As blogged here before, tech journalist Joel Johnson and hacker/photog/blogger Jacob Appelbaum are traveling through areas impacted by Katrina to document and assist with communications reconnect efforts. Tonight, Joel and Jake are in the greater New Orleans area, visiting community organizer Malik Rahim.

Image: Mr. Rahim is assembling and distributing these personal supply kits for survivors in need in his neighborhood. Shot by Jacob. Here's Joel working on his laptop outside Mr. Rahim's house.

Joel and I are now in Algiers. This is the west bank of New Orleans, the 15th ward in Orleans Parish. We're staying at 331 Atlantic Avenue. Here's a sat photo of the area.

Wondering where we're staying? Remember the story recently on BoingBoing about Malik in Algiers? We're here to help him restore his community. We've got tech gear to outfit the community run clinic. This is the face of community change, this is Malik Rahim. We've got some donated terminals from AMD and we're looking for monitors. I think we need ten of them. If you're in NOLA and you've got monitors please feel free to send them our way.

Looking for a wifi hotspot in New Orleans? Malik has one now. Infact we brought it with us and we're online. Thanks to Joel's EVDO pcmcia card, we're about to deploy a mobile computer lab of sorts.

We've got cell phone service but it's quite difficult for you to call us. We get busy signals 50% of the time calling out. We've heard it's about a 90% failure rate calling inside.

What's the plan? The plan is to help the people who've been without aid, without help and without hope. Malik and the group around the house packed up bags to help people stay clean. He showed me the one of the single person aid packs he put together and told me about the family sized ones they're putting together tomorrow.

It's time to sit down to dinner now, I'll write more when I get a free moment.

Image: An instructive sign in the neighborhood (shot by Jacob).

Jake and I drove into Algiers today at the request of 'Malik,' a Muslim Rastafarian activist who is currently helping the area to coordinate rebuilding and medical efforts. They've set up a medical center and community center, but haven't had the ability to get online and register with FEMA, so that's step one.

It's sort of weird, because these guys don't have power, but plenty of natural gas and water. We walked up, turned on my laptop with EVDO, and instantly brought a neighborhood online. Sort of ridiculous, but needed.

Reports vary between 50 to 3,000 people in the Algiers area. The grid is already up near Malik's house, and we expect it to come online here before Monday. If we can get these guys a permanent internet uplink here and the medical center, the next step will be to teach someone how to use the AMD machines to get online and register so they can help other people.

Algiers is ready to be repopulated, it would appear. The mandatory evacuation doesn't apply here, the streets are peaceful (but empty), and there are plenty of military around. Malik says that Algiers will be the staging point for the rebuilding of the rest of the city. If we can help get some internet infrastructure in place, hopefully we'll be of help.

We're going to go out and visit the medical center tomorrow. I think we've got the equipment, minus some monitors, to make this happen. I think we might actually have something good to do here finally. But for now Malik and his wife have put out a great big spread of rice and beans and chicken and I'm absolutely starving, so I'm going to stop being rude and have a bite to eat.

Previously:

Katrina account of Malik Rahim: "This is criminal.... genocide."

Is the real looting still to come? Kathryn Cramer blogs:

I had a fairly thorough look through the FEMA website, and no where could I find any mention of any plans to tell people FEMA's intentions for their homes. There are instructions for registering a claim with FEMA, but it is not clear to me what FEMA does for you once your claim is registered. Is this simply a mechanism for receiving aid money? Or does their attention to your claim involve keeping you updated on whether they plan to tear down your neighborhood? Anyone know?

Over the weekend, a reader made what seemed to me a really good suggestion, though I didn't yet understand at the time how good a suggestion it was:

"Please consider contacting the USGS to have updated satellite photos made available for New Orleans citizens, their families and friends - so that the conditions of their neighborhood can be evaluated from their distant locations while awaiting permission to return home. This may take weeks. It would put many minds at ease (or make the worst known, not better, but less harsh than the wait to see it firsthand). (...)"

There aren't enough satellite and aerial images publicly available to accomplish what he suggests. But the general idea, that the US government needs to provide people information about their homes, is a good one.

Clearly, some of the houses are a total loss and need to be torn down. On some portions of satellite images houses formerly aligned in neat rows now look like they were casually dropped and haven't been lined up yet. Those homes are gone. There is no question that they need to be replaced. But many others, some in quite deep water, may well be reparable. The question is this: How much of New Orleans does FEMA plan to restore, and how much does it plan to simply replace. And if the houses are replaced with something else, are they to be replaced for their original owners? Or will the land be taken by eminent domain and redistributed?

See also this post on Josh Marshall's blog: Link

Previously: Authorities bar Red Cross from NOLA; Blackwater gets carte blanche

Update: Kathryn has added an "Open Forum for Discussion of Problems Filing FEMA Claims" to her blog. She explains, "This is an open thread for people to explain and discuss problems they encounter trying to file FEMA claims... What are the problems you are encoutering filing claims? Is there anything the rest of us can do to help? Tell us." Link

[Needed:] technically savvy volunteers who can help in two ways - at the shelters in implementing Windows and Cisco systems for the volunteers and people living there, and at Red Cross headquarters in the Washington DC area to improve the implementation of security software tools that have been implemented but are not fully exploited. Here's how you can help.

1. People who live near the shelters (or who could get there and who have family/friends with whom you could stay), and who have lots of experience deploying Windows XP and/or Cisco systems, please register your willingness to help at this link. The Red Cross will contact you directly.

2. People in the Washington DC area (or who could get here quickly) and would volunteer to help, and who have substantial experience with any of the following:

-- tuning Cisco IDS
-- tuning NetIQ Manager
-- tuning McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator

please do two things:

a. register online, and b. send me an email at [paller at sans.org] telling me which tool you know well and how available and close you are so I can set up a contact for you.

SANS is also donating $100,000 to the Red Cross, and we learned today that at least one leading security vendor, TippingPoint, has offered to give the Red Cross the equipment they need to protect their networks - without asking for compensation.

If you know of people or companies in the IT or security field who are trying to make a difference in the recovery effort, please let us know what you or they are doing [Email paller at sans.org].

Image: Emergency personnel who've come to Chalmette, Louisiana from Maryland do door-to-door search and rescue ops.(AFP/James Nielsen)

Image: Inside the Astrodome (Jacob Appelbaum)

Snip from a NYT piece -- the GOP sees opportunities:

Republican leaders in Congress and some White House officials see opportunities in Hurricane Katrina to advance longstanding conservative goals like giving students vouchers to pay for private schools, paying churches to help with temporary housing and scaling back business regulation.

"There are about a thousand churches right here in Houston, and a lot of them are helping people with housing, but FEMA says they can't reimburse faith-based organizations," Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the House majority leader, said, referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Oh, wait, is this the same Tom DeLay who asked some evacuee children who'd lost their homes if staying in a shelter was "kinda fun?"

While on the tour with top administration officials from Washington, including U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao and U.S. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, DeLay stopped to chat with three young boys resting on cots. The congressman likened their stay to being at camp and asked, "Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?"

They nodded yes, but looked perplexed.

(...) "You are becoming famous all over this country and even the world," he said.

Snip from NYT story about one of countless mothers scouring the internet, missing persons lists, and shelters for her missing child:

"I keep telling myself it's going to be all right," said Ms. Boyd, breathing deeply to control frayed nerves and turning her face away from her room, where 11 people are sharing two beds. "I can't start crying because of the other children. I can't break down. I'm all they've got right now. But I just want to know, where's my baby?"

Snip from NYT story about the rush to rebuild:

From global engineering and construction firms like the Fluor Corporation and Halliburton to local trash removal and road-building concerns, the private sector is poised to reap a windfall of business in the largest domestic rebuilding effort ever undertaken.

Normal federal contracting rules are largely suspended in the rush to help people displaced by the storm and reopen New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Hundreds of millions of dollars in no-bid contracts have already been let and billions more are to flow to the private sector in the weeks and months to come. Congress has already appropriated more than $62 billion for an effort that is projected to cost well over $100 billion.

Some experts warn that the crisis atmosphere and the open federal purse are a bonanza for lobbyists and private companies and are likely to lead to the contract abuses, cronyism and waste that numerous investigations have uncovered in post-war Iraq.

In this video clip, a Dallas Morning News photojournalist reports that authorities are now shooting homeless, ownerless dogs that have survived in New Orleans. Link

On Thursday, Bush signed a proclamation suspending the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act which protected wage-earners who work for federal contractors like Halliburton and The Shaw Group -- companies likely to receive the bulk of those federal billions earmarked for reconstruction. Link (Thanks, M Sinclair Stevens)

Farhad Manjoo from Salon says,

This might be the most informative, compelling, amazing thing I've seen so far about the storm. A photographer/hotel worker/Nicaraguan immigrant who lives in the city took about 200 pictures from the time before the storm struck, during -- including the eerie, beautiful calm when the eye passed through -- and after. There are some fantastic pictures of what the wind did to the city before the flooding came through, all the surreal damage (a line of cars whose back windows only were blown out), buildings completely destroyed. And then you see how things got progressively worse, how the devastation of wind was compounded by water, how the looting began, how the whole thing was destroyed. It takes a while to get through, but it's well, well worth it.

Snip from a report by KPRC-TV in Houston: "A plan is in place to make sure the city's largest shelters at Reliant Park, known as Reliant City, are closed in eight days, which is one day before the Houston Texans' first home game at the complex." Link (Thanks, Bill)

And Boing Boing reader Gabriel says,

"Cool" people can be truely tastless sometimes, as you can see here with Imitation of Christ's take on the sidewalk memorial to Vera, an elderly woman who died on the street in New Orleans from the effects of Katrina. Presumably she was someone's mother, friend, sister, daughter. Link

(Thanks, Ned Sublette)

Pull quote, from the man whose document-rescue firm isn't allowed inside NOLA:

"These records are a historic treasure trove (that) would go to the Vatican or Smithsonian and be under armed guards and in vaults," Bruno said. "This is extremely frustrating.''

Snip from an update from the National Coalition for History, a non-profit group providing news to history-related professionals:

In New Orleans, aerial photos indicate that the French Quarter is relatively dry and intact. Locations such as the Caf du Monde, Preservation Hall, and St. Louis Cathedral appear to have survived the brunt of the storm. Museum directors have also determined that the New Orleans Museum of Art, home to one of the most important collections in the south, has also been spared from severe damage.

However, other sections of the city were not so fortunate. Virtually everything in the Latin Quarter and the Garden District suffered some damage. Preliminary reports indicate that the New Orleans Public Library was hit hard and its archive of city records, which are housed in the basement of the building, probably experienced flooding. At the New Orleans Notarial Archives, which hold some 40 million pages of signed acts compiled by notaries of new Orleans over three centuries, initial efforts to save historical documents were unsuccessful.

A Swedish document salvage firm, hired by the archives to freeze-dry records to remove the moisture from them, was turned away by uniformed personnel as they attempted to enter the city. There are a considerable number of freezer trucks available as soon as they are allowed to access areas currently closed.

Snip from a New Orleans Times-Picayune story about Munters, the Swedish firm hired to salvage the city's historic documents -- authorities still won't let them in to the city.

The trucks were headed to the Civil District Courthouse on Poydras Street, where many of the city's real estate documents are housed, and to the Amoco building at 1340 Poydras St., which houses historic documents such as a letter from Jean Lafitte to Washington demanding for his expenditures during the Battle of New Orleans.

Eddy Pokluda, head of national sales for Munters in Dallas, said the company tried to get one person in to make an assessment of the damage but was turned away, even though days earlier they had arranged with New Orleans Police Department to have an escort into the city.

"I don't think people realize the importance of these records. It's imperative we get in there and see if these can be saved,'' Pokluda said. "These records are a historic treasure trove (that) would go to the Vatican or Smithsonian and be under armed guards and in vaults," Bruno said. "This is extremely frustrating.''

"Of course, the most important thing is the people and the bodies, but now we're really considered about the records,'' he said.

Most governments have digitized their real estate records, and Bruno was just about to hire a firm to transfer many of the documents in the archive to the computer.

But at the Notorial Archives, most abstractors still do hand searches of the 12 million stored documents.

"We're still in the horse-and-buggy days," Bruno said.

But then, a small piece of good news. In an email to a librarian's newsgroup, NOLA Public Library archivist Irene Wainwright says:

New Orleans Public Library is delighted to be able to announce that the New Orleans City Archives, which we hold, is relatively safe. Although the majority of our records (as well as the 19th and early 20th century records of the Orleans Parish civil and criminal courts) are housed in the basement of the Main Library, some 18 feet below sea level, the basement remained essentially dry.

Wayne Everard , our archvivist, and I were able to get access to the building yesterday, along with another NOPL staff member and a representative of Munters. We discovered that the basement sustained NO FLOODING, although there is a very small amount of water in one area, possibly caused by sewer backup. This water caused no direct damage to records themselves.

