The increasing chorus to NOT rebuild New Orleans is growing, and a prominent geophysicist lays out why not here. The article basically reiterates what I've been saying all along...New Orleans' geography and physical makeup render it unsuitable as a base for a city in the long run.

But should we rebuild New Orleans, 10 feet below sea level, just so it can be wiped out again? Some say we can raise and strengthen the levees to fully protect the city. Here is some unpleasant truth: The higher the defenses, the deeper the floods that will inevitably follow.

It's about damn time. Lots of people want to save NO for sentimental reasons, but folks, that city is GONE. Even if they rebuilt in its present location, so much of the city has to be bulldozed, it'll almost be brand new, except for the French Quarter.

It is time to face up to some geological realities and start a carefully planned deconstruction of New Orleans, assessing what can or needs to be preserved, or vertically raised and, if affordable, by how much. Some of New Orleans could be transformed into a "floating city" using platforms not unlike the oil platforms offshore, or, over the short term, into a city of boathouses, to allow floods to fill in the 'bowl' with fresh sediment.

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Get 'em out, bust open the levees, and start over....elsewhere.

Anne Rice is placing the blame for the New Orleans disaster....on all other Americans:

But to my country I want to say this: During this crisis you failed us. You looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music. Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us "Sin City," and turned your backs.

Read the rest of her charming rant here.

Hey Anne...did it ever occur to you that maybe, just maybe, the primary responsibility for things going to shit down their was....yours? I mean, you of New Orleans and Louisiana? And yes Anne, just what does America OWE to New Orleans that it doesn't owe to other cities? Eh? One of the things that has most pissed me off is the snotty sense of entitlement that the mayor, newspaper, and various people have expressed about saving NO..."But you HAVE to rebuild...we're NO...you OWE it to us".

And don't get me started on NO newspapers whining about "they say we're guilty of the crime of choosing to live here".

Well put. You are.

You chose to live there. You chose to live in a bowl below sea level surrounded by a massive lake, our largest river, and the gulf of mexico.

Oh yeah, and your city is sinking. And there's no way to stop that. Nothing the Army Corps of Engineers could do would make a difference. NO is only going to drop further below SL over time.

So Anne....should the rest of the country be responsible if you choose to live in such a situation? How much sympathy would you get if you, oh, say built your new hacienda on the side of a very active volcano?

Not much, I'd say.

Rebuild NO 100 miles up the Peninsula. Call it Newer Orleans, I don't care. But don't dare tell me that I've failed you, or anyone else for that matter. Your peeps were told to get out, and even the poorest had cars. Even they had family out of the area. Even they had access to red cross and church shelters. If you want to commend them for staying behind because they loved the uniqueness of NO, then fine, but don't blame anyone else when those people suffer because of their decision.

Update: Holy Shit, does Jim Geraghty (of National Review fame) rip Anne a new one over this, especially about NO's corrupt culture. Great read over at National Review Online: We Failed You? Try Again.

We're seeing a lot of talk about rebuilding New Orleans in a few months, about spending $26 billion, and probably more, to restore it.

Are people out of their damn minds?

New Orleans was a disaster waiting to happen. It's a city 12 feet below sea level, surrounded by 3 massive bodies of water. During normal times, it takes massive engineering to keep New Orleans dry. And scientists, professors, and engineers have been warning us for years, nay, decades that a direct hit from a large hurricane would likely destroy the city in Biblical proportions.

Take a look at New Orleans now; they were right.

80 percent of the city is under water, and that water level is rising, folks. The Army Corps of Engineers can't stop the flooding, Lake Ponchetrain continues to pour in, the Mississippi River is rising, and it's probable that more rain is on the way. And hurricane season isn't even over.

