Month: September 2005

Is it time to get serious about numbers? In Monday’s Philadelphia Inquirer, distinguished economist Paul Krugman blamed “lethal federal ineptitude” for the Hurricane Katrina death toll, claiming that the Bush administration “debated lines of authority while thousands died.” (The total Louisiana count stands at 423, with the Katrina total being over 650.) “Lines of authority”…

Not the Klingons, Glenn! As I keep saying, the alligators made the missing thousands disappear! Think in terms of “alligations.”

As I was getting ready to go to New Jersey this morning, Coco made it quite clear that she wanted to go with me: Coco’s lucky I was paying attention, and she didn’t suffer the fate of the small boys trapped in the trunk in Camden. On the way back, as I was driving through…

I’ve been gone all day doing backbreaking and stressful work I really shouldn’t discuss on this blog, but I want to urge everyone to read Jeff Soyer’s Weekly Check on the Bias because he’s got the goods on the New Orleans gun confiscation. Truly Orwellian, as well as illegal and unconstitutional. Here’s what Jeff said:…

I’ll be in New Jersey all day today, from which I’ll return physically exhausted. However, the Raging RINOs carnival has been posted at Fistful of Fortnights: the party is really kicking it. There is a mass quantity of eating and drinking, laughing and scoffing, smoking, fighting, and dancing. Bullies, bucks, and pickpockets prowl the premises,…

Last night I was dreaming about a dying scorpion (it looked almost dead, droopy, shedding, peeling) with which I was forced to deal. I just wanted it to go away, and all I had was my old rusty but trusty kitchen knife. While I could have just chopped off its stinger and let it die,…

Sean Kinsell makes some interesting observations about disaster relief in paternalistic Japan… Well, I will tell you as someone who has lived here for a decade: what you hear about disaster preparedness ALWAYS involves local intiatives. Sometimes, municipal governments are involved; other times, it’s smaller public institutions. 1 September, the anniversary of the Great Kanto…

A front page story by the Philadelphia Inquirer’s (and San Jose Mercury News’) Chris Gray makes it clear that the government should preserve New Orleans music by supplying “affordable” housing: But losing the recordings would be nothing compared to what could happen to the music scene if the city fails to replenish its now-waterlogged housing…

‘Sitcom writer’ Jack Burditt recently attended a NASCAR event on a fact-finding mission and three things happened: (1) He learned that race fans are people too, by virtue of the fact that some of them don’t speak English: Weird, I thought, it didn’t seem very red state-esque. But we should note that the race was…

While nothing can excuse the poor, even illegal performance of city and state officials in Louisiana (ignoring thousands of buses, preventing escapes, and blocking the Red Cross were especially egregious), it’s pretty irritating to read (even in an unreliable source) that FEMA — supposedly there to assist hurricane and flood victims — actually served to…

This sign is posted on a tree in front of a creek a few miles from where I live: Fish advisories are one thing. But if I have a legitimate fishing license and want to take my chances with the fish I catch, should it be the government’s business to protect me against my wishes…

Evacuations at gunpoint will NOT be carried out by federal troops: The commander of active duty troops involved in hurricane relief efforts said Sunday his soldiers will not enforce New Orleans’ order for residents to evacuate the flooded city. Army Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honore said military units are continuing to provide food and water…

Four years since 9/11, and we still have our freedom. For that we should all be grateful. My fears remain pretty much the same as those I expressed on the first anniversary of September 11: The Twin Towers stood as gigantically strong, seemingly indestructible, twin pillars of freedom. I will never be able to shake…

Via Betterhumans… A new device for removing liver tumours with virtually no blood loss has been used successfully for the first time in America. The Habib 4X resection device is named after its inventor Professor Nagy Habib… The revolutionary new device uses radiofrequency energy to ‘seal’ tissue around a tumour site, allowing the tumour to…

Good news for people who want to get off the planet. SpaceX has announced a new iteration of their Falcon line of launch vehicles, the Falcon IX. Faithful readers may recall that I’ve been touting their Falcon I for some little while now. They may also recall that SpaceX is using private funding to engineer…

Something has gone wrong with this blog, and I am working on it. All links and sidebar information have disappeared without explanation, even though they appear in my templates, and I have just rebuilt the templates. I’m going crazy trying to figure this out, but anyone who thinks I have done anything deliberately like dump…

Glenn Reynolds is wondering why the press (with CNN in the leadership role) is so determined to show dead bodies now when they were morally opposed in the past: It didn’t want to show bodies, or jumpers, on 9/11, for fear that doing so would inflame the public. No it didn’t. Nor did it want…

Drudge has a report about a group of business people planning to reopen the French Quarter in 90 days — in time for Mardi Gras. (This is precisely the type of individual initiative I praised earlier, and I am delighted to see it!) While details like utilities and sewage will need some attending to, this…

Unbelievable. The shocking action by the city of Gretna, Louisiana in shutting off the Crescent City bridge (one of the only ways out of New Orleans) was something I saw mentioned on Fox News last week, but has not gotten as much attention as it should have. Police from surrounding jurisdictions shut down several access…

A week ago, I speculated (based largely on common sense) that a primary reason for the delay in calling in the troops was a fear of having the responsibility for pulling triggers: What’s being forgotten (except by those who’d have ultimate responsibility) is that shooting poor black people who are struggling for their lives won’t…