The Main Library itself (across the plaza from city hall, about 4 blocks from the Dome) came through almost unscathed. Several windows blew out in the area of our Technology Center causing quite a bit of damage there, but the damage is confined to that closed in room. There is also evidence of very minimal roof leakage on the first floor -- most of it missing the books.

On the whole, however, the Main Library is in excellent shape. Earlier reports that vandals had entered the building are incorrect. Our branch run van was looted and we believe another van was stolen from the parking lot, but it is clear that no one got into the building, either to vandalize or to shelter there.

The NOPL system itself has been hit hard -- probably about half of our 11 branch libraries are under water. But these we can (and will) rebuild. The fact that the archives have survived leaves us almost delerious with relief.

We are working now to arrange for Munters to stabilize the Main Library building until we can all return and begin the rebuilding process.

We posted this news earlier to the ssacares site, where we will post additional information as it becomes available as well as photographs we took of the Library and the surrounding area.

Thank you all for your expressions of concern and offers of assistance. We are unbelievably lucky, and I think I now believe in miracles....

Irene Wainwright

Assistant Archivist, Louisiana Division / City Archives, New Orleans Public Library

Reader comment: Adri says,

The American Library Association (ALA) has several links on their website concerning libraries in the Katrina hit region. It contains info on library relief funds, news articles concerning libraries/librarians impacted, as well resources on preserving/saving materials. Link

Reader comment: Jenn says,

Saw your post about the NOLA libraries and thought you would want to know about a Google group set up to support biologists affected by Hurricane Katrina (Link). Also, the American Society for Plant Taxonomists has created an Herbarium Emergency fund (Link) to collect donations for the herbarium of the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory - a lot of their specimens have been completely destroyed.

Update: Here's a torrent of the video (Thanks, Janko!)

The company will build up to 100 easy-to-assemble homes in Drumchapel as part of the area's £100m renaissance.

Glasgow City Council yesterday chose a consortium, which includes Ikea, as preferred developer for the Drumchapel new neighbourhood project, which is hoped to transform the area on the city's western fringe.

The prefab BoKlok homes, which roughly translated means smart living, are hugely successful in Scandinavia and are lauded for their flexible open-plan layout, high ceilings and large windows.

(Image: Blackwater USA Training Center, "Where Professionals Train," in North Carolina. Link.)

Meanwhile, unnarmed Red Cross workers toting food and medicine have been unable to enter the city for days.

The name Blackwater may ring a bell for those who've been following that other Gulf warzone -- Iraq. The highly trained private security contractors support US military operations there, and in Afghanistan, typically earning far more pay than enlisted personnel.

Kathryn Cramer blogs more on Blackwater's presence in Katrina's wake here. (still more at Making Light)

More in this New York Times article on the forced confiscation of weapons from civilians -- but not from guns-for-hire -- in New Orleans. Snip:

Waters were receding across this flood-beaten city today as police officers began confiscating weapons, including legally registered firearms, from civilians in preparation for a mass forced evacuation of the residents still living here. No civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to carry pistols, shotguns or other firearms, said P. Edwin Compass III, the superintendent of police. "Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons," he said.

But that order apparently does not apply to hundreds of security guards hired by businesses and some wealthy individuals to protect property. The guards, employees of private security companies like Blackwater, openly carry M-16's and other assault rifles. Mr. Compass said that he was aware of the private guards, but that the police had no plans to make them give up their weapons.

Reader comment: Mathias Forbach, a media student in Switzerland, asks,

Why do the police in New Orleans clear the city of the last remaining residents? Why can't these residents stay in their homes if they are able to stay? And why do the authorities do this with guns?

Two weeks ago, we had really bad flood here in Switzerland. Two days of constant rain. But we did't see anybody with a gun -- only water buckets and shovels and people helping each other, and Red Cross workers giving first aid.

Why, in the U.S.A., are the first images we see all military-aggressive-armed-forces who aren't helping the victims, but threatening them with big guns? I don't understand. Did Asian people experience the same with the Tsunami flood? Even in Indonesia, where there was a conflict between the junta and the government, they stopped their conflict to help the poor inhabitants.

As much as I'm not a fan of our current administration (...) much of New Orleans is uninhabitable: no water, no sanitation, no food, no power, at least 11 separate fires, broken gas lines, sewage-laden floodwaters, and rotting corpses (along with the the fear these will clog pumps draining the city). People are being moved -- with force if necessary -- because it's not safe to stay, regardless of what some residents think.

Well, I just read a WaPo article today (Link) that describes the situation of the wealthier areas of New Orleans which makes hash of that statement. A couple of hired guys are defending a wealthy neighborhood of about thirty homes. Before the hurricane hit, they went on a supplies gathering run and got a couple hundred gallons of gas, water, food, etc. The wealthy residents of the neighborhood hired them to babysit the homes while they evacuated. (...) They get asked about their status from various police/NG patrols that come by. They're armed and ready to defend the homes from any looters.

The reason the Red Cross is not allowed in, according to the Red Cross Web site, is that the authorities believe their presence would invite people to return to the city. Since it would seem the goal of this project is to demolish the city, then dun the former inhabitants for the demolition costs, then seize the property for nonpayment, then auction it off for pennies to Bush cronies and then give Halliburton billions to rebuild it for corporations and whites only, I'd say that policy fits right in.

People need to realize that this is the biggest LOOTING operation since the fall of Baghdad - and the looters are NOT the poor blacks.

Previously: Baghdad on the Bayou

t's a radical concept: the $10.5bn released by Congress and the $500m raised by private charities doesn't actually belong to the relief agencies or the government - it belongs to the victims. The agencies entrusted with the money should be accountable to them. Put another way, the people Barbara Bush tactfully described as "underprivileged anyway" just got very rich.

Except relief and reconstruction never seem to work like that. When I was in Sri Lanka six months after the tsunami, many survivors told me that the reconstruction was victimising them all over again. A council of the country's most prominent businesspeople had been put in charge of the process, and they were handing the coast over to tourist developers at a frantic pace. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of poor fishing people were still stuck in sweltering inland camps, patrolled by soldiers with machine guns and entirely dependent on relief agencies for food and water. They called reconstruction "the second tsunami".

There are already signs that New Orleans evacuees could face a similarly brutal second storm. Jimmy Reiss, chairman of the New Orleans Business Council, told Newsweek that he has been brainstorming about how "to use this catastrophe as a once-in-an-eon opportunity to change the dynamic". The council's wish list is well-known: low wages, low taxes, more luxury condos and hotels.

It's time to fix that. EFF is sponsoring a competition to produce a friendly graphical user interface for Tor: something that combines security with ease of use, so that even non-geeky political dissidents can be made safe from official punishment for their network use.

Edward Tufte and Bruce Schneier are judging the contest, and every submitter gets a t-shirt!

* Allow the user to fully configure Tor rather than manually searching for and opening text files.

* Let users learn about the current state of their Tor connection (including which servers they are connected to, and how many connections they have), and find out whether any of their applications are using it.

* Make alerts and error conditions visible to the user.

* Run on at least one of Windows, Linux, and OS X, on a not-unusually-configured consumer-level machine.

Update: Roger Dingledine from Tor sez, "our current interface isn't quite so bad as you make it out. Clients on OS X just install and run, and the SwitchProxy firefox plugin makes configuration really easy. Windows needs you to install Privoxy but there are still no command lines. It's only if you want to do more esoteric things, or relay traffic for others, that it starts to get tricky."

There is an increasing trend for criminals to use plastic gloves during break-ins and condoms during rapes to avoid leaving their DNA at the scene. Dostie describes a murder case in which the assailant tried to wash away his DNA using shampoo. Police in Manchester in the UK say that car thieves there have started to dump cigarette butts from bins in stolen cars before they abandon them. "Suddenly the police have 20 potential people in the car," says Rutty.

Reporters Laura Sullivan and Daniel Zwerdling of NPR's All Things Considered did a terrific two-part timeline today. These two radio segments are essential listening.

Katrina Timeline:
(1) Unexecuted Plans
(2) Misdirected Aid

There's a timeline at Wikipedia, which, as usual, appears to be extensive and thorough. Link

Think Progress has a single-web-page timeline, with links to news and blog accounts of events -- from "Governor Blanco declares state of emergency" (Friday, Aug. 26) to "Condoleezza goes shoe shopping" (Thursday, Sept. 1) to "Bush blames state and local officials." (Saturday, Sept. 3) Link

And Boing Boing reader Barrie says,

My friend Jason just started a Hurricane Katrina Timeline wiki intended to describe the events that led up to and followed the disaster. It is primarily focused on the federal government's ignorance and mismanagement of the situation in the five years or so prior to the storm. It's pretty rudimentary right now but I think a sharp web audience could spruce it right up, adding more specific links to news stories and references. Link

The algorithm works in three basic stages. First, it isolates the sound of each individual keystroke. Second, it takes all of the recorded keystrokes and puts them into about fifty categories, where the keystrokes within each category sound very similar. Third, it uses fancy machine learning methods to recover the sequence of characters typed, under the assumption that the sequence has the statistical characteristics of English text.

The third stage is the hardest one. You start out with the keystrokes put into categories, so that the sequence of keystrokes has been reduced a sequence of category-identifiers

Update: Eightcell sez, "they are a bit cheaper other places and there are dioramas to go along with them. The magnets themselves usually come in a small box that looks like the question mark boxes from the game and you get a random one inside. They usually cost about $1. The dioramas are also random but come with 2 magnets for about $4. There are a few stores in New York I know of that carry them, such as Toy Tokyo in St. Marks."

Remember: any lawmaker who breaks her constituents' entertainment technologies don't get re-elected. Make sure your representative is well-briefed on this fact.

Never mind that digital audio broadcasting is not significantly greater in quality than regular, analog radio. Never mind that its music quality is vastly less than than that of audio CDs. In spite of these inconvenient facts, the RIAA is hoping that the transition to "digital audio broadcasting" will provide enough confusion and panic that they can persuade Congress or the FCC to impose some kind of copy-protection scheme or regulation on digital radio broadcast.

Immediately below is the text of the joint resolution by RIAA and other groups, asking Congress to copy-protect radio (which has never been copy-protected before). Following that is RIAA's "one-pager" outlining for Congress the reasons RIAA offers for Congress to authorize the FCC to put in place a copy-protection scheme for radio. (Note the use of the term "HD Radio" -- implying that there's something "high-definition" about digital audio broadcasting, even though everyone who knows anything about digital audio broadcast content knows it's of much lower quality than that of audio CDs.)

Spanish copyfighting lawyer David Bravo has noticed that Unicef and Save The Children are co-signers on the "informative" pamphlet that Spanish organisation ACAM has published explaining to parents the dangers that p2p pose to their children.

ACAM is ostensibly the Association for Musical Authors and Composers, but in practice they act as shills for the Record Industry: they are in the SGAE's pocket regarding anything to do with peer-to-peer, the right to make private copies (entrenched in Spanish law), the CD levy that the SGAE administers, etc.

So the next time you are considering donating to Unicef or Save the Children, you may also want to write them a nice letter asking them to make better use of your money and their time and public image. I regularly buy Unicef products for Christmas, and this year their order will be accompanied by my protest.

CNN obtained a temporary restraining order late Friday to prevent government agencies from restricting news coverage as victims are recovered in New Orleans and other areas hit by Hurricane Katrina. A hearing has been scheduled for today to determine if the order should be made permanent, CNN said.

In a memo to employees late Friday, Jim Walton, president of CNN News Group, said the Atlanta-based news operation filed suit to fight possible limits on coverage. Earlier in the week, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it did not want news media to take photographs of the dead during the recovery process.

According to news reports, FEMA rejected requests from some journalists to ride on rescue boats. Then, on Friday, Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, in charge of relief efforts in New Orleans, said journalists will no longer be allowed to join military teams as they work to recover bodies, according to reports.

Update: Attempts to block coverage of the dead have now been dropped. Link

Image: a child evacuee in Houston Astrodome, Jacob Appelbaum.
- - - - - -

Al Gore made an unnanounced appearance at the Sierra Club's inaugural convention in San Francisco today. A few excerpts from his address:

When the corpses of American citizens are floating in toxic flood waters five days after a hurricane struck, it is time not only to respond directly to the victims of the catastrophe, but to hold ... the leaders of our nation accountable.

The warnings about global warming have been extremely clear for a long time. We are facing a global climate crisis, it is deepening. We are entering a period of consequences. (...)

What happened was not only knowable, it was known in advance, in great and painstaking detail. They did tabletop planning exercises. They identified exactly what the scientific evidence showed would take place.

Reader comment: mike kelley says,

Here's more info about the flights that Al Gore chartered. He brought one group into Chattanooga, TN. The large hospital in town treated 4 of those people for medical problems. Link

My Barbarian call their brand of entertainment “showcore,” which means a preoccupation with exhibitionism, masks, unicorns, choreography, flare and sass. New material like “Tropical Vacation” and “Unicorns L.A.” are equal parts softcore porn, Solid Gold dancers and junior high school dance team — a Kids Incorporated episode held hostage by queens. As such, My Barbarian are a revolution, so far ahead of anyone else on the scene right now in terms of humor and guts that many an audience member may be put off by their retarded/brilliant rock operatic fiasco.