There should be no rebuilding of New Orleans. Spend as much money and manpower as neccessary to get the survivors out, but then place navigation hazard bouys around the city, and let nature take it's course. In a few years, what's left of New Orleans will literally be washed into the Gulf of Mexico, with no trace of the city left, no proof it ever existed visible on the surface of the water. That's not an exageration. That's literally what would happen at this point. The very shallow water table in New Orleans (as shallow as 6 feet deep in some parts) is being swollen with water too; the surface topsoil and everything on it will slide right off into the Gulf given time. The irony here is that, in the effort to preserve New Orleans, the levees and damns have prevented the accumulation of silts that made New Orleans in the first place; NO is nothing but a pile of river mud built up on the Mississippi Delta over the centuries. That accumulation of dirt would have eventually put NO above sea level, as well as absorbed some of the moisture from extra water. But you can't build a city in a standing swamp, so they kept the river out. And it's sealed the city's fate.

Rebuilding NO at the current lat/long would be a criminal misuse of resources, and stupidity at that. It's tantamount to building houses on the side of an active volcano. Sooner or later, you're going to die. NO dodged the odds for too long, and now her number is up. Wanna rebuild? Do it somewhere else and call it New Orleans. But not where the city presently is. Let it die, and nature will erase all visible traces of it. It'll exist only in memory, a place where Mardi Gras and Anne Rice once called home.

When I visited Hong Kong and Korea years ago, it was very apparent to me that they don't always get the real meaning of English expressions. Nothing makes that more apparent than these shots of Stars Wars Episode III, with subtitles that have been re-translated back to English from their Chinese text. Who knew R2D2 had such a potty mouth?

Cell phone companies. I hate them.

I tried to go to Alltel to have an old Alltel phone reactivated. I was informed that as of this year, Alltel will not reactivate non-gps enabled
handsets because of "Congressionaly mandated E911 rules". I found out that was a big fat lie. Other companies will let you activate non-gps phones as a backup. Nothing in the law prevents it. It's just Alltel wanting to make you buy a new phone. While Big Brother is playing a part here, it's Alltel taking advantage of a well intended law to screw their customers.

I've become disenchanted with American cell companies in general. While I'm keen to bitch about how Europeans do things, they get their cell phones right...one protocol (GSM), and a simple process for using any GSM phone at any provider...simply take out the old provider card, and pop in a new one. Done. Go back to using your old phone. I hate the way American cell companies do so many things to lock you into them.Differing protocols, hard coding handsets for company only use....now my beloved Qualcomm phone is a paperweight because no other company can use it.

Rat Bastards. *rant done*

She has a point that stealth candidates always turn out badly for Republicans...hello, David Souter. They always heave left once in office.

So why is it ok for Democrats to pick doctranaire liberals, like Ruth Ginsberg (who never made any secret of her views on expanding Federal power and authority over a wide range of issues), but it's unnacceptable for Republicans to nominate a doctrinaire conservative?

Is this the same old same old, or has Bush/Rove once again foiled the Dems by pulling out a secret weapon that the Senate can't oppose. Do they know something about Roberts that Dems don't? The stakes are so high, because you can't fire these guys, and they'll be on the bench for decades. Coulter hates him, Andrew Sullivan likes him. That should give conservatives pause...

Discuss.

P.S. - Memorable Coulter quote....

The only way a supreme court nominee could win the approval of NARAL and Planned Parenthood would be to actually perform an abortion during his confirmation hearing, live, on camera, and preferably a partial birth one.

The BBC, after a brief period of sanity after 7/7, has once again returned to it's leftist make-no-value-judgements ways, as reported here:

The BBC has re-edited some of its coverage of the London Underground and bus bombings to avoid labelling the perpetrators as "terrorists", it was disclosed yesterday.

If you can't call the people that murdered 50+ of your defenseless citizens terrorists, you've lost your fucking mind. This is part of the reason Jihadist Islam has taken such root in Europe; the meaning of tolerance has been stretched so widely, it has become government policy in most Euro-states to welcome with open arms people that have stated uniquivocably that they're goig to kill you if you don't convert to Islam. How far has this madness gone? Just days after the terrorists murders in the tube, this asshole is giving jihadist speeches in London...paid for partly by...THE LONDON POLICE DEPARTMENT.

This is the equivalent of giving Heinrich Himmler a podium to speak on at public expense after the blitz.

