Hurricane Katrina!

[Baz 0]

You have to watch the interview... Reading it in a transcript does no justice... I saw the interview right when it aired and I tell you what, it boiled by blood.

[Bernadotte 0]

I saw the interview right when it aired and I tell you what, it boiled by blood.

Better see a doctor about that.    

Ok, I will now spend 1 hour praying that we don't waste any more time debating the sensitivity of the senator's remarks.

[MilitiaSniper 0]

Hey any of you hear about some stupid @$$ rapper saying, "George Bush hates black people!" I mean what an un-educated son of a B!%(#!

The raper makes the comment on national tv. For a fund raiser for the hurricane victims!

I can't stand racist people!

Sincerely, MilitiaSniper

[Supah 0]

Hey any of you hear about some stupid @$$ rapper saying, "George Bush hates black people!" I mean what an un-educated son of a B!%(#!

The raper makes the comment on national tv. For a fund raiser for the hurricane victims!

I can't stand racist people!

Sincerely, MilitiaSniper

How exactly are his remarks racist according to you?

[shinRaiden 0]

Kayne West, On NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC live during a charity telethon.

video, NBC cut it in some markets.

[Bernadotte 0]

video, NBC cut it in some markets.

the revolution will not be televised

[billybob2002 0]

This explains the lack of NOPD out there...

http://www.nytimes.com/2005....d=print

Quote[/b] ]

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 3 - Reeling from the chaos of this overwhelmed city, at least 200 New Orleans police officers have walked away from their jobs and two have committed suicide, police officials said Saturday.

Some officers told their superiors they were leaving, police officials said. Others worked for a while and then stopped showing up. Still others, for reasons not always clear, never made it in after the storm.

[shinRaiden 0]

Charleston, SC is over 1000km from New Orleans.

C17 used for evacuation, other pictures show normally 8 across.

While there are plenty of pictures of heavily flooded areas like this, other areas to the west are high and dry. The NE corner of the city is where the worst flooding is.

Probably at New Orleans International Airport.

McGuire AFB in New Jersey is 1800km from New Orleans. McChord AFB in Washington State is 3400km from New Orleans. Trucks and convoys are all in route from across the nation as well.

One of the regional disaster management offices. Looks like somewhere in Florida. You have FEMA, County, Sheriff's dept, city PD, relief agency, fire and ambulance, and all other sorts of agency reps together at conference tables in the war rooms like this across the SE 1/3 of the US on the phone and radios making sure that supplies continue to come, that air and ground assets are available, coordinate evacuee transport across hundreds of km, and more. You have the contact people sitting face-to-face making the calls and moving the trucks. That's where the New Orleans mayor should have been, not grandstanding for the looters.

[shinRaiden 0]

Great way to flush the sand out of the carb...

The next three pictures show some houses most likely needlessly flattened. The reason why is that houses with this kind of damage are as you can see slab-on-grade, then quickie frames and a roof stacked on top. Odds are very good that there was no lateral bracing, and that the fram was not bolted to the foundation. In the southeast, it's common to have slab-on-grade instead of full foundations, basements, or crawlspaces (due to ground water issues) but that does not prevent proper construction methods from being used. As you can see in other pictures, theres plenty of houses that didn't get flattened. My brother commented asking "how come the trees are standing and not the houses?"

Another flooding picture.

Many of the older causeway bridges in the southeast are built in this peir and slab method, which is extremely prone to damage from hurricanes. I've seen pictures like this for 20 years, they jsut leave them up until they get flattened, then replace them with a properly secured bridge in the reconstruction.

[shinRaiden 0]

First priority to any evacuations are going to the critical medical needs.

The fact that there have been so relatively few reports of waterborne disease is nothing short of miraculous.

The New Orleans International Airport on the west end of the city is becoming the primary tranist center for supplies flying in, and evacuations going out. On the maps there's a Naval Air Station just south of the city, anybody know the status on that?

Houses in the back were slab-on-grade, those in front are better built.

Most of the buildings in this apartment complex survived, but you can see the wreckage of the couple buildings in the middle caught in the vortex between the buildings.

All I can say is PJ swimmers got guts suiting up to go in that kind of water with fuel, debris, plague, snakes, sewage, corpses, and who knows what else.

[Hit_Sqd_Maximus 0]

Great way to flush the sand out of the carb...

[im]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v643/shinraiden/1227163.jpg[/img]

Those trucks are fuel injected. It's perfectly safe to run them as deep as the snorkel will go.

[der bastler 0]

Great way to flush the sand out of the carb...

Those trucks are fuel injected. It's perfectly safe to run them as deep as the snorkel will go.

Yes, for example the Unimog has a fording depth of 1200mm/47.24" -- the limit is set by the outlet of the pressure control valve of the hydraulic-pneumatic brake system.

*remembersBundeswehrDrivingSchool*

Hey, go away with SUVs. If ever I'd buy one of these:

But back on topic: Where do the pictures come from? Got comrades over there?

[shinRaiden 0]

The "sand in the carbs" was an OT jab. No snorkel on that truck, just the air cleaner. Maybe that's why the MTVR was designed so tall.