"It's a great essay, and the postscript (written yesterday, for the Web only) plugs it into what is going in New Orleans (in terms of mythical race riots and cannibalism) more directly. (Also, if we get lots of traffic, the powers that be here at the magazine will let me do more of these sorts of things.) The amazing thing is, Rebecca wrote the essay before Katrina hit. Indeed, we were printing the piece that Monday." Link

For four days, a C-130 transport plane ready to lift supplies to Katrina victims has stood idle at an air base in Sweden. The aid includes a water purification system that may be urgently needed amid signs deadly diseases could be spreading through fetid pools in New Orleans.

The one thing that stands in the way of takeoff? Approval by U.S. officials.

Although some foreign aid is on the way to the U.S., many international donors are complaining of frustration that bureaucratic entanglements are hindering shipments to the United States.

"We have to get some kind of signal (from the U.S.) in the next few days," said Karin Viklund of the Swedish Rescue Services Agency. "We really hope we will get it." Aside from water purification units, the country has offered blankets and mobile network equipment.

“Should you drive a car 600 km using gaseous hydrogen at normal pressure, it would require a fuel tank with a size of nine cars. With our technology, the same amount of hydrogen can be stored in a normal gasoline tank”, says Professor Claus Hviid Christensen, Department of Chemistry at DTU.

The new finding, reported in today's issue of Science by Bruce T. Lahn of the University of Chicago, and colleagues, could raise controversy because of the genes' role in determining brain size. New versions of the genes, or alleles as geneticists call them, appear to have spread because they enhanced brain function in some way, the report suggests, and they are more common in some populations than others.

But several experts strongly criticized this aspect of the finding, saying it was far from clear that the new alleles conferred any cognitive advantage or had spread for that reason. Many genes have more than one role in the body, and the new alleles could have been favored for some other reason, these experts said, such as if they increased resistance to disease.

Even if the new alleles should be shown to improve brain function, that would not necessarily mean that the populations where they are common have any brain-related advantage over those where they are rare.

The Clinton administration wants to nearly double spending for research on technology that potentially could store the contents of the Library of Congress in a device the size of a sugar cube and revolutionize medicine. (U.S. Government, January 21 2000)

Increased investments in nanotechnology could lead to breakthroughs such as molecular computers that can store the contents of the Library of Congress in a device the size of a sugar cube. (Foresight Institute)

Win the Library of Congress in a sugarcube! Free contest entry with every Soy Frappucino (Starbucks advertisement, July 14 2009)

"New Dark Ages Begin: Starbucks Patron Accidentally Drinks Library of Congress" (New York Times, front page, August 1 2009)

'"They should never have left it near the Splenda,' Says Culprit" (Los Angeles Times, B1, August 2 2009)

"Library of Congress Drinker Disappears: Rumors of Google Involvement" (New York Times, A6, August 19 2009)

"Google has nanobots on their Master Plan... and grey goo... which is what you get when the Sugar Cube gets a Snow Crash...." Link

Studies in mice show it is possible to prevent the transmission of mitochondrial disease by moving the pronuclei - the genetic material which will go on to form a nucleus - from a fertilised egg containing bad mitochondria and putting it into another fertilised egg which only contains good mitochondria...

Instead of transplanting the pronuclei, these researchers injected another woman's ooplasm - the substance inside the cell that contains the mitochondrial DNA and bathes the nucleus - into the egg cell of the mother with faulty mitochondrial DNA. The resulting egg would never be allowed to develop into a baby.

But even if it did, the offspring would still resemble their mother and father because the mitochondrial DNA does not dictate things like hair colour.

How does one take a pattern generated by a cellular automaton, and render it as music? The key idea of WolframTones is to take a swath through the pattern:

and tip it on its side, and treat it as a musical score:

Once the cellular automaton pattern has been "tipped on its side" so that time runs across the page, the height of each black square is related to the pitch of a corresponding note. The specific mapping from height to pitch is determined by the musical scale that is used. Each scale picks out certain of the 12 standard tones in an octave.

Reader comment: Eric says: "I like the concept that Stephen uses, but I am even more intrigued by Tim Omernick's (one of the Delicious Monster guys) 'Sound of an Image' application. It gets its tones from a photo...pretty nice and fun to play with. (For OS X)
Link

The technology is based on the discovery by Professor (Russell) Cowburn and colleagues that by using nanotechnology it is possible to reproduce the key functions of semiconductor electronics in microchips using only the 'spin' of electrons, which is responsible for magnetism, rather than the more conventional 'charge' that traditional microchips use.

This has allowed them to construct a completely new architecture for electronics in three dimensions rather than the two dimensional flat structure of conventional microchips, an approach Professor Cowburn compares to using cupboards instead of table tops for storing goods.

The backpack is deliberately designed to shake around a bit. The up-and-down movement of the backpack's cargo compartment against the frame of the pack turns a gear connected to a generator...

Humping along just under 85 pounds (38 kg) of weight in the backpack can produce up to 7 watts of electricity, Lawrence Rome and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania report...

"Metabolically speaking, we've found this to be much cheaper than we anticipated. The energy you exert could be offset by carrying an extra snack, which is nothing compared to weight of extra batteries," Rome said.

"Pound for pound, food contains about 100-fold more energy than batteries."

Snip from this week's edition of Nikki Finke's "Deadline Hollywood" column in LA Weekly:

For the first 120 hours after Hurricane Katrina, TV journalists were let off their leashes by their mogul owners, the result of a rare conjoining of flawless timing (summer's biggest vacation week) and foulest tragedy (America's worst natural disaster). Lost amid all the self-congratulation by broadcasters once the crisis point had been passed was the fact that TV journalists went back to business-as-usual, their choke chains yanked by their Big Media bosses fearful of any regulatory fallout from fingering Dubya. Now comes the real test of pathos vs. profit: whether the TV newscasters will spend the fresh reservoir of truth and trust earned with the public to challenge FEMA's attempt to block the news media from photographing the dead.

Some fresh QuickTime torrents of Daily Show segments on Katrina aftermath: Link.

Tim Grieve at Salon.com has a great item on administration attempts to tap-dance out of the FEMA-Katrina-clusterfuck.

Reporter: Scott, does the president retain confidence in his FEMA director and secretary of Homeland Security?

McClellan: And again, David, see, this is where some people want to look at the blame game issue, and finger-point. We're focused on solving problems, and we're doing everything we can --

Reporter: What about the question?

McClellan: We're doing everything we can in support --

Reporter: We know all that.

McClellan: -- of the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA.

Reporter: Does he retain complete confidence --

McClellan: We're going to continue. We appreciate the great effort that all of those at FEMA, including the head of FEMA, are doing to help the people in the region. And I'm just not going to engage in the blame game or finger-pointing that you're trying to get me to engage.

Reporter: OK, but that's not at all what I was asking.

McClellan: Sure it is. It's exactly what you're trying to play.

Reporter: You have your same point you want to make about the blame game, which you've said enough now. I'm asking you a direct question, which you're dodging.

WiMax will bring the Internet to remote areas where the existing infrastructure has been destroyed or never existed. The network will be used for Internet telephone service and information exchange.

Intel Corp., a major WiMax supporter and maker of chips, shipped equipment Thursday to San Antonio's decommissioned Kelly Air Force Base where thousands of evacuees are being taken. The gear is expected to arrive on Friday.

But those hotspots need to connect to the wider Internet to be most useful — and that's where WiMax comes into play, said Nigel Ballard, a manager Intel's state and local government unit.

Snip from a post on NBC correspondent Brian Williams' blog:

While we were attempting to take pictures of the National Guard (a unit from Oklahoma) taking up positions outside a Brooks Brothers on the edge of the Quarter, the sergeant ordered us to the other side of the boulevard. The short version is: there won't be any pictures of this particular group of Guard soldiers on our newscast tonight. Rules (or I suspect in this case an order on a whim) like those do not HELP the palpable feeling that this area is somehow separate from the United States.

Take a moment to note what's happening here: these are the marks of repressive government, which mixes inefficiency with authoritarianism. The crew that couldn't get key aid on the scene in time last week is coming in in force now. And one of the key missions appears to be cutting off public information about what's happening in the city.

When [police] realized [Toronto Star photographer Lucas Oleniuk] had photographed them hitting looters, they hurled him to the ground, grabbed his two cameras and removed memory cards containing around 350 pictures.

From Andrew Sullivan's blog, a call to arms for photobloggers:

FEMA is trying to censor the reality in New Orleans, under the guise of "respect" for the dead. Money quote:

[O]n Tuesday, FEMA refused to take reporters and photographers along on boats seeking victims in flooded areas, saying they would take up valuable space need in the recovery effort and asked them not to take pictures of the dead. In an e-mail explaining the decision, a FEMA spokeswoman wrote: "The recovery of victims is being treated with dignity and the utmost respect and we have requested that no photographs of the deceased by made by the media."

The press should ignore those requests, get boats themselves and show the world what has actually happened. (Hey, much of the media was ahead of FEMA during the worst of it. Why not again now?) That goes for any intrepid bloggers with camera-phones or anyone else who can slip through the censorship net. If necessary, faces can be blurred to protect the dignity of the dead. But it matters that we see the full consequences of government delinquency. That's what the press is for. Ignore FEMA. Photobloggers, here's an opportunity for important and necessary work.

A FEMA spokesman said Thursday that the agency hopes news organizations won't show dead bodies as part of their coverage of Hurricane Katrina, but acknowledged that such coverage decisions lie with editors, not government officials. "Decisions about running photos are up to members of the news media," said Mark Pfeifle. "Out of respect for the deceased [and their families] ... FEMA has asked that images not be shown. But it's up to the media whether they're shown or not." "There's not a directive," he said. "It's just a request that FEMA people have made to members of the media."

In this SF Chronicle item, a reporter recounts a story of heavily armed cops/troops nearly shooting him while he made a cellphone call outside their quarters: Link

(Thanks, Todd Lappin, A.V., Lucas Hoekstra)

In related news, authorities in New Orleans are seizing guns from civilians as efforts proceed to clear the city of the last remaining residents: Link to NYT story.

Snip from a post on "interdictor"'s blog, maintained throughout the disaster from that data center inside NOLA:

As per my question about the forcible confiscation of guns, several of you posted video from ABC news verifying this. So there you go, go ahead and grab your pocket-sized copy of the constitution and tear out Amendment II. It should be the first one on the page, because if you've been keeping track, Amendment I should have been torn out years ago. I don't mean to make this a debate about guns, but what I want is for the law to be the law, and that means if the we don't like Amendment II anymore, we need to just go ahead and repeal it, not ignore it. If we just start ignoring the Amendments, we never know what rights we're entitled to and when. That complicates things. Just go ahead and repeal them if we're not gonna use them. So there's that.

In the Houston Astrodome last Saturday, I met a man named Robert. He invited me to take a seat beside him on a cot pushed against the wall - his home for the previous three days and the foreseeable future. Robert had lived in New Orleans for all of his 55 years, and was in the St. Bernard projects when Katrina washed it all away. "After the storm," he told me almost as soon as I sat down, "they blew the levees up so they could flood New Orleans." I asked him who "they" were.

"The money people," he answered. "The big money." "Why?" I asked.

Robert shook his head at my naiveté. "They had to get the poor people out so they could get the space." He gestured to the thousands of people in the dome around us, almost all of them African-American, crammed onto cots a few inches apart. "Now they got their space.

"We survived the storm," Robert went on. "We survived the wind and the rain. After the storm passed, the water started rising, and all you heard was 'Boom!' " The explosions, he said, were the levees blowing. "Ask any of these people. The hurricane wasn't that bad, but the opportunity came up."

It was a real estate grab, Robert explained - gentrification with a genocidal edge. And if he was more than slightly paranoid - he didn't want to tell me his last name, and grew visibly nervous when a white stadium employee began sweeping the floor within earshot a few feet away - his theory made a certain kind of sense, far more than any of the official excuses for government inaction. I would later hear similar speculations again and again in New Orleans, and saw them written on the walls. Just across the canal from the flooded 9th Ward, on a corner heavy with the scent of death, these words were scrawled across an abandoned garage: "Fuck Bush They Fucking Left Us Here Them Bitches Flooded Us . . . Them Bitches Killed Our People."

(...)The first time he came across any soldiers, Washington told me, they trained their rifles on him. I heard the same complaint from others, and it was easy to imagine. Squads from the 82nd Airborne patrolled the deserted New Orleans streets as if playing at urban warfare, M-16s at the ready. Of course, they weren't playing. Armored cars bristling with weaponry swerved around the corners. Rifle barrels protruded from the windows of passing SUVs. At the staging ground at the base of Canal Street - the most secure spot in the city if not the entire nation - hundreds of officials milled about lugging shotguns and automatic rifles as if expecting the Mahdi Army. Among thousands of soldiers and police from every imaginable government agency, I twice saw groups of heavily armed men in khaki fatigues wearing T-shirts that read "Blackwater." A city was submerged, hundreds of thousands homeless, and the feds called in the mercenaries.

