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Here's another New Orleans blog, this one privately operated by a tech crew stuck in a tenth floor internet data center (Via Adam G.)
Incredible reporting.
The Times Picayune, under water, is operating primarily as a blog. A PDF of today's edition is available (in page per file format) here.
New Orleans area hospitals are in rough shape.
[T]he injured kept coming. At one point, a boat pulled up carrying a man doubled over in pain.
"Where are we going to put him? We're the rescuee now. People coming in here, it's like running into a burning building looking for shelter," nursing supervisor Ray Campo said.
Not good.
Government officials are ordering everyone remaining in New Orleans out of the city and preparing to evacuate the Superdome.
Again, the WWLTV blog contains some of the best information about what's going on in the city (many media outlets, including the Times Picayune, are under water.) It's bad and will likely get worse if this early-morning Parish status update is any indication.
Jefferson: You can return Monday with your ID. You will be allowed to collect your belongings and will not be allowed to return for a month.
Orleans: Closed. The Highrise is not safe to cross. Many parts of I-10 are flooded.
Plaqeumines: Closed.
St. Bernard: Closed.
St. Tammany: I-10 and the Twinspans are destroyed, but the Hwy 11 bridge is intact.
Washington: No information available. Lines are busy!
Tangiphoa: No information available. Lines are busy.
(note the exclamation point)
Whole parishes are cut off. As of 9 last night, thousands may be stranded on roofs and the water was still rising. Kids won't be going back to school any time soon.
Marshal law is imposed and it's a good bet that in some neighborhoods criminals will be the only ones out and about, a recipe for a different kind of trouble.
Even with a top rated lead-in show, the channel 4 eleven o'clock news finishes behind the ten o'clock news in the ratings. As a remedy, they're going to bring back the guy who did the news in the nineties.
Why stop there. Tom Ellis, the station's anchor in the seventies, is still kicking around on NECN. Why not give him a shot.
New Orleans station, WWL-TV's blog is a good resource for up to date information on damage and recovery. Such as:
The state Corrections Department is trying to figure out how to transfer 4,000 inmates from the New Orleans jail and another 1,000 from the Jefferson Parish jail in Gretna.
The inmates would be moved to state prisons including the highest-security at Angola. Corrections spokesman Pam LaBorde says it's quite a logistical situation to accomplish.
I'll say.
There's worse destruction in other areas of the region, but Jay's right, it's New Orleans that we identify with.
Police and firefighters are patrolling and responding by boat, as much of the city of New Orleans is flooded. As of last night the water was still rising. A report from the 9th Ward by Doug McCash and James O. Byrne in the Times Picayune:
About 5 p.m., almost as if on cue, the battery power of all the house alarms in the neighborhood seemed to reach a critical level, and they all went off, making it sound as if the area was under an air-raid warning. Two men surviving on generator power in the Lake Terrace neighborhood near the Lake Pontchartrain levee still had a dry house, but they were watching the rising water in the yard nervously. They were planning to head out to retrieve a vast stash of beer, champagne and hard liquor they found washed onto the levee. As night fell, the sirens of house alarms finally fell silent, and the air filled with a different, deafening and unfamiliar sound: the extraordinary din of thousands of croaking frogs.
Good reporting in the details. Check out the photo on today's front page.
Bruce Schneier thinks something fishy is going on with Microsoft, Vista and Trusted Computing.
She's back:
Next month, Ms. Stewart will have two new shows on national television. Another television network will air the docudrama "Martha: Behind Bars." Subscribers to satellite radio will be able to tune in to the Martha channel. She's also found time to work on a book on baking, which is due out in November, as well as "Martha's Rules," a primer on starting a business, due out in October. These will share space on bookshelves with a book written by a fan, "Let's Get Martha," a critique of her trial. And in between a visit or two with her parole officer, she will have new DVDs for sale, a new line of furniture at Kmart, and a media empire to run - of course unofficially, since she's no longer allowed to be an officer of the company with her name on the door.
Order has returned to the universe.
New Death Cab CD today. Reviews are good.
Is the training and equipping of Iraqi police forces a cynical endeavor or sloppy incompetence? These guys are the glue that will hold things together as we withdraw, so the stakes are high.
This informed op-ed assessment suggests we aren't as serious about the effort as we should be, and that doesn't make sense. Because if a secular police can't provide security and order, someone else will.