Has Europe lost their minds? Do they WANT to cease to exist?

Is there any doubt now? Apple going over to Intel was the final proof. This was like Rommel or Tojo defecting to the Allied side. Game over. While AMD is carving out it's niche, there seems to be plenty of evidence that in mainstream business computer purchasing, AMD boxes continue to be shunned. HP looks like they're finally becoming successful in twisting their customers arms over Itanium, as most of their PA-RISC and Alpha customers are accepting the inevitable. If you're a big HP customer, Itanium has been like a third world election; you're going to keep voting until you get it right, peon. And I still think, now more than ever, that IBM will drop Power within ten years, effectively killing the platform.

We live in the age of (mostly) monopolies.

Boeing airplanes.
Windows operating systems.
Intel CPUs.

Everything else is either foreign purchased, or on the thin margins of the market.

Hello, and yes, I know I haven't posted in a long time. I've been insanely busy. I'm taking a week off starting tomorrow to rest and catch up with non-work.

Now for the topic...

After reading some posts about the Patriot Act being expanded, I'm now convinced more than ever the Slashdot is now as much a lefty-libertarian site as it is a geek site. I didn't sign up for a L-L site, so lately, I've just been ignorning Slashdot some. Even the damn Star Wars stories are filled with anecdotes about how the evil Republicans are trying to destroy the virtous democratic paradise that is America. Just out of curiousity, I went back to look at the first 9-11 story on Slashdot; probably 2/3rds of the posts were along the lines of "we asked for this, this is what we get". Lots of pro-Palestine, anti-Israel posts in there. It disgusted me to read it.

I've long known Slashdot is a rather cynical place. Fine, but with a ridiculous conspiracy bent to that cynicism, now we sound like a tech-flavored Democratic Undergound. Free tinfoil hat with every account. Pudge doesn't post enough to balance things out around here. I'm not looking for a monolithically conservative bent, but Jesus, would a little balance hurt this place? I think that's too much to ask. That's why, after resisting the idea for a long time, I'm now considering doing a blog. I think there are far too many blogs. I think that people should understand that the average joe's life just isn't that damn interesting, and so we don't want to hear about your day at work or your life, thanks. But I would like someplace where the likeminded can discuss technical issues. If we throw in politics, it'll be because as of yet, we have no place to go that's like Slashdot. We're kind of in a 1970's media situation; if you don't like the three major networks and newspapers, tough shit....Fox News and the Internet won't be here for 20 years yet. So you'll just have to suffer in silence.

And it's not that I don't want opposing views. I like good debate from the other side of the aisle when it's respectful. Cyrano VR has always been that kind of poster. You CAN be friends and not agree on something, you know. Debate is good and healthy for the mind, and we need more of it. But most of what goes on in Slashdot isn't debate. Far from it.

Part of me doesn't want to blog. It's too damn much work, and I've got enough work to do as it is. But I like speak my mind, thanks, and I need a forum to do it. I especially like that give and take with other people. And yes, it's only human nature, that somewhere I'd like a forum with like minded people. I can go anywhere and discuss politics...free republic, etc, etc. But where can I talk about politics in one sentance, and then jump to Linux or OSX in the next? Nowhere like that but here. Not even Kuro5hin is like that anymore. That place has just gotten strange. Haven't posted or read there in probably a year.

More topics to follow...

Not all of you, of course. But most of you are mindless adoring drones of the Jobs Cult.

Let me clarify a couple of things right off.

Number one, I LIKE OSX. I think it's the coolest OS on the planet, and I'm planning on buying a Mac this summer. So let's kill, RIGHT NOW, any notion that this is yet another windows or linux vs. Apple gripe.

This little revelation of mine came from this Slashdot article. This was the straw that broke the camels back, so to speak. I'm now firmly convinced that when you buy an apple, either Jobs personally does some Vulcan mind meld with you, or that a pod person pops out of your new Mac's box and replaces you. Because it seems that 99 percent of all Apple owners seem to think that Steve Jobs is God, and that Apple can do no wrong. In this case, Jobs throws a temper tantrum and bans an entire publisher from Apple stores. And Mac users come out in droves to defend him for it. I can almost hear them say in unison "Don't hurt the Master!".