Previously: "Rape, murder, beatings" in Astrodome, say evacuees

NEW: Bloggers Eduardo Arcos and Antonio Delgado translated that collection of evacuee comments into Spanish: Link

Reader comment: Stefan says,

Regarding the explosions, I live in Florida and went through three hurricanes last year. You often hear explosions during a hurricane. It's usually transformers shorting out. The "bangs" are quite impressive and can be heard long distances. I don't know the time line for when areas of NOLA lost power, but that could explain what they heard.

Before joining FEMA, his only previous stint in emergency management, according to his bio posted on FEMA's website, was "serving as an assistant city manager with emergency services oversight." The White House press release from 2001 stated that Brown worked for the city of Edmond, Okla., from 1975 to 1978 "overseeing the emergency services division." In fact, according to Claudia Deakins, head of public relations for the city of Edmond, Brown was an "assistant to the city manager" from 1977 to 1980, not a manager himself, and had no authority over other employees. "The assistant is more like an intern," she told TIME. "Department heads did not report to him." Brown did do a good job at his humble position, however, according to his boss. "Yes. Mike Brown worked for me. He was my administrative assistant. He was a student at Central State University," recalls former city manager Bill Dashner. "Mike used to handle a lot of details. Every now and again I'd ask him to write me a speech. He was very loyal. He was always on time. He always had on a suit and a starched white shirt."

Update: "Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown is being removed from his role managing Hurricane Katrina relief efforts." Link. A step in the right direction -- how about removing him from his *job*?

Reader comment: BB reader Robert, who happens to work at the Naval Research Lab, says:

You might want to note in your story on BoingBoing that the city of edmond put the crucifix on the city seal and was at one point in the late 90's contemplating approving a 100 ft. cross to be built by a religious group up there. It's also the site of one of the first big postal shootings.

This site is where college students from all around the nation go to enter a competition to creatively portray what their idea of "Seamless Mobility" is. The idea that technology should move seamlessly along with you throughout your daily activities should be showcased using film, animation, short story, essay, graphic art, or even a comic strip. The grand prize winner gets a $10,000 cash scholarship, a Bluetooth enabled car, and an apprenticeship with Motorola's Chief Technology Officer.

Denver Post columnist Diane Carman writes:

If I didn't know better, I'd have thought I was peering through the fence at a concentration camp.

The signs on the buildings say "Community College of Aurora," though for now they're serving as an impromptu Camp Katrina. About 160 hurricane survivors are being housed in the dorms, surrounded by fences, roadblocks, security guards and enough armed police officers to invade Grenada.

There's a credentials unit to process every visitor, an intake unit to provide identification tags and a bag of clothes to every evacuee, several Salvation Army food stations, portable toilets, shuttle buses, a green army-tent chapel with church services three times a day and a communications team to keep reporters as far away from actual news as possible.

It probably was easier for a reporter to get inside Gitmo on Tuesday than to penetrate the force field around Lowry. But survivors occasionally breached the lockdown and came to the fence to tell their stories, each one astonishing.

Image: "Verne Stovall, foreground, and her daughter-in-law, Jacquelyn Augustine, stand at a fence separating them from reporters and others Tuesday at the Community College of Aurora. Stovall recalled how she was rescued Sunday with 23 other people from a flooded house in New Orleans. (Denver Post / Glenn Asakawa)"

Five days in this motherfucking attic
I can't use the cellphone I keep getting static
Dying 'cause they lying instead of telling us the truth (...)
Screwed 'cause they say they're coming back for us, too
but that was three days ago and I don't see no rescue(...)

Swam to the store, tryin' to look for food
Corner store's kinda flooded so I broke my way through
Got what I could but before I got through
News say the police shot a black man trying to loot

Remixed by The Legendary K.O, Words by Big Mon and Damien a/k/a Dem Knock-Out Boyz.

Album cover 3rd one down here, more details here. (Thanks, feverish, and mo, via fwmj.com)

Following up on a previous BB post about beauracratic roadblocks for a low-power radio station offering information to evacuees at the Astrodome...

"Do you wish you could contact the people blocking the LPFM radio station?"

Here's contact information: Link.

Background on the project in Joel Johnson's story for Wired News: Link.

No one is covering this angle of the Katrina disaster yet: Infectious Disease Research in and Around New Orleans.

At the very least, there are two Level-3 biolabs in New Orleans and a cluster of three in nearby Covington. They have been working with anthrax, mousepox, HIV, plague, etc. There are surely other labs in the city.

The phone includes a removable 512MB Flash memory chip (found under the battery in the back of the phone). This chip will hold up to 100 tracks but the number of songs it holds isn't dependant strictly on the size of the chip (though it obviously can't contain more than 512MB of data). Rather, the 100 track limitation is part of a DRM scheme that prevents the phone from playing more than 100 tracks.

iTunes 5 keeps track of the number of tracks authorized for playback on the phone so even if your 100 tracks have used only 350MB of the card's capacity, you can't add more. Similarly, although you can swap in a new card that contains new tracks, those tracks won't play until they've been approved for playback by iTunes.

Viewers will find appropriations of Disney ventures - such as a reconfigured Lincoln from the Hall of Presidents, and a video remix of the Little Mermaid, merged with the angry telephone recording of a Disney studio executive. Anecdotes about the media and entertainment industries are expressed in such work as the discovery of "Howland Island," and ideas of approaching stores such as Petco as an art supplies depot. Other work includes a set of limited edition prints from Negativland's 2002 "Death Sentences" project.

"Go fuck yourself, Mr. Cheney!! Go fuck yourself!!!"

Cheney: [chuckles]

Link to details and video.

The BBC has released the first TV clips from its archive onto the internet for people to "rip, mix and share".

Almost 100 clips, from shows such as Walking With Beasts and Tomorrow's World, are for the UK public to use for free in their own creative works.

The BBC hopes to foster innovation by letting anyone re-use its material for personal and educational purposes under the Creative Archive Licence.

BBC Radio 1 launched the scheme with a competition to produce a music video.

The 9/11 terrorists used small pointy things to take over airplanes, so we ban small pointy things from airplanes. Richard Reid tried to hide a bomb in his shoes, so now we all have to take off our shoes. Recently, the Department of Homeland Security said that it might relax airplane security rules. It's not that there's a lessened risk of shoes, or that small pointy things are suddenly less dangerous. It's that those movie plots no longer capture the imagination like they did in the months after 9/11, and everyone is beginning to see how silly (or pointless) they always were...

The problem with movie plot security is that it only works if we guess right. If we spend billions defending our subways, and the terrorists bomb a bus, we've wasted our money. To be sure, defending the subways makes commuting safer. But focusing on subways also has the effect of shifting attacks toward less-defended targets, and the result is that we're no safer overall.

Terrorists don't care if they blow up subways, buses, stadiums, theaters, restaurants, nightclubs, schools, churches, crowded markets or busy intersections. Reasonable arguments can be made that some targets are more attractive than others: airplanes because a small bomb can result in the death of everyone aboard, monuments because of their national significance, national events because of television coverage, and transportation because most people commute daily. But the United States is a big country; we can't defend everything.

Simply look through the viewing port (see photo) and depress the button to activate the LEDs. Slowly scan areas where hidden cameras are suspected and look for bright reflected spots. Remember, most hidden video cameras use pinhole camera lenses, so the spot you are looking for could be small.

This is [a photo I took of] Danny Smith. Danny saw my media badge and asked if I could listen to his problem. He is homeless evacuee staying inside the Astrodome. He got a check (debit card? credit slip?) from FEMA today that he is looking to trade in for free rent with an apartment or house, as arranged between FEMA and local housing agencies.

He called the Oak Brook Apartment complex in Houston (Link to GMaps) and was told they have an open apartment. They then asked if he was a felon. Danny had a conviction in 2001 (I didn't ask for what) and told them he did. He was told that he would not be allowed to move in because they did not accept felons.

I'm at a loss. If this is a Houston-wide issue, it will affect many people—people who have commited a crime in the past, but are now on the street, having served their time. If this is the individual policy of the Oak Brook apartments, then I think they're making a big mistake.

I told Danny there wasn't much I could do, but that I would write about it. At the moment, I don't really have much of a chance to confirm or disconfirm if this is an official policy at FEMA. I did call Janet at Oak Brook Apartments. She confirmed this is their policy.

No drilling necessary. Just press Taperwire on the wall and attach your speakers and sound system. Hidden by paint, wallpaper or spackle, this paper-thin wire will go unnoticed. You can even lay it under carpets—no bulges!

Update: Leanne, "I noticed in the knit sculptures by Patricia Waller that the strange creatures with the IVs are labeled 'Tierversuche.' This is translated into English as 'animal testing,' which maybe gives a better insight into what the artist was intending to convey."

On Aug. 27, Waterford declared an Unusual Event and shut down protectively when a hurricane warning was issued for St. Charles Parish, in which the plant is located. The robust design of the plant protected it from any damage, although offsite power and some communications capability was lost during the storm. An Unusual Event is the lowest of four emergency action levels.

Over the weekend, operators restored offsite power, ending reliance on standby diesel generators. An additional set of generators, brought in before the storm as a precautionary measure, were never needed. Repairs have also been made to communications systems, which had been disrupted by Hurricane Katrina. The reactor is safely shut down and the plant cannot restart without NRC permission.

The plant will remain shut down while workers perform some minor maintenance unrelated to the hurricane. Operators will not restart the reactor until NRC completes its restart readiness assessment, to verify both the plant and its staff are ready to support full power operation. The agency’s resident inspectors, augmented by regional and Headquarters staff, will continue around-the-clock oversight of licensee activities.

Previously:

New Orleans Waterford nuke plant -- update

Update on New Orleans nuke plant status

Reader comment: Ed Mironiuk says: I'm really suprised/psyched to find my photoshop handiwork in Boing Boing... as proof I put my last name in the background. I've attached a close up. I wanted to let you know that I have also put the image on my products at Cafepress. All of my profits will be going to The Red Cross and Noah's Wish. Thank you for the exposure.

"In addition to the exhibit this stunning display of neo-primitive images is captured in a 116 page full color cata- log available opening night. Published by 9mm Books,the catalog features an introduction by world famous artist,curator and art writer Jeffrey Vallance,and foreword by Tikimiester Otto von Stroheim,publisher of Tiki News."

I love the lettering on this cover. It reminds me of the signs I saw at a grocery store in Kauai last week.
Link

I have two framed Keane prints in my office (purchased at a garage sale in Studio City for $20) and in the Happy Mutant Handbook we ran a great comic about the incredibly weird lawsuit that the husband and wife Keanes filed against each other. They each claimed to be the primary artist of the paintings. I think Margaret was the real artist of the pair. She's still going at it and her work is better than ever.

When I used to commute every week between my home Los Angeles and the Wired offices in San Francisco, I used to pass by the Keane Eyes Gallery. I really wanted the painting of a single big eye, but it was too expensive.

The world famous "Big Eye" paintings had their beginning in San Francisco over 50 years ago, by the artist Margaret Keane. In time they also became known and referred to as "Waifs," "Keane," "Sad Eyes," and many other titles, all depicting the unique styles of this very creative woman. You may be surprised to hear the artist is a woman. You see, for many years she was married to a man who claimed credit for what she painted. To prove she was in fact the artist and not her former husband, she painted in court before a Federal Judge and jury, an original oil on canvas painting. When her ex-husband was asked to paint by the judge, his reply was: "I can't today, because I have a sore shoulder." Needless to say Margaret won the case and she continues to paint those Big Eyes we have come to love so dearly.

"No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun -- for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax -- This won't hurt."

They locked out the people out of the dome, evacuees and volunteers. we have not had volunteers able to come in all morning. people just screaming broke into the gate to get in and all the people and volunteers ran into the dome. hundreds, at least 200 or 300 people started pushing in. no one was on the other side of the locked gate, no traffic no guards, etc. my volunteer guy telling the story from the human rights campaign ran in too. finally one police officer tried to corral people and push them back out. and in ffact everyone was pushed out. except my guy who pretended he had been in all along. and the people who had been in were pushed out and locked out.

rumors: Bush is here or coming here any minute. and/or, FEMA is giving out debit cards and people got very rowdy and so fema locked everything down mega tight.

No reliant empolyees, no one , no officers, no one to ask, people screaming and panicking, locked out of what is now their home, their kids are in here, etc. no one in the dome knows what is happening

First guest is the always entertaining storyteller and Mac co-creator, Andy Hertzfeld, author of Revolution in the Valley.
Link

* A microwave oven which is able to produce about 700 Watts of microwave power,
* A small piece of aluminum sheet, 5/10 mm thick and about 10x10 cm,
* A piece of adhesive aluminum or a cyanoacrylate glue tube,
* A small glass of water,
* Some pencil graphite leads ( 2mm diameter, type HB N°2 ),
* A spherical glass vessel ( Pyrex (Tm) is recommended ), about 110 mm diameter.