The pics are from Defenselink and related sites, which I originally came across in links on militaryphotos.net a while back. They're heavily scaled down, all at least 25% of original size.

[DKM Jaguar 0]

The "sand in the carbs" was an OT jab. No snorkel on that truck, just the air cleaner. Maybe that's why the MTVR was designed so tall.

I got it, we all know where they would've picked up a large quantity of sand recently..

I haven't seen the news for the last day or two, I heard that aid was arriving into the city on those trucks (impressive sight, I must say) but I've not heard much since. Is it quietening down now?

I think the entire situation is a sign that several changes need to be made, ranging from construction techniques to gun control. You give people the "right" to own AK-74s with aimpoints and you wonder why they run around the streets in stolen cars shooting at anything they don't like the look of? Come on.

I think that the way some have reacted to the event is really disgusting. What's the point in over-running and controlling a city where there's nothing there to control?

[theavonlady 2]

You give people the "right" to own AK-74s with aimpoints and you wonder why they run around the streets in stolen cars shooting at anything they don't like the look of? Come on.

The flip side:

Quote[/b] ]Guns Kill...Bad People

By Larry Elder

Townhall.com | September 2, 2005

Forty-six-year-old Joyce Cordoba stood behind the deli counter while working at a Wal-Mart in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Suddenly, her ex-husband -- against whom Ms. Cordoba had a restraining order -- showed up, jumped over the deli counter, and began stabbing Ms. Cordoba. Due Moore, a 72-year-old Wal-Mart customer, witnessed the violent attack. Moore, legally permitted to carry a concealed weapon, pulled out his gun, and shot and killed the ex-husband. Ms. Cordoba survived the brutal attack and is recovering from her wounds.

This raises a question. How often do Americans use guns for defensive purposes? We know that in 2003, 12,548 people died through non-suicide gun violence, including homicides, accidents and cases of undetermined intent.

UCLA professor emeritus James Q. Wilson, a respected expert on crime, police practices and guns, says, "We know from Census Bureau surveys that something beyond a hundred thousand uses of guns for self-defense occur every year. We know from smaller surveys of a commercial nature that the number may be as high as two-and-a-half or three million. We don't know what the right number is, but whatever the right number is, it's not a trivial number."

Criminologist and researcher Gary Kleck, using his own commissioned phone surveys and number extrapolation, estimates that 2.5 million Americans use guns for defensive purposes each year. He further found that of those who had used guns defensively, one in six believed someone would have been dead if they had not resorted to their defensive use of firearms. That corresponds to approximately 400,000 of Kleck's estimated 2.5 million defensive gun uses. Kleck points out that if only one-tenth of the people were right about saving a life, the number of people saved annually by guns would still be at least 40,000.

The Department of Justice's own National Institute of Justice (NIJ) study titled "Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms," estimated that 1.5 million Americans use guns for defensive purposes every year. Although the government's figure estimated a million fewer people defensively using guns, the NIJ called their figure "directly comparable" to Kleck's, noting that "it is statistically plausible that the difference is due to sampling error." Furthermore, the NIJ reported that half of their respondents who said they used a gun defensively also admitted having done so multiple times a year -- making the number of estimated uses of self-defense with a gun 4.7 million times annually.

Former assistant district attorney and firearms expert David Kopel writes, "[W]hen a robbery victim does not defend himself, the robber succeeds 88 percent of the time, and the victim is injured 25 percent of the time. When a victim resists with a gun, the robbery success rate falls to 30 percent, and the victim injury rate falls to 17 percent. No other response to a robbery -- from drawing a knife to shouting for help to fleeing -- produces such low rates of victim injury and robbery success."

What do "gun control activists" say?

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence's website displays this oft-quoted "fact": "The risk of homicide in the home is three times greater in households with guns." Their web site fails to mention that Dr. Arthur Kellermann, the "expert" who came up with that figure, later backpedaled after others discredited his studies for failing to follow standard scientific procedures. According to The Wall Street Journal, Dr. Kellermann now concedes, "A gun can be used to scare away an intruder without a shot being fired," admitting that he failed to include such events in his original study. "Simply keeping a gun in the home," Kellermann says, "may deter some criminals who fear confronting an armed homeowner." He adds, "It is possible that reverse causation accounted for some of the association we observed between gun ownership and homicide -- i.e., in a limited number of cases, people may have acquired a gun in response to a specific threat."

More Guns, Less Crime author John Lott points out that, in general, our mainstream media fails to inform the public about defensive uses of guns. "Hardly a day seems to go by," writes Lott, "without national news coverage of yet another shooting. Yet when was the last time you heard a story on the national evening news about a citizen saving a life with a gun?...An innocent person's murder is more newsworthy than when a victim brandishes a gun and an attacker runs away with no crime committed...ad events provide emotionally gripping pictures. Yet covering only the bad events creates the impression that guns only cost lives."