When I buy my Mac, I'm going to have to get a Magneto helmet or something to keep out the brainwaves coming from Cupertino...

The new Pope is Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict XVI; the talk show jokes begin...

Jay Leno: "Today, with news of the new German Pope, France surrendered..."

Blitzkrieg Benny...heh heh, well, I think he may have been the best guy they could have gotten. JPII trusted him implicitly, and he's been chief defender of the faith since 1982. And I hear he's brighter than the average bear.

With the passing of John Paul II, humanity loses a great leader, teacher, and defender. You don't have to be Catholic (and I'm not) to realize just how important this man was, and how big his impact was. He was the first of the Troika that brought down the Iron Curtain and ended communism as a respectable ideology forever. He championed human rights and dignity by pushing one simple ideal; all human lives have value, no matter who you are. All are precious in the eyes of God.

He moved the Catholic church forward at the same time he defended its core principles from those that would water them down. No easy feat, that. Under his stewardship, the church grew to over 1 Billion souls, making Christianity again the world's largest faith, after Islam had superceded it for a time. He touched young people's hearts in a way no previous Pope had done. And can anyone here name another world leader that met with, and forgave, his would-be assasin? That's Christian Grace if there ever was an example of it...

Sadly, of the that Troika, only Lady Thatcher remains, now that the Pope has joined President Reagan at the gates of St. Peter.

Thinking back, I realize how lucky I am, for I have lived in a time of Giants. The Catholic Church will be hard pressed to replace this man.

Now, when you're a Baptist in the South, THIS is harsh...

Congregation gives Greer the Boot

This has apparently been in the works for a long time. And there's some speculation down 'round these here parts that he's turning soft (he's a longtime republican). There seems to be something of a betting pool that he'll turn Episcopalian or Unitarian (two religeons with a modern reputation for little or no hard rules).

Let me emphasize, as a longtime resident of the South, Baptists don't do this kind of thing lightly.

...then you've given too much credit to human intelligence, apparently. And I think Slashdot should add a category and icon for "Human Stupidity". Read on and you'll see why.

Reader's Digest has a profile on a willing victim, and his story, including how he traveled all the way to Africa to gain his riches, only later to be chased out, penniless. RD doesn't have it online, but the author has it posted at other sites. There's an interesting history of the 419 scammers, their orgins in the collapse of the Nigerian oil economy of the 80's, when many educated Nigerians were suddenly jobless, and how they've quickly adopted to new technologies. There is also now a backlash that has developed against them, by the Nigerian government itself. A Nigerian official says "419 Fraud has ruined the reputation of Nigeria...No one wants to come here and do business. How can we survive?"

I still get email from lots of friends and family members going "I got this email from some Nigerian Prince; is it for real?".

This will be my last post on Terri while she's alive. I simply can't keep this up. I can't remember anything that's affected me this much in a long long time. I have a hard time describing how this has affected me....if I could pick two simple terms to describe myself, it would be angry, and....sick at heart.

  I can only hope she doesn't linger long now. It's obvious that, short of pulling a Little Rock-style national guard intervention, nothing is going to save her life.

  I have been criticized for being too emotional, but I can't help that. I'm not some damn vulcan.

  My rage, and my deep suspicion of the motives of Michael Schiavo stems from his behavior, nothing more, nothing less. I've read too many accounts of credible physicians saying that, at the very least, some additional tests should be done. He won't allow them, and he has a history of abusive behavior with women. Google for Cindy Shook, and read. We have not heard the last from this man.

  His attornery, Felos, is a ghoul. He is, surprise surprise, writing a book about the case, and shopping it around.

  The prediction is this: when Terri dies, her body will never be examined or buried. He'll have it cremated. Best to have the evidence destroyed. This way if there are ever allegations of abuse by his current girlfriend, no body can be dug up for examination.

  That's it. I can't do this any more.