In converting the old twin Seed Silos on Copenhagen’s waterfront into residential towers the architects placed the circulation in the core of the concrete structures and, literally, “clipped” the apartment to the exterior of the silos.

Both silo cores are covered by glass roofs, forming a lobby area as tall as the building itself, and within which residents and visitors will be able to pass upwards and downwards. In this way the silo will form a new core for the project, while all of the useable parts of the structure, all of its spaces, will benefit from the project's unique location.

The core becomes an open lobby atrium, covered by a glass roof for natural light, with visible elevators, stairs, and access to the apartment. The silos are connected on each floor.

Two car loads of us headed over to Falls Creek, a youth camp for Southern Baptist churches in Oklahoma that agreed to have its facilities used to house Louisiana refugees. I'm afraid the camp is not going to be used as the kind people of the churches who own the cabins believe it was going to be used.

Jesse Jackson was right when he said "refugees" was not the appropriate word for the poor souls dislocated due to Katrina. But he was wrong about why it is not appropriate. It's not appropriate because they are detainees, not refugees.

(...) We then started lugging in our food products. The foods I had purchased were mainly snacks, but my mother - God bless her soul - had gone all out with fresh vegetables, fruits, canned goods, breakfast cereals, rice, and pancake fixings. That's when we got the next message: They will not be able to use the kitchen. Excuse me? I asked incredulously.

FEMA will not allow any of the kitchen facilities in any of the cabins to be used by the occupants due to fire hazards. FEMA will deliver meals to the cabins. The refugees will be given two meals per day by FEMA. They will not be able to cook. In fact, the "host" goes on to explain, some churches had already enquired about whether they could come in on weekends and fix meals for the people staying in their cabin. FEMA won't allow it because there could be a situation where one cabin gets steaks and another gets hot dogs - and... it could cause a riot. It gets worse.

He then precedes to tell us that some churches had already enquired into whether they could send a van or bus on Sundays to pick up any occupants of their cabins who might be interested in attending church. FEMA will not allow this. The occupants of the camp cannot leave the camp for any reason. If they leave the camp they may never return. They will be issued FEMA identification cards and "a sum of money" and they will remain within the camp for the next 5 months.

My son looks at me and mumbles "Welcome to Krakow."

"Reminds me of that horror story related to FEMA called Rex-84," says one Boing Boing reader who asks to remain anonymous.

Reader comment: Katherine Brownlowe says,

I am a psychiatry resident at Maine Medical Center and have been following all of this with horror.

One of our ER nurses is down there and after running a MASH-style hospital for a few days, he is now sitting on his hands, not doing much of anything. The Maine Emergency Management Agency is requesting health care volunteers, but interstingly they don't ask for psychiatrists or psych nurses. Can you imagine the numbers of chronically mentally ill, as well as all the new horrors being heaped upone everyone down there--and they aren't asking us to help?

One of the things that we know about trauma and the development of [post-traumatic stress disorder, or] PTSD is that people who have nothing to do will be affected much worse...so basically, we are ensuring that all the refugees are going to have horrific PTSD by not allowing them to get out and start picking up the pieces of their lives...even getting the refugees themselves to have some kind of project--like distributing food or clothing to each other--will help give people a sense of purpose, decrease the trauma risk, and also decrease unrest and irritability among the "detainees." Instead our government is keeping people penned up like animals.

Guess they'll need the psychiatrists for a while....and for a long while.

What everyone fails to understand about the Bush Administration response to Katrina is the underlying reasoning. My wife (who is an Evangelical Christian) explained to me that this is the beginning of the 'End Times'. Katrina is just one of the portents. Bush et al are just marking time until Rapture. God smote the modern Sodom as a sign of his might (on this Dr. Dobson and Bin Laden agree). This event in just another sign of the Second Coming. By controlling the press, freedom of movement, etc. Bush is help people to get ready for the Rapture. None of the problems are the fault of Bush, they are controlled by God. So do not blame Bush, it is not his fault, God made him do it.

Update 2: The FEMA facility in question has been "put on standby. Link (Thanks, Jake Appelbaum)

Thanks for publishing my plea to get involved the other day. Unfortunately nothing has come of that. No one is proceeding at this point. However, plenty of opportunities to help refugees in Atlanta are now available, so that's where my time has gone.

My company cleans up waste industrial gas cylinders and specialty chemicals. As such we are in contact with the EPA regularly and often work for the government. As you might imagine, there is expected to be a large number of cylinders recovered from Katrina, and many will probably be in bad shape, or even unknowns, which can present hazard. Today a consultant who works with us and the EPA came back from the Gulf region. Here are some of the things that he had to report:

* He said that the 30 elderly who died in the nursing home were simply forgotten. They were supposed to be rescued but someone dropped the ball and they died.

* There are now 130,000 people working in the Gulf region, including 60,000 National Guard. Conditions for these workers, especially the contractors, are extremely hard. Many are sleeping in their cars and have to supply their own food and water. There is as yet no infrastructure in place to support this group. 80% of these people have terrible diarrhea and some have been hospitalized.

* Under Homeland Security, FEMA is supposed to be in charge, but they have been marginalized due to their obvious screw ups. The National Guard is now in charge in the region and they have no experience in these matters. This is aggravating a bad situation.

* The plan going forward for New Orleans is to demolish all the houses and burn them. There is nowhere to bury the waste in the region so they will incinerate it all. Before that can go on, they will have to search every house for chemical hazards.

* They have found large numbers of seals in and around the houses in NOLA and no one is clear where they came from. An aquarium?

* They are shooting hundreds of dogs a day to protect search and rescue workers. The Humane Society shelters in the region have over 4000 animals.

* The entire Gulfport region is blocked by National Guard and only authorized contractors can get in. An RV campground has grown up outside the roadblock of 80 or more contractors hoping to get a piece of the action. These people have signs outside saying, "Mold Expert," "Asbestos Contractor," etc. They are having cookouts at their RVs just to try to get people to come and talk to them.

* Cell phone towers are on their way from Germany to get the communication infrastructure back in place. The EPA ordered 40 satellite phones to get their people in contact. Those phones have arrived, but no one ordered SIM cards and these phones are currently useless.

* This contractor has been organizing reverse osmosis (RO) water purification units from all over the country since last Tuesday. He has over 100 units of various sizes available to move into the region, but no one will give the go ahead. No one will sign their name to a piece of paper for fear recriminations later. He says that over 80 million pint bottles of water have been purchased at $0.75 each. The RO units can produce a gallon of water from contaminated water for $0.01 and they can produce thousands of gallons a day. Two are staged near the zone and these alone can produce 250,000 gallons per day. The Army has RO units, but every functional one, and every operator trained to use them, is in Iraq or Afghanistan.

* The Navy ship Bataan, which has been widely reported to be available for producing water, can only do desalination, but cannot handle contaminated water.

* All of the Army's good gear, including vehicles and generators are overseas. Humvees and other vehicles in the Gulf region are breaking down frequently.

Certainly I cannot attest to the absolute reliability of all this information, but it is from a reliable source who has been involved with EPA response to hazardous situations for 20 years.

He confirms what everyone else has already said: the clusterfuck down there is beyond all imagining.

Regarding medications and cold turkey withdrawal -- I've been volunteering with the Red Cross at shelters in San Antonio (there are four, so far; earlier this week there were, on average, 2,000 in each, but I don't know how much that's changed). One of the first questions we ask evacuees when we check them in is, "Are you on any medication, and do you have it with you?" (We also attend to people who haven't had tetanus or hep vaccinations, or who were in the water, or who have any other kind of ailments.)

Local pharmacies are processing Katrina meds with priority, and volunteers bring in huge bags full of bottles every morning and every evening. And to respond to the comment about medication in a very specific way, I know that here, at least, they're providing anti-depressants, etc. because I helped a man who'd lost his glasses, read a label for his anxiety pills.

That said, I'm not surprised in the least that people are snapping. The things that these victims have suffered are almost beyond imagining, and although the shelters I'm working in are very calm, clean, orderly, etc. I can imagine that in other circumstances the shock and pain might just be too much for some people, whose behavior sets it off in others, and so on.

On a side note, one of the things I've encountered the most is that people are having a lot of trouble locating their friends and relatives. Because people are being moved from location to location as they make their way out of Louisiana, it's difficult to know even what state a person is in, much less which shelter. I know that as time goes on the systems for refugee registration and communication between shelters/cities/states will improve, but for the time being, it's heartbreaking to watch as people come in search of their mothers and husbands, often from hours away, and can't find them.

The Red Cross has set up the Family Links Registry at familylinks.icrc.org/katrina or 1-877-568-3317. I hope that it's been useful. The shelters I work with have only just now gotten their phone banks up and running, and I know that NOLA area cell phones are still out of commission.

Snip from press release:

Houston Independent media organizers, who have been working in concert with local community organizations, relief groups, the Federal Communications Commission, a major electronics manufacturer, and the City of Houston, have been denied permission to build a 30-watt radio station inside the Astrodome by R.W. Royall Jr., Incident Commander of the JIC (Joint Information Committee) at the Astrodome.

Organizers at the Prometheus Radio Project, a not-for-profit organization that helps community groups broacast to their neighborhoods under 100-watt licenses, vowed to keep pushing for permission for this vital station, and for others like it.

After waiting over 5 days since the radio volunteers received official the official go-ahead from the FCC to build their station, a senior staffer for the Harris County administration of the Astrodome abruptly stamped 'Denied' on a piece of paper.

The organizers with Indymedia have gathered a full broadcast-ready radio station, hand-tested by professional engineers in Portland and Austin. They also have a license in hand from the FCC, as well as 2 seperate sources of over 10,000 radios. One of those sources is a donation from the Sony corporation.

Previously: LPFM station for Astrodome blocked

Update: Joel Johnson files a story for Wired News here, with details: Link

Required Stuff

1. tiger-x86-flat.img Commonly referred to as the "deadmoo" image, it can be found on bittorent sites by searching for "VMWare files for patched Mac OS X Tiger Intel" or "tiger-x86-flat.img" or "tiger-x86.tar.bz2" Find this file! It is the disk image that contains OSX86.

2. There are now ways to install OSX86 on a PC with Windows already on it (linked guides to follow), but I would recommend a new hard drive with at least 8GBs storage.

3. Now, if you will be using the real Mac method you will need to get a hard drive case, if your Mac does not have a spot for a 2nd hard drive. Hard drive cases can be found pretty cheap.

4. If you will not be going the real Mac route, you will find that a lot of the guides ask for you to burn yourself a Linux LiveCD. I would use Ubuntu.

5. Remind myself to delete number 5.

Touching or creepy? It's a little of both! Here's a new way of being a carpetbagger that doesn't require you to leave your house.

Men all over the country are suddenly interested in the women of New Orleans. "Fresh start in California" offers one. "Looking to help and start over as well" offers a man in Washington DC. A man in Las Vegas holds out hope of "A safe place to get on your feet."

These all seem like nice guys (especially the last, whose ad is actually kind of heartwarming.) But still: what better foundation for a lasting relationship than finding someone who's utterly helpless and giving them a chance to be dependent on you?

Welcome to Songs From The Commons

The purpose of this show is two-fold.

On the one hand, I am featuring CC licensed music from the various libraries of it online. Explaining more to artists about how CC-licenses work, and demonstrating that more and more artists of increasingly professional quality are becoming involved in the Commons Revolution.

On the other hand, this show will provide a step by step basic understanding of Copyright Law and how the big cases affect the public, so they can understand better when new cases are decided by the Supreme Court in the years to come.

So basically, if you want to spend five minutes a week learning about Copyright Law, in an attempt to begin to understand what the hell is going on with these landmark cases and how the average person is ultimately affected, while listening to cool music in-between, then you’ll like this show.

Update: Robyn sez, "There's a really great book on both of Aw Boon Haw's gardens. It's really well designed and is fantastically detailed."

Some folks set up a digital projector outfitted with an FM transmitter and put it inside a car. Every couple of weeks they send out an e-mail to a listserv full of fans with details on the movie that will be showing, the wall it will be projected on, the time and whatnot. You show up, tune to the designated FM station and enjoy a flick, or steam up the windows. The Mobile Movie movement started in Santa Cruz, and is now playing in Berkeley, Oakland, Minneapolis, Dallas, Los Angeles, West Chester, PA., and Tampa City, FL.

I am entering the Convention Center in Austin. Unlike the refugees an police, I have no ID, no tag on my wrist, just my ragged handbag and my lap top.

Nobody asks me anything, though I notice, all the people inside the camp are tagged with different colors, and there are security men and women all over the place.