A lawyer has shut down Palestinian financial activity in the US with a lawsuit. Diplomats hate these anti-terror lawsuits. You can't soft pedal a hard judgement.
Palestinians have billions and the judgement is only $116 million. But paying it would set a precedent and so they've refused to do so leading to the freezing of all US assets. Ramsey Clark argued the case for the Palestinian Authority. How surprising is it that they lost?
Timely Katrina posts from a blogger in the New Orleans area. (Nothing yet today, though.)
Oil has hit $70 as Katrina heads towards the terminals on the Gulf Coast.
Ernie the attorney, unable to get out, is catching screen shots of New Orleans local TV reporting. The mood is somber.
He intends to use a cell phone camera to post images to Flickr.
The Northwest mechanics union is getting a cold shoulder from the AFL-CIO even as airline management seems ready to survive the strike and about to hire permanent non-union replacements.
The lack of solidarity stems from old grievances against the upstart mechanics union and for many in labor, it's payback time.
But as this CSM story suggests, in the larger picture, Northwest's victory could be a defeat for the whole of the labor movement.
Advertisers are keepin' it real with product placement for rappers.
Ice cream trademark violations are a serious business.
September 1st is a big day for sidewalk trash pickers as students move out to make room for the incoming. There's lots of good stuff out there, but if you take something home, you may get a surprise gift.
Katrina is going to be the big story in the morning. Here's a local TV news feed. Another station has a live doppler feed for the New Orleans area.
This link is for traffic cameras around the city.
More live local TV coverage. Local print coverage links from Google News.
A set of New Orleans web cams. A downtown cam. This is a good one, overlooking the French Quarter. Here's one looking at Bourbon Street. And there's a good selection of web cams run by the Port of New Orleans.
Here's NOAA details on the storm; a metro radar loop and an XML link for updates on Katrina.
And finally, a storm blog, and another via Instapundit. And one or two I found myself. (So much for evacuating.)
UPDATE: From the comments, you can support the anticipated relief effort at www.supportneworleans.com.
Originally a harvest fair for the south shore, the Marshfield Fair has been through a few changes over the years including a long stint as a horseracing attraction. The racing is gone, but despite the carnival midway and monster trucks, the fair still has a grounding in agriculture. Here are a few shots from this afternoon.
Not for the faint of heart.
There was a great sky overhead as the blues festival got underway.
Curley Taylor and Zydeco Trouble brought the house down.
Why it's called Blue Hill Ave.
Carib festival dancers take a break.
Traffic nightmare as the festival winds down.
It's a great day for the Caribbean Festival being held this afternoon along Blue Hill Ave in Roxbury.
And tonight it's fireworks at the Marshfield Fair
There's a good recap of discussion on yesterday's Herald overdose story at Universal Hub. John Wilcox's story and photos continues to stimulate discussion in both the blogosphere and in the Herald comments. And this morning the writer responds to some of the comments.
The iTunes model isn't perfect. Interoperability with other music players continues to be an issue. But Apple is still a lot more savvy than the record companies who still just don't get it.
It isn't just me. The summer movie season is a dog. People aren't lining up. Why? From the IMDB...
Universal Vice Chairman Marc Shmuger remarked... that "there's a cumulative wearing down effect. We're beginning to witness the results of that. People are just beginning to wake up that what used to pass as summer excitement isn't that exciting, or that entertaining." Michael Lynton, chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, vowed that from now on, his studio will be making "only movies we hope will be really good." [emphasis added]
Excellent plan.
The more you see the message, the more you'll need it.
This NY judge's partying, cursing, Rolls Royce driving lifestyle would make for great reality TV. Throw in the wacky boyfriend in handcuffs and it's a lock.
It has been almost a year since the Beslan school siege. Much is still unclear, but what is stands as obvious is that the official response was almost inconceivably inept.
OP-ED EDITOR: Often satire informs and expands a debate.
READER: Yes, but sometimes it's just simpleminded drivel.
A grass-roots political movement is afoot. Aren't we all tired of leaving behind half-full bottles of overpriced pinot noir? The People demand reform! And screw-tops.
And speaking of turf: This is a first.
(I'm guessing that it was the Public Garden memorial tree controversy that the Herald photographer was out covering.)
