouldn't want to see that happen, would we?

"Big Eezzee"

The Louisiana Governor certainly has some questions to answer. It seems that she has not only done very little to help, but she and her administration have actually obstructed efforts by people who were trying to help. A group of doctors wanting to set up a sort of "MASH" unit near New Orleans ended up going to Mississippi instead, after Louisiana wouldn't give them permission. And apparently the Red Cross also ran into some sort of jurisdictional problems (read "bureaucratic turf protecting") with the state that prevented them from sending people into New Orleans in the early days after the storm. To his credit, I don't believe the mayor of New Orleans has turned away any help of any kind at all. He may not have hit a lot of home runs, but he at least swings for the fence when he gets the chance.

"Ranting out the window" like Peter Finch feels waayy better, though. William Holden was good in Network, but his role didn't really allow him to express his "window ranting" side. Finch's portrayal of Howard Beale, however, allowed him to really let loose.

Up here, it's illegal. There are actually two separate sections of the Criminal Code that cover these things: one charge is for driving with a blood alcohol content over .08; the other charge is for "impaired driving". Impaired is a pretty broad term which in this instance refers to any condition at all that impairs your ability to safely operate a motor vehicle - alcohol, drugs, exhaustion, temporary blindness because you forgot your glasses, etc. Speaking from some personal experience, when they charge you with DUI, they automatically charge you with Impaired Driving also. That way if you beat the DUI charge by having the breathalizer results thrown out, they can still get you on the "impaired" charge.

Looking Better For Squamish, at least Seattle looks pretty wet until Sunday. It lloks like the low will pass through here this afternoon/evening, then park over Washington for Saturday.

...some meaningful progress

My understanding is he was fired from the Arabian Horse Association. So that makes way more sense, 'cause there's no way Dubya would ever put a quitter in such an important position.

This was briefly in the news the other day. Apparently there are a number of these depots scattered across the US with various emergency supplies in shipping containers, ready to go. The ones I read about contained search & rescue equipment, portable fire fighting apparatus, and emergency generators. Twenty million dollars worth. They hadn't moved an inch as of Thursday or Friday, because none of the governors of the affected states had specifically requested them, and under FEMA's rules it seems nothing can be sent that hasn't been specifically requested. So calling the President and saying "send us everything you can - we need it all, and we need it, like, yesterday" isn't sufficient. You have to play Go Fish: "Do you have water you can send?" "Yes, we have water. What size containers would you like?" "I don't care - send whatever you've got" "Sorry, you have to request specific sizes" "Well, what sizes are available then?" "You have to tell us what sizes you want, and if we have them we'll send them" "That's ridiculous - people are dying here, for want of clean water to drink - why can't you just send whatever damned water you've got?" "Sorry, I don't write the rules, I just apply them. And the rules are very clear - we can send nothing that hasn't been specifically requested" "OK, screw the water - we'll get it from someone else. How about generators? We've got an entire city without power - can you send us generators?" "Sure - what kind of generators would you like?" "You know - generators for making electricity. They run on diesel or gasoline, and they generate electricity. That kind of generator." "Yes, but what model, specifically, would you like?" "Christ, I don't know, can't you just send the generators you've got and we'll figure out which ones work best once they're here?" "Sorry, but no - you must request the specific generators you need before I can release them" And so on... It seems to me a good part of the problem with the initial relief effort has had less to do with racism, or incompetence, or indifference, than it had to do with an overly rule-bound, bureaucratized emergency response system. Since FEMA is now part of DHS, it seems everything has become a matter of national security and has to be protected behind multiple layers of secrecy and access codes and rule books and requisition forms in quadruplicate filled out in blue ink only, unless it's a man-made disaster as opposed to a natural disaster, in which case you have to fill out the pink form in triplicate using black ink only. It's apparent that, once things got rolling, the response has been pretty effective, but the process of getting it rolling seems to have taken far too long because there are too many hoops that must be jumped through along the way, and you have to jump through all the correct hoops, in the correct sequence, or the whole thing grinds to a halt.

Fair enough - I'm sure there's plenty of blame to go 'round. But if we're going to start drawing comparisons with Guliani, let's make sure we're comparing apples to apples. In New York, two buildings were destroyed - that's all. The vast, vast majority of the city and its infrastructure were completely intact and functioning perfectly. The police and other emergency services were able to get to and from the site of the World Trade Centre without much difficulty. The water and sewer systems were still functioning. Hospitals still had electricity, and food, and drugs, and doctors and nurses. In fact, the hospitals were ramped up with extra staff brought in from surrounding jurisdictions in anticipation of survivors who never arrived. In New Orleans, the entire city is under water. The vast, vast majority of the city's infrastructure has collapsed or shut down. Police and other emergency services are unable to move anywhere because of flooded roadways and collapsed bridges and debris-choked streets, not to mention the fact their stations, and their vehicles, and all the other resources necessary to their jobs are all under water. The electrical, water, and sewer systems have shut down. Hospitals that have no water, no electricity, no drugs, no food, and only skeleton medical staffs have been inundated with casualties, with absolutely no resources available to treat them. Those police who finally gave up the ghost after five days without relief were faced with a completely futile task, one that wasn't worth risking their lives for since they had no resources, no back-up, no food and water for themselves much less anyone else, and there was no relief in sight. So, like good Republicans, they decided to let the poor and the sick and the homeless fend for themselves, and you've got a problem with that ? So when deciding who to be critical of, I for one tend to look to see who is in the best position to actually do something about the situation at hand; who has the necessary material and human resources at their disposal; who has the power and authority to bring those resources to bear. In this case, we get to chose between a) a mayor who's entire city has basically been destroyed, along with all the resources normally at his disposal, and b) the President of the United States of America, relaxing at his "ranch" in Texas. Hmmm, this is a tough one... lessee now... eenie, meenie, miney, moe... And on this, I simply call "Bullshit"