In this huge no man's land, there are so many nobody people that a woman like me can pretty much become one of them. After few moments of my wandering I am offered a cheese sandwich, information on where to queue for food stamps, and a wif-fi hotspot for my computer.

"Do you have a number Ma’am?:

No, I say, I am from Serbia...

"Do you need some clothes?"

Well, I could do with some clothes...

Piles of clothes, in all sizes, in all colors...

Here people are mostly black, of all ages, of all sizes, of all shades of color, but there are some like me too... Middle-aged white women from nowhere, feeling at home almost everywhere, when it comes to disasters...

This center for refugees is well-organized, compared to my ex Yugoslav experience. It has air conditioning, abundant cooked food, extremely clean bathrooms and well-behaved people. Nobody is crying, nobody looks depressed yet, nobody is even fighting...

Information center desk, youth center desk, school information desk, jobs information desk, family elder members desk, computer desk, deaf assistance desk, farmer’s desk, unemployment insurance desk, alcoholic anonymous desk, church desk

Warnetta and Johnnetta are approaching me. Warnetta is simply dressed with long black braids, and Johnetta is all dressed up in red, fancy red make up, literally red long hair, jewels, she is gorgeous.

Johnetta says to me: I need somebody to take over my group tomorrow after school; I will not have time to handle them...

Oh, I say, tomorrow I will not be here.

Johnetta looks at me in disbelief. But you can tell me who can help me, you are the woman in green.

No, I am here just to see you and write about you. Can I take a picture of you?

They gently embrace and smile: Johnnetta says, we love it here, tomorrow I am starting to work, nine dollars per hour, everybody is so kind to us here, we have no home but I don’t mind, I have my five kids, four are taken care of in the kindergarten and this is Warnetta my oldest, but she makes me look old, I am thirty three and I don’t want to tell she is my daughter, she is 14... They will never fix my home town properly and we will never go back... because they all knew it was coming and it will come again... but they never do anything to build us good homes, to give people money to build them...

Barbara Bush, the wicked grandma, gave an interview only yesterday, chuckling how poor people will abuse the hospitality in Texas and never go back home. Is THIS what she meant? Her cynical remark was not meant to be cynical; it was a threat, for Johnetta and Warnetta who want to rent a place and stay in Austin until somebody fixes their town PROPERLY.

Both sides know pretty well what they are talking about; Barbara and Johnnetta are quarreling.

"Ma’am, how are you doing?" I am patted on my shoulder by a perfumed elderly volunteer. "I see you managed to rescue your computer."

I'd better play the refugee after all, it is the safest place in this messy country I guess: not that I am far from that condition. I've been a refugee in my own country. This time I am refugee in somebody else’s country. I can tell the difference now.

Is there any? Fay looks just like me. Fay sits next to me, presuming I was just like her: somebody who only a few days ago had a great life and didn’t know it, who took life for granted. Well, how else, I say, one cannot always be a refugee? Or maybe yes, she says, maybe from now on she will always be a refugee: she is a journalist and now she will become a writer she says; exactly like me.

She will become the main character of her own stories. And it will feel good, I promise her. Here I am still feeling good about it and writing.

At a corner of the huge circular building, black male teens have a basket and are playing basketball; tall handsome swift and deft. Some will join the NBA some day. Around them are children perfectly healthy playing games in wheelchairs; there are also some people in the wheelchairs paying no attention to the bored kids. In the corner watching them a pretty girl is sulking. The basketball player comes up to her and cuddles her: she is angry with him... he is neglecting her... a new romance, for the black Romeo and Juliet in a refugee center. At least they are alive and will stay so; away from their parents it seems, I wonder if the parents are alive...

"My husband had to leave too; he stayed until the very end but then it became dangerous, looting and shooting and the diseases... the smell, oh the smell... dead bodies, the heat...." The old black woman's nose is quivering: she is very well dressed and well-kept, everybody is fussing around her, but she seems to be alone and wants to stay alone.

Where is your husband, I ask?

She is silent, her eyes are blank... In my country too, old people preferred to stay at their homes, whatever may happen. Is there such a thing as homeland after all, I wonder? Or is it lack of courage and energy... why did she make it here and he didn’t?

Who is this old respectable thin woman staring out of the window in silence?

The other old woman is all dolled up; she is sitting in the terrace, chain-smoking, chain-talking. The chair next to her is empty. People come and go and listen to her, but she never stops talking. She has thin legs and a big belly, a pretty old face and fancy sexy clothes: everybody seems to know her. They are offering her stuff and want to help, to carry her, amuse her, bring her music. But she talks and talks only. She reminds me of a raped woman who compulsively talked after she escaped the war zone; she talked sweetly and mildly of everything, even of her rapist... This woman is telling us all how happy she is with life as such, happy to be alive, happy to be here.... I wonder when she will break down, from that chair, from that cigarette to which she is clinging to as if it were a pillar.

I guess she needs a drink, but nobody drinks here.

A desk with pretty young white girls has several posters: child and women abuse. I approach them, they give me their material, they have shelters, therapies for all situations. They are local feminist groups present in the center.

I hear live music, it is melodic and rhythmical as in films I saw from New Orleans, a black old man is singing with his guitar, joined by another younger one who has some kind of flute, the on lookers are stamping their feet and clapping their hands... some are joining in.... not many, but I hear they are planning a party... I wish I could be there...

But then, they start playing the American national anthem, people stand straight and a big applause ends it. Is that their patriotism? Is this America?

What about the global warming that made all this happen, what about Iraq?

A young man from New Orleans was telling this morning how he plans to go back even though his house is destroyed, and to MAKE sure that the city is rebuild in a proper way: that the politicians don’t steal and waste the money; that right guys get in charge and start anew, make a new go of it, this time on proper roots.... Everybody could tell this disaster was going to happen, why didn’t anybody do something about it?

Corruption, racism, classism.... Bush is a spoiled rich kid and behaves as such....

No, I say, he is a war criminal: all the money the world is giving now to US, money from the poorest countries in the world, may as well be used for the wars against the same countries that are giving the money. What a thought? You should secede... from Bush.

Somebody in a county of Louisiana already proclaimed secession, that to draw the attention of the press and the administration, as a trick of course...

What a thought! I really meant it...

The barber’s shop; finally I see how black hair is neatly and patiently done in braids, dreads, colors.... I myself may give it a try. Many years ago, when my white friend from Serbia was attacked by some black people because she was presumably white and rich, she said to them a historical phrase we all white refugees quote here in black US: I come from a country which is in civil war, even if we look exactly the same.

Some military guys appear behind a neatly set desk. Next to them is a desk with a sign; We Support Our Troops, veterans. Well, good thing that troops are supporting those people here, if indeed they are.

And the wifi Internet access I am using while writing this is called Tsunami, it is excellent and free. Kids are gathering around me to play with my computer. Boredom is the biggest killer in places like this. Even if you have your needs met, the definition of being a refugee is being left without your day; be it in a palace, be it in the gutters. Women cope better than men usually speaking, children best on the long run.... They may even realize Mrs. Bush’ s fears and stay in their new homes as if their own, making the old settlers run after their survivor's energy and skills.

I am looking at a beautiful baby toddler, a girl, she is playing with my bag, smiling and chirping. I pat her, tickle her; her father is huge and angry, he takes her by her belt and picks her up like a mother cat. She is screaming her head off, she wants her doll back, that’s me, I want my girlfriend back, that’s her... but we will never meet again. I am taking a picture of her, one of those faces I will never forget.... Her mom is missing.

A pang; I miss my grown up daughter in Serbia: she used to be small and dark and a refugee too... About 4,000 people here, an Austin volunteer tells me, giving me his email so I can send him my text. More people are coming in but some are already leaving, to other places, relatives, new jobs, new homes... They are not called refugees, they are called "evacuees."

Elderly well dressed couples from Austin show up in the afternoon, strolling among the evacuees smiling broadly and kindly at all of us. When they asked me, with the air of Princess Diana, "How are you doing? We see you managed to get your computer out," I didn’t have the heart to tell them that I was from Serbia, and that I am doing fine.

If rain is forecast within the next half hour, the peg will lock itself.

The lock-down prevents the washing being hung on the line...

He was inspired by his own personal frustrations with soggy pants.

"I thought of clothes pegs because so often I hang washing out, only to take it in five minutes later, absolutely soaked," he said.

12. Children will not eat fruit or vegetables. Ever.

13. Both men and women find driving deeply pleasurable, never boring or stressful.

18. Hot beverages have miraculous rejuvenating effects.

22. Children know more than adults.

Rita Obey is the person that told Austin Airwaves they had to have 10,000 radios before they could broadcast. We purchased a number of radios and while we’ve had some issues with this, it was just a meaningless golden egg. We called her bluff by getting the radios lined up to be purchased and they threw something else out.

At 16:29 (CST) today, RW Royal Jr. Incident Commander of the JIC (Joint Information Commity) has denied Austin Airwaves the ability to run the emergency low power FM radio station inside of the dome. This is contrary to the FCC licenses that have been issued to Austin Airwaves. However RW Royal Jr is a member of the JIC. He has decided to deny the request. When they asked why they were being turned down, they were told that the Astrodome could not provide them with electricity. When the Austin Airwaves team offered to run on battery backup, they were still denied.

This is an OUTRAGE.

The people on the ground I spoke with personally asked me why I was there. I told them that I was with a group helping to bring emergency information to them over a radio inside the dome. Those people were overjoyed to hear that they would get a radio station with emergency information, with information on job interviews, with information on food, housing, clothing and other important information. It breaks my heart.

Why has this man denied this? Why is the government going out of its way to stop us from helping people?

"The first picture gives you a close up view of a baby resting in the Astrodome at 3:30AM. Photo taken by permission of the child's mother."

"The second photo of the same baby and mother, wide shot, tells the real story."

I have no way of substantiating the statements of those Jacob spoke to, but I present them here as a snapshot of first-person accounts. While some misinformation may be circulating as rumor among evacuees, let's also remember that reports of deaths and violence inside the New Orleans Superdome and Convention Center were dismissed as "rumor" in early days by authorities before reporters proved them to be true.

Joel Johnson, who's traveling with Jacob, adds:

While much of the news sounds very dire -- and nobody will argue this is a bad situation for the evacuees, no matter how well it is run -- many of the people in the Astrodome complex were in very good spirits and were quick to offer praise of the people of Houston. There are plenty of issues that need to be discussed, but the evacuees are keeping the area very clean and equilaterally said they were happier to be in the Astrodome than stuck in the Superdome or elsewhere in New Orleans.

10:23: Joel just got removed. Almost arrested. Fox News is down on the floor. I'm in dome, hiding in seats. They're allowing some media on the floor, not others.

10:31 Just met members of the Polish press, they are being stopped from entering floor. Says this is like the former USSR.

10:57 Raw transcript of comments by NOLA evacuee Clara Barthelemy: "The 17th street levee was bombed by the Army Corps of Engineers to save the more valuable real estate in the city… to keep the French Quarter protected, the ninth ward was sacrificed… people are afraid to speak out… everyone who was near there heard the bombings… they bombed seven times. That's why they didn't fix the levees… 20 feet of water. Gators. People dying in water. They let the parishes go, not the city center. Tourist trap was saved over human life. A six year old girl was raped in here.. 9 year old boy killed. A man in the shower beaten. No hot food. No help for elderly."

Another evacuee: "Over 20 rapes per night happening inside this place. They bring in national guard for media purposes. Bush wants us to stay here to raise his ratings. Some workers are stealing the good stuff, like shoes."

11:16: Rough transcript of comments by NOLA evacuee, male: "We are treated like prisoners here. Placed under mandatory curfew. We are citizens!"

11:22 Now I'm speaking to someone else, another woman, who says some people report having witnessed "bomb sounds," believe 17th street levee and others were blown up to manage water flow and protect more valuable portions of real estate.

Evacuee Dianne Stafford: "They blew the levee to save the city…" Saying a barge broke the levee. She is from St. Bernard Parish. "More expensive places were saved at the expense of the neighborhoods that aren't as valuable… Rebuilding Bourbon Street matters more to the government… that's what mattered to Governor Blanco…"

11:36 I'm speaking to a man who's been wearing the exact same pair of 2XL stretch pants since the storm hit. Some clothing is available for evacuees, but he is a large man and can't find anything available to fit his body. He's a diabetic but has good medical care. This so depressing. Its so hard to not cry when you hear this shit. The very large and very old have little help.

11:59 CNN have no problem getting in. Nobody's stopping them from accessing the floor, but other credentialed press who already have press badges are being stopped.

12:09 Evacuees I'm talking to are all telling me about rapes, murders, beatings which are taking place inside the Astrodome.

12:24 Man I'm speaking to, Danny Smith, says he cannot get housing because he has a felony. Aid workers found him a house but he is a felon, so they turned him away. FEMA has agreed to pay for his apartment, but he cannot get one. "Everyone has a felony here," he says. He thinks that people are going to riot

12:29 Evacuee Irvin Skinner: We have a curfew. We're being kept inside after 11pm. Forced to stay inside. They threw guns on everyone. Said 'come inside or your out of here'. Shoved guns, pointed them at adults. I'm a grown man, I have rights. This is an instituion to us, it's like a jail. I'm a middle class man with a home being trated like a criminal because I'm black. If we were white, we wouldn't have this problem."

