My travel client has heard from his son in a roundabout fashion – the son and some other people with him were rescued and are being transported to a shelter. My guy got the word via one of the many online forums that’s been set up for people to leave word on missing family and friends. This particular happy ending was made possible by the heroic efforts of the Times-Picayune, which is somehow publishing online, reporting the news, and providing neighborhood and parish community forums for people to get in touch… all after being evacuated from their newspaper offices the…
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Profile In Blurrage When President Bush left Texas for Washington DC, he left just as storm refugees were set to arrive at the Houston Astrodome, which has been turned into highly organized emergency housing. Very convenient timing – he gets away from Cindy Sheehan and her supporters, and also gets away from all those icky refugee people who might make him look like he’s not helping very much. He can certainly do more from Washington, can’t he? If this were 1977, Jimmy and Rosalind would have been in N’Awlins for 3 days already, coordinating relief efforts and handing out food…
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But it’s turning to twilight now, and I was looking at pictures, and writing. I got some pictures back in the mail: mom, just before she died, when she was that awful nursing home, in the last photo anyone took of her. Dad, in his awful tam o’shanter. The miles and miles of empty highway under that pewter Iraqi sky. I read how Iraqi women are basically going to be put under the thumb of the sort of people that we’re supposedly determined to defeat. and I just thought: I helped to do that. I helped do that to other…
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Tiny chemical differences in how our skin reacts to ultraviolet light could explain why redheads are more likely to suffer skin cancer, say US scientists. The answer lies in the skin and hair pigment melanin, the team from Duke University, North Carolina, believe. People with ginger hair have pigment that is chemically different from that of people with darker hair, they found. This difference might explain why people with red hair burn easily and are prone to sun damage. 🙄 I know, I know, I know. But the science is interesting.
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I’m not known for having one – a spine – and it’s a long time since I checked my standings at , but apparently I finally made it on to dry land in TTLB Ecosystem, after languishing as either a flippery fish or a crawly amphibians for about forever. Last year some time, a Blog Personage linked to my blog for a while, which catapulted me into Flappy Bird status, but it didn’t last and I bumped long with the other slimy molluscs for a while. Just once, it would be nice to be a cute, cuddly l’il mammal. We’ll…
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Nearly 1,600 children under the age of six have died in India’s Maharashtra state, many from malnutrition, in the past four months, officials say. Let’s see: that’s approximately 400 children a month, 13 children a day, or 1 child every two hours, in just one state of one country battling poverty. It’s time I gave somebody a piece of my mind. God knows, he could use one.
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Annie at London Underground Tube Diary – Going Underground’s Blog reports that New Orleans Police captain Tami Brisset is stranded in London awaiting word from her family – she had originally gone to London to take part in the Tube Relief charity Tube challenge, and had been photographed taking part in the challenge and shown in a previous entry at Going Underground. She’s been interviewed by the Beeb and Virgin Radio, and still hasn’t spoken to her husband, who is supposed to have driven to Florida with their family. In the meantime, the good folks who came together for the…
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No, no, no, no, no. I’m not really tinkering around with the blog. I’m not considering a complete re-design so soon. I’m not really tired of the wacky display issues inherent in a 3-column design. I am, however, embarassed at the tacky kludge that be my CSS and “main template” files. Of course, one way to improve on them and make a fresh start is to upgrade to the latest version of MT and fool around with their new templates and styles, but then I’d have to do some other tinkering with templates to get comments looking right and the…
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Time to head out and spend some quality time at Jiffy Lube… 🙄 Dammit, I wish I’d brought iTunes with me.
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This guy documented all of his bad-weather survival gear. For pure entertainment value: a potato cannon. Click the picture to view the notes within Flickr. Come to think of it, the potato cannon may come in handy as a defensive weapon. This image was sent from Flickr as a blog entry, email or cameraphone image. Via: Flickr Title: some of the supplies By: ratterrell here are some of the supplies we have set up for hurricane katrina. i’m placing notes on the photo to label what is what. Originally uploaded: 29 Aug ’05, 3.57am PST