What was known and Chief Justice

FEMA and Homeland Sec heard briefing by Nat Hurricane Center before Katrina hit

Bush's advisers argued for days over who was in charge

I'm somewhat glad to hear that FEMA and Homeland Sec got some info from a source other than the newspapers (despite Chertoff's interviews to the contrary. Guess he fell asleep at work that day). But I thought the whole point of Homeland Security was that THEY are in charge in a national crisis? That everyone is supposed to report to them and they are to coordinate response? Guess I missed a memo somewhere.

And in case you haven't heard, Bush has bumped John Roberts' nomination to the Supreme Court up to Chief Justice. Hopefully this means Specter won't feel constrained by previous promises to the White House and will ask the hard questions. If anyone will, it's Specter. He knows that he has the least to lose politically given his home constituency here in Pennsylvania (and philadelphia). And this isn't just about women's rights, this is about right to privacy as well as judicial ethics. I'm still flabbergasted at reports that Roberts felt it kosher to offer the White House legal advice when he was interviewing for the Supreme Court nomination.

ETA Report from a member of a volunteer firefighting team turned away by FEMA Not only that, but these guys also have 10 years experience in dealing with damaged oil infrastructure.

Woops, Rove's lies caught
This dailykos diary includes a timeline of when Govenor Blanco declared a State of Emergency. Enlightening read.

last viral marketing clip

Deep Down

Heeee, this one's good. :)
Sadly, I think if I'm going to do all five as a fanfic, I'll need to just start another one. This one in and of itself Joss's the ending of Nerves. Ahhhh well:):)

Because I obviously need more fanfic and less news

Earth by zoe_jayne for something a little different. The author writes it all very perfectly;) A very good addition to ff_friday

Change my vote, I want Howard Dean

Dean's statement to the news that Frist is still pushing the estate tax repeal vote for tomorrow

And can I just ask, can I retroactively vote for Howard Dean?? Please?? Better, yet, take the news footage of the last week and broadcast it in 2000.

NorthCom Commander explains to BBC why the navy had to wait to deploy help to Katrina affected areas

I've been careful not to blame Bush for what isn't his fault, but this one falls in his lap. It's inexcusable that he and apparently most of his top advisers were on vacation when all he had to do was tune into the Weather Channel. Or I guess this is what happens when a hurricane hits a state that his brother doesn't live in.

Chronology of the nation's response to the 1906 San Francisco earthquakes and fires

Almost a hundred years later, and we actually did worse despite advances in communication, travel, and just about everything.

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GIP!! by maealoeki

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maealoeki has an open letter to GW Bush from Michael Moore on her page.

methinks Mr. Moore could get another documentary out of this.

community pimp

Hmm...just in case any missed this, I thought I'd pimp it.

the_reel -- This community is dedicated to the rec and reviewing of fan vids/music vids. This will give vidders some in depth feedback and promotion of their work, and help viewers locate great vids for their fandom(s).

*pokes cassiee. Methinks you should submit Coming Up From Behind or Angels and Devils. :) :) *hugs*

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From crooked_timber -- A story with a happy ending

Cooridnate with your friends --- it may be your only official evacuation options

Failures at the State level from crooked_timber.

According to this info, Bush co and FEMA aren't entirely to blame for initial problems. I still think that help should have arrived w/in 48 hrs and that the debacle of the past 8 days shortened considerably, but the initial evacuation plan was non-existent and that failure falls to the Goveneror and the Mayor.

However, I still think this is a major failure on the part of FEMA and Dept of Homeland Security. They never should have signed off on the disaster management plan and instead found money to set aside for a different scenario. If that had happened, the loss of life may have been much smaller.

Beware, this may just be your cities' plan should any disaster, natural or man-made, befall your city.

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I swear, Yahoo is trying to get me to destroy things.

First I had to spend and entire night figuring out how to configure my frelling firewall to use launchcast.

Finally decide, what the hell, I'll go ahead and sign up for Yahoo music unlimited rather than just launchcast plus since it's not that much more.

Ooooh, except the FRELLING PROGRAM WON'T FUCKING DOWNLOAD!!!!! Can't see where I've had my firewall suddenly start blocking it. SAving the install program doesn't help. and of course the only customer service you can frelling contact is the frakking financial service.

Anyone out there have any more useful info than just cancel the damn thing out of frustration?? From what I can tell, the GLB*.tmp files start to run but then freeze or something (it did actually freeze the first time). When I go to restart the computer, i keep getting a warning the GLB*.tmp file is running (it's usually GLB5, but I've also seen GLB1 and GLB14. I can manually end the processes, but they never do anything. And yes, I've checked, i've not suddenly aquired a new program).

Every service lives and dies by it's customer service. so far, yahoo music would die slowly and painfully if there was only something I could wrap my hands around.