"We are not here by choice."

13:03 Harris County will not allow any radio station inside without a FEMA form even if operator has FCC permission. Austin Airwaves says trying to get form now, been waiting 2.5 days. No radio station inside the dome until that form is filled out.

Reader comment: Bryan says,

Seeing the stories of the violence going on... and considering how the medical system has been pumping people full of anti-depresents... and personally seeing what happens when you try to take someone on heavy dosage to cold turkey, I wonder how many of the people acting out are acting out of shock combined with drug withdrawal. Nobody seems to be asking this question.

The "rape, murder, beatings" that are alleged to be commonplace in the Astrodome are a load of hooey. I've been volunteering since this past Saturday and I work the overnight shifts. While there may be isolated incidents of petty crime, there is heavy police presence everywhere.

Other inaccuracies:

Hot food is available several times per day. I should know, I've worked the food area several times.

Much care is available for the elderly, including a full on-site hospital with geriatrics department and complete pharmacy dispensing 1300+ prescriptions per day.

A LOT of clothing is available for evacuees - HUGE amounts, in all sizes. The main sorting area is in the Reliant Center. Anything you could possibly want can be found there.

Anyone missing any medication can go to the medical facility and have their medications replaced, free of charge. Medical care and all prescriptions are free. No one is undergoing "withdrawal" for anything (legal), unless they are doing so voluntarily. They will even arrange for people to continue methadone therapy.

They built the Remedi-Hand in three parts – the three middle fingers are very similar in size and movement so they made those identical. The pinky is a smaller version of the same. Each of these four fingers are made up of a motor attached to a gearbox attached to a carbon fibre finger. All of this is fitted to a carbon fibre palm. But the thumb was much more complicated and is the first artificially-made opposable thumb.

The human thumb can move in special ways the fingers can't. It can rotate as well as flex and also move in a variety of different directions. It can also oppose (touch) each of the fingers in the hand to form a 'pinch'. To mimic this, the Remedi-Hand uses two motors – one to allow it to rotate and one to allow it to flex. "The real thumb can move in five types of way, we've managed to create a thumb that can mimic at least two of these which is a really exciting achievement. It's a thumb that has really good flexibility and functionality" says (researcher Paul) Chappell.

One of the key differences between mechanical, artificial, limbs is that they arn't able to sense pressure or touch in the same way human limbs can. The next stage of Dr Chappell's research is to integrate the latest sensors technology with the Remedi-Hand to create a 'clever' hand which has better functionality and move like a real hand, but which can also sense how strongly it's gripping an object or whether an object is slipping.

The Mercury-bound MESSENGER spacecraft captured several stunning images of Earth during a gravity assist swingby of its home planet on Aug. 2, 2005. Several hundred images, taken with the wide-angle camera in MESSENGER’s Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS), were sequenced into a movie documenting the view from MESSENGER as it departed Earth.

Comprising 358 frames taken over 24 hours, the movie follows Earth through one complete rotation. The spacecraft was 40,761 miles (65,598 kilometers) above South America when the camera started rolling on Aug. 2. It was 270,847 miles (435,885 kilometers) away from Earth – farther than the Moon’s orbit – when it snapped the last image on Aug. 3.

I was nearly thrown out of the Astrodome complex for helping set up a network for donated computers. To be fair (...) it was basically a big misunderstanding. You’ll also be able to read about my confusion about press access and be able to infer the reasons behind why I sometimes consider ditching the press credentials altogether and just lie.

Snip from an IM convo with Joel earlier today:

I just received word from the volunteer group setting up the low-power FM transmitter that they have gotten the final approval to broadcast information to evacuees inside the Astrodome. Having already secured the 10,000 radios requested by a single Astrodome administrator, this was the final hurdle. (Also posted to Gizmodo).

This should have happened days ago.

During calmer times, the ad-hoc culture of open-source wireless, mesh networking and free municipal Wi-Fi is often seen as outside of the industry mainstream.

But those alternative approaches are perfect in crises where conventional infrastructure is damaged, said Sascha Meinrath of the Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network.

Last week, CUWireless launched the "Katrina Community Wireless Rapid Response" project to funnel grass-roots offers toward areas in need.

"We have a breakdown in many of the things that people rely on to deploy these systems, and then we have people whose expertise is in rubber-banding and bubble-gum-sticking and pulling together things with whatever's at hand," Meinrath told Wired News. "That's very much what we need right now -- people with that level of improvisation and expertise."

Hurricane Katrina wiped out communications systems throughout the Gulf states, and much of the impacted region remains cut off from voice and data service. But some connectivity is coming back from unexpected sources, thanks in part to tech industry volunteers who've teamed up with the Federal Communications Commission.

"We now have an adolescent America with enough intelligence to run a war and run a vast economy. It's beginning to swallow its own myth. I worry for the future when the infantilizing process takes America and parts of Western Europe (including us) down with it, to be ten years old, or even younger. What happens when we get down to the nursery, and find we can't change our own diapers?" (from an interview with Graeme Revell. 2003)

"I sometimes think that in a sense we're entering a New Dark Age. The lights are full on, but there's an inner darkness ... because we're retreating into a sort of [mind-set] of our pre-rational forebears who lived in a kind of animist world where everything had a spirit -- every twig, every stone in a stream ... where questions of guilt and anxiety and fear and aggression ruled our reflexes." (from an interview with V. Vale. 2004)

"I've often thought that the whole notion of the 'avant-garde' has vanished. The nearest you get to that is a sort of 'designer' avant-garde offering a stylized rebelliousness ... a kind of Perrier avant-garde that's homogenized and made palatable for the weekend consumer."

"Today if you want to be the equivalent of the pioneering artist of the 1880's -- if you want to be a Gauguin of the present day, you might actually go and buy a gun and shoot Margaret Thatcher and Princess Di! Its no longer enough to think in terms of changing the world through arts anymore. The arts are a form of purient entertainment." (from interviews with Mark Pauline. 1980's)

"We have requested that no photographs of the deceased be made by the media," a [FEMA] spokeswoman said in an e-mailed response to a Reuters inquiry.

The Bush administration also has prevented the news media from photographing flag-draped caskets of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq, which has sparked criticism that the government is trying to block images that put the war in a bad light.

There were alligators eating people, babies floating in the water, hundreds of bodies of dead people..

"We understood why the police couldn't help us but we didn't understant why the National Guard wouldn't stop and pick us up from the roof...

"Some men came and they were raping our women...

If they hadn't left us out there like animals this wouldn't have happened... there are still thousands of people trapped down there downtown.. old people, young people, babies, pregnant women, nobody's helping them...

The BBC just called me. I am the only media [they could reach] inside the dome. We did a long interview and it’s going to be broadcast on Friday at 13:00 on their live webcast.

The media censorship here runs high. It was not easy to actually enter the dome as media. I am working with the group ‘Austin Airwaves’ and our badge says ‘PRESS’ in huge white letters on a red background. This has caused unending red tape. I have been the subject of removal a few times, bordering on a dozen. My camera draws the most fire.

I just heard we have the go ahead to put up the transmittter. I have no idea if that means we can broadcast or not. I assume it does because we have the FCC permits. The main issue here seems to be a total lack of leadership. No one with FEMA seems to know who their boss is. No one with the RedCross has authority. Everyone working for the owners (Reliant energy) of the dome is getting in our way. No photos. No entry. Attempted removal. Detainment.

The weather in Houston is hot and muggy. There is a great deal of police and military on the grounds.

As I said before, I’m the only person known to be in the dome according to the BBC. Their (Reliant staff) attempts to keep the media under control and out of the way also seem to keep the media from the most interesting spots. I have some really good photos and I will attempt to post them soon.

Alright, nobody seems to want to speak plain English, but from what I can put together, the plan is ready to get running, but FEMA won't let them. It has something to do with FEMA's requirements for exacuation plans and such.

Speaking of FEMA (...) I know they threw people out of a hotel (when they previously said do not leave the hotel if you're in one) to make room for themselves.

They also have 0 presence in East Biloxi, where residents have turned a church into an Emergency Aid Center.

The people in charge say a FEMA rep came by the second day in, the never came back. The FEMA head is saying they "don't want to bring in to many people and harm the infrastructure."

Reader comment: Harlan says,

Here is the link for archived Nuclear Regulatory Comission events.

On September 1st, one update reads:

"Waterford 3 will commence a plant shutdown to Mode 4 on August 28, 2005 at 1100 CDT. The goal is to be approximately 325 deg F reactor coolant system temperature with both trains of Shutdown Cooling in service [expected at approximately 0100 CDT 08/29/05] . This is approximately 2 hours before hurricane force winds are expected on site."

Also, the current power level of reactors is listed here. Waterford is naturally at 0. PS For the non-nuclear geeks, the vast majority of the events are nothing. Their reporting level is akin to doing a reboot for a typo, and a format/reload for a floppy error.

Xeni, saw your item on the Waterford nuclear plant, and thought you might want to see the series of blog posts we've done following the events in the gulf: Entergy Copes with Katrina Damage, Entergy and Southern Company Boincing Back.

Here are the NRC releases on their activities in the Gulf area regarding Waterford and other plants in the area: one, two.

And here's the AP story on the potential plant restart: Link.

Reactors work by the chain reaction of fissioning (splitting) Uranium atoms into pieces, two or more "daughter" nuclei plus typically two to five neutrons per reaction. All nucleons (protons & neutrons ) attract each other much more strongly than the electric repulsion between protons (protons all have a + charge while neutrons have none), but the nuclear force has a very limited range, becoming exponentially weak at a distance not much bigger than a proton's diameter. Because of this, as nuclei go to higher atomic numbers, they need to have many more neutrons than protons to stay together. So the atomic wieght (total # of neutrons & protons) goes up more than twice as fast as the atomic number (number of protons). Examples: Oxygen, O16, has 8 each; Iron, Fe56, has 26 protons and 30 neutrons, and U235 has 93 protons and 142 neutrons.

But if a nucleus has too many neutrons, it will eject some or turn one into a proton + electron, eject the electron (called a beta ray), and bump its atomic # up one. So when U235 breaks up, there are extra neutrons ejected, which would be of little interest except that U235 just happens to fission when it absorbs a neutron, and so we get the chain reaction.

Now some of the daughter products are unstable and decay into nuclei which absorb neutrons. This slows down the reaction, but these are created only slowly, so the continued neutron flux neutralizes them.

When the reaction stops though, they build up. Many of them are unstable themselves, but have much longer half lives, so if you wait too long, the fuel rods become "poisoned" (from a nuclear standpoint now), and the reactor won't start up again till you let the poisons decay (long time) or replace the rods (mucho $). On naval reactors this is about a week, but they are pretty small; the deadline is probably longer with the big commercial reactors, but they may be in trouble if they wait too long.

Xeni -- saw the update with the comments about the decay of fuel rods and their affect on the Waterford re-start. I showed the post to one of our fuel experts, Felix Killar, and this is what he wrote in response:

In commercial reactors the time for restart following a reactor shut down is dependent on where it was in the operating cycle when it was shut down. Commercial reactors refuel every 18 to 24 months while naval reactors are fueled for the life of the vessel (well over 20 years). As a result the commercial reactor has about 1/3 fresh fuel in it which has less then one operating cycle, this provides excess neutrons if needed to restart the reactor and fewer fission products that absorb neutrons.

However, even with this, if the reactor is close to the end of the cycle there may not be sufficient neutrons to restart the reactor with out a long waiting period. The waiting period allows for some of the neutron absorbing fission products to decay to non-absorbing fission products.

If the reactor is shut down early in the cycle it can be restarted within hours to days without any problems. If it is in the end of the cycle it will be days to weeks before it can be restarted. If a shutdown were to occur close to the end of the operating cycle, due to the delay to restart, the reactor may go into refueling rather then restart.

The replacement of the fuel is expensive, however, the loss of the power production is expensive as well. Therefore, the opportunity costs are considered in making the decision to wait to restart (and pay replacement power costs) vs. going into an early refueling (and losing some of the energy in the 1/3 of fuel that will be removed.)

Reporters Without Borders said Yahoo's Hong Kong arm helped China link Shi Tao's e-mail account and computer to a message containing the information.

The media watchdog accused Yahoo of becoming a "police informant" in order to further its business ambitions...

Shi Tao, 37, worked for the Contemporary Business News in Hunan province, before he was arrested and sentenced in April to 10 years in prison...

"We already knew that Yahoo! collaborates enthusiastically with the Chinese regime in questions of censorship, and now we know it is a Chinese police informant as well," Reporters Without Borders said in a statement.

Update: Xeni notes, "Here's what the BBC based their story on -- way more info in here. Includes a PDF of the verdict."