Americans, in part due to mainstream media's anti-gun bias, dramatically underestimate the defensive uses of guns. Some, after using a gun for self-defense, fear that the police may charge them for violating some law or ordinance about firearm possession and use. So many Americans simply do not tell the authorities.

A gunned-down bleeding guy creates news. A man who spared his family by brandishing a handgun, well, that's just water-cooler chat.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Larry Elder is the author of the newly-released Showdown. Larry also wrote The Ten Things You Can’t Say in America. He is a libertarian talk show host, on the air from 3-7 pm Pacific time, on KABC Talkradio in Los Angeles. For more information, visit LarryElder.com

I personally have no conclusive opinion on the issue.

Original article has hyperlinks not copied here.

[ozanzac 0]

Has anyone else come across 'The Interdictor's blog'?

He's been holed up at an ISP at New Orleans from the beginning of the storm, running security detail whilist his team isworking to ensure some client servers don't go down during the hurricane, and it's aftermath.

Good first hand account on what they've had to endure and witness.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/

I recomend starting at Saturday, August 27, and reading from there.

[EiZei 0]

http://somethingawful.com/

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/04/050220&tid=99

Paypal closed an account that contained 20k USD for Katrina victims without giving any proper reason, un-fucking-believable.

I just closed my account there and made it pretty clear why in the comments field.

[mattxr 9]

http://somethingawful.com/

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/04/050220&tid=99

Paypal closed an account that contained 20k USD for Katrina victims without giving any proper reason, un-fucking-believable.

I just closed my account there and made it pretty clear why in the comments field.

thats just wrong..

[theavonlady 2]

http://somethingawful.com/

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/04/050220&tid=99

Paypal closed an account that contained 20k USD for Katrina victims without giving any proper reason, un-fucking-believable.

I just closed my account there and made it pretty clear why in the comments field.

thats just wrong..  

Not if they're obligated to comply with Federal laws aimed at preventing illegal money laundering schemes.

If I'm not mistaken, once over the 10K mark, they're obligated.

[mattxr 9]

http://somethingawful.com/

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/04/050220&tid=99

Paypal closed an account that contained 20k USD for Katrina victims without giving any proper reason, un-fucking-believable.

I just closed my account there and made it pretty clear why in the comments field.

thats just wrong..  

Not if they're obligated to comply with Federal laws aimed at preventing illegal money laundering schemes.

If I'm not mistaken, once over the 10K mark, they're obligated.

Well what he should of done is when he got to 500USD is sent it off to the red cross and everytime he got to 500 USD send it off i wonder if that would of worked.. im just wondering if there money will go to the Red Cross or back to the people

[EiZei 0]

http://somethingawful.com/

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/04/050220&tid=99

Paypal closed an account that contained 20k USD for Katrina victims without giving any proper reason, un-fucking-believable.

I just closed my account there and made it pretty clear why in the comments field.

thats just wrong..

Not if they're obligated to comply with Federal laws aimed at preventing illegal money laundering schemes.

If I'm not mistaken, once over the 10K mark, they're obligated.

Remember, paypal is not a bank. That's what they keep repeating every time they pull shit like this in order to escape liability. And if they would they would only be obligated to report it if I recall right.

And that was not the reason why the account was frozen.

The only thing the site owner is asking is that paypal gives the money to the red cross and to give him the addresses of the donators so he can hand out the free merchandise he promised to them.

[Bernadotte 0]

And that was not the reason why the account was frozen.

Well, according to SomethingAwful, PayPal's explanation is:

Quote[/b] ]Sep. 3, 2005:  We have received more than one report of suspicious behaviour from your buyers.

In other words, some of SomethingAwful's donors seem to have posted complaints against the account holder, which has frozen the account.

Who could imagine an SA member doing such an awful thing?  

[da12thMonkey 1943]

Well, SA has made its fair share of enemies and there are generally quite a few people who've got pissed off by some of the stuff that was on the site, so it could be someone with a grudge against them. Just have a look at the "God Bless the Internet" bit.

[EiZei 0]

Well, according to SomethingAwful, PayPal's explanation is:

Quote[/b] ]Sep. 3, 2005: We have received more than one report of suspicious behaviour from your buyers.

In other words, some of SomethingAwful's donors seem to have posted complaints against the account holder, which has frozen the account.

How can there be buyers when the account is solely for donations? He did check some donation-option when signing up if I recall right.

Anyways, now it seems that a paypal customer service person has responded saying it was because of the suspiciously high amount of money in the account. Of course they did'nt bother to put that as the reason or contact the account owner. Bet they still would not have responded back if they had not kicked up such a shitstorm.

[Apollo 0]

I genneraly never seem to know how to prioritize donations ,though i give some to medcin sans frontiere because i believe them to be very cost-effeciant in the most derperatly needing care area's ,well mostly Africa.

Not with any disrespect ,but i never felt that i should donate to good causes ment for the rich western world ,afterall there are plenty of means around here ,and there are far more dying in far poorer country's.

Sorry if this shocks you ,i guess if youre personally involved cold rationality can look offensive.

And another thing with some of those good causes ... are they trustworthy?Such scams have happened before.