Looks like that dumbass will be making another Supreme Court appointment: CNN is reporting that William Rehnquist has died.

Ouch! Where did you find that?

This is old news Try to keep up with the rest of the class, Dru

I can understand people feeling sick and sad and angry. By all means get mad as Hell, and ask tough questions, and demand better. But you have no reason to feel "ashamed" of being American. Your country has sustained a pretty serious blow, and the response has certainly been less than perfect, but believe it or not even Americans are only human, and perfection isn't a widely known human trait. It speaks well of you as a society that so many are dissatisfied with the response, and that you're angry and demanding better. In a lot of countries, people wouldn't give a damn. So for God's sake, don't be ashamed: you don't deserve it - not by a long shot.

Agreed - there will be a short-term spike in economic activity due to the immediate rescue operations and the rebuilding, and that will happen in a comparitively compressed time span and will have an effect on GDP that can be directly attributed to hurricane Katrina. But the longer-term reduction in future investment (because all that money got spent today on rebuilding, rather than being invested tomorrow) and the resulting decrease in economic activity will be harder to track through the GDP figures. The effect will be there, but it will be almost impossible to identify and attribute to hurricane Katrina. So it's understandable that people only see the GDP increase in the aftermath, but they don't see the even greater decrease - because it manifests itself in the form of foregone potential future GDP increases, and even PP would have a hard time producing a graph that can clearly quantify that. Gawd - will you listen to me? It's amazing the lengths to which I'll go to avoid working

Sure, if there'd been sufficient manpower available to move all those buses to higher ground before the storm hit, but I suspect they had their hands pretty full in the couple of days leading up to the event. Obviously, a lot of valuable resources are unavailable due to their being destroyed or stranded by the storm and subsequent flooding. What's more disturbing, and conveniently not shown in the photo, is the thousands of similar buses all over the state (and Texas, and Mississippi, and New Mexico, and elsewhere) all sitting high and dry, still parked in nice neat rows for the past few days, while there was a clear and immediate need for transportation to move people out of the SuperDome and Convention Centre and elsewhere.

I think this has started to change - I recall reading some years back that in many areas of the Mississippi people were being told they would receive assistance to rebuild, but only if they relocated to a less vulnerable location. If they insisted on rebuilding in the same spot, they were on their own. Seems eminently sensible in the face of utterly predictable recurring events. Another consideration - how much would it cost to completely rebuild New Orleans from the ground up in a new location? Is anyone seriously prepared to spend that much money? Not just roads and houses, but sewer, water, schools, hospitals, office buildings, commercial/retail districts, industrial facilities, electrical and communications grids, ... Holy Smoke, that's a lot of $$. In the long term, probably the best thing that could happen would be to a) evacuate the entire city, then b) send in the Corps of Engineers to dismantle the levees and give the whole estuary back to the river, and c) rebuild on dry land somewhere. But realistically, the immediate cost would be staggering, so it won't happen.

Just be patient - global warming will eventually heat the shales sufficiently to release the oil. Then we can scoop it up as it bubbles to the surface. Simple.

This is what I find most puzzling: it was apparent - days in advance - that something major was about to happen. It was apparent that a major population centre was going to be at or very near the epicentre, and that it was unusually vulnerable to this type of event. Now, imagine we had reliable evidence that a major earthquake was going to occur in, say, three days time. We didn't know exactly where the precise epicentre would be, but we knew it would be within a particular major population centre. We also didn't know exactly what the magnitude would be, but we knew it would be in the top 10-15% of the range for such events. Wouldn't we use the advance warning period to start mobilizing resources, and getting them in position ready to move in as soon after the quake as possible? Wouldn't we use that warning period assembling stockpiles of food and clean water and medicine, rescue and medical personnel, security forces, transportation...? I find it hard to believe, but by all appearances there was absolutely no advance preparation done at all, despite the clear indication that this was a massive hurricane heading directly toward a major population centre that was known to be particularly vulnerable. They can't even seem to round up enough buses to move people out of the city - how hard can that be? There are fleets of school buses all across the southern states, all fuelled up, ready to go for the start of the school year next week, and FEMA can't find them, or they just haven't thought to try looking for them?