The Open Rights Group is committed to protecting your digital rights, to fighting bad legislation both in the UK and Europe, and to fostering a grassroots community of volunteers dedicated to campaigning on digital rights issues.

Your civil and human rights are being eroded in the digital realm. Government, big business and industry bodies are taking liberties with your digital liberties, actions they could never get away with in the "real" world.

Our goals are:

* to raise awareness within the media of digital rights abuses
* to provide a media clearinghouse, connecting journalists with experts and activists
* to campaign to preserve and extend traditional civil liberties in the digital world
* to collaborate with other digital rights and related organisations
* to nurture and assist a community of campaigning volunteers, from grassroots activists to technical and legal experts

Previously -- Katrina: wish you were here.

In findings published in this week's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, 34 young pediatric residents showed similar impairments in vigilance, attention, and driving skills on standardized tests after they had been on duty overnight in the hospital and worked a month of 90-hour weeks, compared with when they had consumed three to four alcoholic drinks after a month of 44-hour weeks with no overnight duties...

For example: The reaction time of residents who had just finished a month of heavy work schedules was 7 percent slower and they committed 40 percent more errors than when they were on a month of light schedules, On a driving simulator, they had more difficulty maintaining a consistent lane position and a constant speed during the heavy work compared to the lighter work schedule. Speed variability on the driving test was also 29 percent higher following the heavy-schedule compared to the light schedule after drinking alcohol, but there were no other performance differences between these two conditions.

In other words, after a month of 90-hour weeks with overnight shifts every fourth or fifth night, residents performed about the same as when they had a BAC (Blood Alcohol Level) of 0.04 percent after a month of 44-hour weeks of daytime shifts.

Previously on Boing Boing:
A tale of two photos -- Mississippi Goddamn

Reader comment: Carrie says, "It was first posted here by a fairly well known photoshopper Farker Guy Incognito, now known as Chasie on SomethingAwful and elsewhere. He has the 200 dpi version. It's being debunked on Snopes.”

Apparently the 10,000 radios are being purchased as a donation tomorrow morning at 09:00am as a gift from Democracy Now.

The radio station is going to be online as soon as possible. Currently the station techs aren’t sure of an ETA. The station crew hasn’t even been allowed inside of the astrodome to build their station. They have not been given a space, they have not started building and this is because a harris county official “pretty far down the hierarchy” is afraid of gansta rap music. They are worried about potential danger of those 10,000 radios inciting some sort of issue.

As far as I can tell, the 10,000 radio requirement was the thing holding up the LPFM transmitter as of yesterday. As of today, it appears freedom of the dial is going to cause a problem when it comes time to give out those radios. Please bear in mind that the person resisting this is not an FCC official. This station is licensed by the FCC but it must have it’s transmitter inside of the Astrodome.

This single official is holding up the the ability to have live radio being broadcast.

As a matter of respect the radio crew refuses to release her name because they don’t want to cause ill will. They simply wish to have their station up and running outside of the politics inherent to an event like this.

Previously --
Katrina communications aid: 10,000 radios needed

[M]ost chillingly of all, this is the Law and Order and Terror government. It promised protection — or at least amelioration — against all threats: conventional, radiological, or biological. It has just proved that it cannot save its citizens from a biological weapon called standing water.

The leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the United States is unpaid medical bills. Half of the uninsured owe money to hospitals, and a third are being pursued by collection agencies. Children without health insurance are less likely to receive medical attention for serious injuries, for recurrent ear infections, or for asthma. Lung-cancer patients without insurance are less likely to receive surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation treatment. Heart-attack victims without health insurance are less likely to receive angioplasty. People with pneumonia who don't have health insurance are less likely to receive X rays or consultations. The death rate in any given year for someone without health insurance is twenty-five per cent higher than for someone with insur-ance. Because the uninsured are sicker than the rest of us, they can't get better jobs, and because they can't get better jobs they can't afford health insurance, and because they can't afford health insurance they get even sicker. John, the manager of a bar in Idaho, tells Sered and Fernandopulle that as a result of various workplace injuries over the years he takes eight ibuprofen, waits two hours, then takes eight more--and tries to cadge as much prescription pain medication as he can from friends. "There are times when I should've gone to the doctor, but I couldn't afford to go because I don't have insurance," he says. "Like when my back messed up, I should've gone. If I had insurance, I would've went, because I know I could get treatment, but when you can't afford it you don't go. Because the harder the hole you get into in terms of bills, then you'll never get out. So you just say, 'I can deal with the pain.' "

I just got finished adding 1,780 RTTY Art files to textfiles.com. RTTY stands for 'Radio Teletype' and was a method of sending text via Ham Radio (and other wireless means) around the world. (A lot more history is at the RTTY.COM site.)

RTTY art was the use of BAUDOT code (uppercase only letters and punctuation) to create pictures. Sound familiar? If you've ever stumbled upon a large "ASCII Artwork" consisting of pinups, cartoon characters, or massive banners proclaiming "Merry Christmas", there's a good chance you've found an ASCII conversion of a RTTY art file, possibly from before microcomputers were sold.

Ren will be speaking about pending Canadian policy fights that the EFF is following. The Canadian equivalent of the USA's Digital Millennium Copyright Act DMCA, software patents and other topics pertinent to the interests of both open source software users and those interested their "digital freedom" will be discussed.

Location: McMaster University, Hamilton Hall Room 217 (map)
When: Wednesday, September 7, 7pm

Reader comment: Chad Lewis took pictures of a tomato with a devlish tail.
Link

I was working with a friend and we were moving boxes onto cheaply put together metal selves. My thumb got caught between a shelf and a box, and when I tried to free myself... well this happened. *Note: This was a month after the accident*

My 90-year old mother sat out Katrina in her brother's home next door in Diamondhead, MS, about eight miles from the Mississippi coast where the hurricane's eye hit. They survived without injury but with massive destruction to their homes, and my mother has lost most of her possesions.

I brought her to my home in California yesterday and this morning went to the FEMA website to register to start the assistance process.

To my dismay, our Federal emergency agency requires Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, and only IE 6, to use the website for disaster assistance. I don't want to be political about this, but this smacks of a serious leadership failure that the use of the Internet is reserved for only the Windows community. I will reserve my opinion of the administration for the op-ed pages, but I want to vent my dismay about this to the rest of the Mac community. I hope other Mac users let their political reps, newspapers and other media know of this marginalization. [...]

FEMA's website for disaster registration requires:

"In order to use this site, you must have JavaScript Enabled and Internet Explorer version 6. Download it from Microsoft or call 1-800-621-FEMA (3362) to register."

I tried the latest Safari, IE and Firefox, none work. Heaven help all the Mac users in the South... assuming they have power.

Update: Good news! Hurricane survivors who've lost everything, but who've managed to obtain access to a connected Mac or Linux workstation, MIGHT be able to file claims at Fema.gov IF they install some fancy schmantzy hypergalactic extensions to their browsermajiggie thing. Barbara Bush asks, hey, what else are they gonna do with all that free time?

Boing Boing reader Chris Packham explains:

I was able to access FEMA's web form using Firefox and OS X, after installing the User Agent Switcher extension, and setting it to Internet Explorer 6 (Windows XP). I tested the site with Safari, first; they have a Bot filter screen that asks you to manually type in the deformed letters from an onscreen graphic, after which I was warned that I had to be using IE 6 w/ Javascript. Using Firefox with the User Agent Switcher extension, I actually got through to the application area of the FEMA website. I stopped there, so no guarantee that the site will work correctly beyond that point, but it seems OK. Having said all that, I do agree that it's outrageous for such an important government website to buck standards compliance. User Agent Switcher available here: Link

Reader Comment: An anonymous reader says,

What's worse than a FEMA site that's not Mac compatible? How about a bureaucratic Catch-22? the call to the FEMA number does not open a claim; it results in a package containing the claim form being mailed to the address of the evacuee. Since the evacuee is in a shelter, mail service has been suspended in many of the hardest hit areas and some of the homes are likely still under water, it seems clear that those claim forms won't be mailed back any time soon. Link

Chris Packham's interesting comment read: "... they have a Bot filter screen that asks you to manually type in the deformed letters from an onscreen graphic"

In other words, if you're blind you can forget it. I mean, really, anti-spam measures like this are acceptable on personal sites, but a government site should be available to all.

I noticed that Chris got through by spoofing the user agent in Firefox. It is possible for Mac users to do this, too, with the default browser. You do this by enabling the Debug menu in Safari.

First, quit Safari. Next, open Terminal, which is in -

/Applications/Utilities

- and type this:
defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu -boolean true

The Debug Menu will then appear on the Menu bar in Safari, and it has an option to spoof the user-agent string.

I just tried [the FEMA claims registration website] in Opera, which by default identifies itself as IE6, and the site seems to work fine. This is a solution very similar to installing the FireFox extension, but if folks have Opera already installed, they can use it. Also, in the Opera preferences you can set it to identify as any browser you'd like, just for these reasons.

The browser requirement is, of course, a violation of the Section 508 regulations for accessibility and usability of US federal government websites. I'd suggest a complaint to the FEMA IG, but then there are better reasons to complain to the IG about the agency's inability to do its job.

Amusingly, this FEMA 508 accessibility statement page is linked from the bot filter screen. It describes how the FEMA is "committed to providing access to our web pages for individuals with disabilities," both public and government. "If you use assistive technology (such as a Braille reader, a screen reader, TTY, etc.) and the format of any material on our web sites interfere with your ability to access the information, please contact FEMAOPA@dhs.gov for assistance."

Regarding the Waterford Nuclear Plant in New Orleans, which is run by Entergy, a Boing Boing reader who asks to remain anonymous says:

I can tell you that the plant is OK, but it is shut down. They've been trying to get people from the other plants in the area to help bring it back online. I'm not sure as to what it's current state of operation is, though.

I just happen to know because my Father has been working [at another] Entergy nuke plant [in the area] for most of his life.

They had gotten in touch with him and wantd him to head out to Waterford to help get everything back up and running. They were having the people stay up there indefinately and he didn't want to leave his wife alone during the immediate aftermath of the storm, so he stayed.

This was in the immediate aftermath, and I haven't thought to ask since, so I don't know what the current status of the Waterford plant is.

...It's a nasty, rapidly escalating legal battle that on the one hand accuses him of conspiracy and extortion, and on the other has him accusing both his highly trusted personal manager and long-time financial adviser... of gross mismanagement of his financial affairs. The case exposes not only private details of Cohen's finances, but also a dramatic tale of betrayal.

The conflict, which Cohen and others have tried to keep out of public view, has left him virtually broke -- he's had to take out a mortgage on his house to pay legal costs -- and facing a multi-million-dollar tax bill. But the artist, who is soon to release a new album with his collaborator -- and current girlfriend -- Anjani Thomas, is today remarkably calm about the potentially embarrassing conflict. Still, when he discovered last fall that his retirement funds, which he had thought amounted to more than $5 million (all figures U.S.), had been reduced to $150,000, he wasn't so sanguine. "I was devastated," Cohen says. "You know, God gave me a strong inner core, so I wasn't shattered. But I was deeply concerned."

I filed a report for the NPR program Day to Day on those efforts, and you can listen to it here (after 12PM PT/3PM ET).

Info on member stations near you where you can listen to the show: Link .

The first model Mr. Joerger made for Disneyland was of the steamboat Mark Twain. Three-dimensional renderings of Main Street, the Jungle Cruise, the Matterhorn and much of the rest of the original Disneyland followed, his niece said.

"Guys like Fred were kind of the heroes of the next generation of Imagineers," said Kevin Rafferty, a senior show writer and director at Walt Disney Imagineering.

Mr. Joerger also became a field art director, making sure that such rides as Pirates of the Caribbean and Submarine Voyage achieved the look that Disney's staff envisioned.

First, slower sales reflect a broader Canadian trend in e-commerce. There is no correlation between broadband penetration and online music sales nor any other form of e-commerce as Canadians have been slower to gravitate to all e-commerce offerings, from books to travel to music. You don't see Amazon or Expedia claiming that it is the Canadian legal framework that has slowed adoption of their online offerings because the two simply aren't directly linked.

Second, there are far fewer online music services in Canada than in the U.S. According to IFPI, the global recording industry association, Canada currently has six services (Archambault, iTunes, Napster, Future Shop, Sympatico, and Puretracks). By comparison, IFPI lists 34 U.S. services. With nearly one-sixth the number of online music services, the lower Canadian numbers are precisely what you would expect.

Third, the Canadian services offer far less music than their U.S. counterparts. Numerous U.S. services offer more than 1 million tracks. In Canada, only iTunes does. Moreover, iTunes has some major Canadian misses. Where is the French content (funny that Canadian Heritage Minister Liza Frulla is concerned with satellite radio french content but says nothing about the lack of French offerings on iTunes)? Where are groups like The Arcade Fire, one of Canada's hottest bands that made the cover of the Canadian edition of Time Magazine?