First Romney gets miffed that Arnold doesn't pay his respects on his turf, and then he goes and offends Menino on his turf (in an even more literal sense.)
These are rookie mistakes that career politicians learn to avoid early. The difference between Romney and Menino is that when Menino (who is not a rookie in the game) offends someone, it's because he intends to.
This is a great first person story by a Herald photographer at the scene of an overdose. The Globe has it's strengths, but how often do you see this kind of on-the-ground local reporting from it these days.
Kevin Cullen checks in with the McCartney sisters several weeks after the IRA declared an end to it's armed struggle. He finds that although the remnants of the group may have changed their political tactics, it's a lot harder to change their nature.
In the case of the 12 year-old arrested on a gun charge last week, on the issue of having a high bail set, the kid's lawyer says:
All I'm concerned about is trying to make people remember that this is about a 12-year-old and not a debate about society," said Mariann Samaha, the boy's attorney.
All criminal processes involving 12 year-olds are debates about society because it's society that's culpable and not the kid. I hope she doesn't use that argument at sentencing.
Venezuela offered Cuba a unique reciprocal arrangement: You send us doctors and we sell you cheap oil. Some Cubans think they're getting shortchanged in the deal.
(I know a few doctors we could send to Cuba in exchange for a supply of Montechristo #2s.)
Only 4 of 39 people working locally for The Atlantic are willing to move to DC when the magazine relocates. So much for holding on to the Boston sensibility.
I hope there is biohazard contamination for this kid, and that he gets struck by the mummy's curse.
The Globe and Providence Journal seem to have avoided the list.
There are new warning signs for China as the economic gap widens.
A child and mother begging on a busy sidewalk in Xian.
Marion Barry is reshaping his legacy by fixing broken sidewalks.
There's growing worry over Latino gangs taking root in the suburbs around Washington DC. A Post article underscores the concern.
Is it reasonable to believe that the head of the London Metropolitan Police wasn't provided or didn't demand the details of a fatal shooting by one of his officers for 24 hours?
Cathy Young deconstructs Cindy Sheehan (Frank Rich would have preferred the term smear.)
It's just political theater, albiet high stakes political theater.
Described as not yet ready for prime-time, a new technique for producing hybrid embryonic cells nonetheless holds promise for resolving much of the controversy over stem cell production.
I don't know what all the complaining is about. If he wanted a 'normal' bus ride with windshield wipers and all, he should have dug deep and taken the LimoLiner.
The opposite of gravity is, of course, levity.
Here's more on the Pastafarian challenge which is up to a million bucks.
Some of this stuff rings true. Not all. Entertaining, still.
It's a concept that I predict will spread. Maybe there's already an overheardinboston site. Someone's certainly thinking about one.
Sorry, I couldn't resist featuring this: 1 dead in hammock accident?!?
Wham-O! is back, along with the Superball, Hula Hoop, Frisbee and Slip-and-Slide.
A Globe Ideas section story on the Wham-O phenomenon reveals that the company built and unleashed a bowling-ball sized superball which, when dropped from a roof in Australia, left a path of compressed plastic destructionn.
There's an entry in Wikipedia for the Superball, describing it as "an extremely elastic ball made of Zectron®, which contains the rubber polymer polybutadiene and sulfur, having a high coefficient of restitution."
And did you know that the Superbowl name was inspired by the Superball? I didn't.
If that isn't enough nostalgia for one day, there's also a gusto-grabbing story on Schlitz, the beer that made Milwaukee famous.
It turns out that the think tank behind much of the promotion of Intelligent Design is funded to the tune of more than a million dollars by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Insert your own Windows / intelligent design joke here.
Stephen Hunter wields The Aristocrats as a weapon against the the entertainment subculture. He might not be wrong, but his point of view lacks perspective. The same things could be said about any service subculture: barbers, waitresses, receptionists, on and on. They all tell mean stories among themselves about the public they have to deal with -the customers, their audience.
I don't know where Hunter's hostility comes from. Maybe he just doesn't get the joke.
The good news is that Parsons Brinckerhoff is being phased out of managing the remaining Big Dig. The bad news is who's being phased in.
More cowbell in 08.
It's important for students to be exposed to alternative theories.
Here are three MP3 files of FDNY radio traffic from 911. A battalion chief