In discussing the need for a balanced budget and PAYGO legislation, Congressman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) shockingly exclaimed: "We're not going to cry 'emergency' every time we have a Katrina." In other words, having a balance budget is of paramount importance, and we're not going to muck it up by spending money on emergency appropriations like we did when Katrina hit. … Read More
Photos Found Show Air France Flight As It Broke Up
No, not really. But this Bolivian news station thought so. It aired photos which showed the plane breaking up and passengers being sucked out of the fuselage. Unfortunately, the "footage" shown was actually from "Lost".
Compare With Katrina
This is how a President is supposed to deal with a potential flooding disaster: Well before the waters of the Red River were expected to reach their most threatening levels here, Dennis Walaker, the mayor, received a telephone call from President Obama. The president said Fargo would get whatever help it needed, the mayor recounted, gushing over how it felt … Read More
Redoubt
The Anchorage Daily has a nice photo set of the volcanic eruptions last week of Mt. Redoubt. The volcano's continued eruptions have resulted in a whole new round of criticism of Governor Bobby Jindal: Thanks to "something called volcano monitoring," to use the denigrating language of Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, passenger jets did not fly into ash clouds … Read More
Fargo Watch
Doesn't look good for the folks in Fargo and Moorhead, MN. But it is nice to see what motivated citizens can do when they pull together: Everything is closed. Really — everything. But there's a good opportunity for floodblogging.
Videos of Flight 1549 Landing In The Hudson
From security cams at a New York pier: A ten minute video (crash starts at 2:00) shows the speed of the current and rescue operations. At about 3:12, you can see one of the passengers fall off the slippery wing into the cold water on the right hand side.
“This Miracle Brought To You By Unions”
Salon: The fiercest opposition to the loan proposal — and nearly a third of the 35 votes against ending debate on the deal — came from Southern Republicans, and the ringleaders of the opposition all come from states with a major foreign auto presence. Not coincidentally, nearly all of those states — except Kentucky — are also "right-to-work" states, which … Read More
Short Flight
From Flightaware (an free online service that tracks where flights are): UPDATE: Not much seen picture of the flight pre-ditching:
Praying For Rain
Funny. Here’s a video from last week of Stuart Shepard of Focus on the Family encouraging people to pray to God to send "rain of biblical proportions" to ruin the Democrat’s big night in Denver. Now, with Gustav bearing down on Louisiana and ruining the GOP convention, I think God has indeed sent a message… … to Shepard. Heh.
Little Tremble in California
The Nevada Seismological Lab Helicorder webcam (in my righthand column) caught it: UPDATE: Happened six minutes ago as I write this. Data from USGS says it was a 5.8. Epicenter is 3 km ( 2 mi) SW of Chino Hills, CA, which is an LA suburb. Happened at 2:42:15 pm. EST, which is 11:42:15 am Pacific Time. News reports just … Read More
Hurricane Season
Not for nothing, but it seems to me that if you name a hurricane "Bertha", you’re just asking for trouble. Tropical Storm Bertha gathers steam in Atlantic
Rush’s Not-So-Subtle Racism
Here’s the big fat one, on his radio show, talking about the recent floods: Limbaugh: I want to know. I look at Iowa, I look at Illinois—I want to see the murders. I want to see the looting. I want to see all the stuff that happened in New Orleans. I see devastation in Iowa and Illinois that dwarfs what … Read More
Words vs. Deeds: McCain
Let the McCain basking begin — John McCain, speaking in Katrina-devestated New Orleans — June 3, 2008, on Obama: The wrong change looks not to the future but to the past for solutions that have failed us before and will surely fail us again. I have a few years on my opponent, so I am surprised that a young man … Read More
Cleanup on I-80
My kind of traffic jam: 14 tons of spilled Oreo cookies snarl Ill. traffic MORRIS, Ill. (AP) — Got milk? Police say a trailer loaded with 14 tons of double-stuffed Oreos has overturned, spilling the cookies still in their plastic sleeves into the median and roadway. Illinois State Police Sgt. Brian Mahoney says the truck’s driver was traveling from Chicago … Read More