Thursday, September 15, 2011

Oil rig workers survived Gulf storm in raft

Then and Now: Pictures of NFL QBs "before they were stars"
~
Alejandro de los Rios, Gambit


Report: La. overpaid on jobless claims

Comment Bump~ American Zombie

I have a sneaking suspicion…
~Disenfranchised Citizen


Future NASA rocket will be most powerful ever built
~The Ares-V (left) and Ares-I. Click to enlarge.
~View Expanded Views of Ares-I, Ares-V (293 Kb PDF)
Fact Sheets: Ares I Crew Vehicle (PDF, 690 KB) | Ares V Cargo Vehicle (PDF, 381 KB)
~"It's appropriate that we named these vehicles Ares, which is a pseudonym for Mars," said Scott Horowitz, associate administrator for NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, Washington. "We honor the past with the number designations and salute the future with a name that resonates with NASA's exploration mission." The "I and V" designations pay homage to the Apollo program's Saturn I and Saturn V rockets, the first large U.S. space vehicles conceived and developed specifically for human spaceflight.

Pedicabs Are a Go in N.O.
~NOLA DEFENDER


1880: Humble beginnings for Commander's Palace, a landmark New Orleans restaurant

Black N' Gold Kick-Off Party! Bonerama + Cha Wa + Ying Yang Twins
~Humid Beings

Sunday, September 11, 2011

On this day in New Orleans, snowballs were still a Really Big Deal
Haley, 7, and Shane Babb, 5, anticipate the cool sweetness of their snowballs as they wait for Shiela Marriott to prepare them at Ro-Bear's in Harahan.
Photo: John McCusker
building some kid a perfect snowball, at the Flora Cafe' that morning when Valentine came in for his early juice.
{I also did fresh-squoze juice for Ali.}
Only this morning Val was a bit up on breaking news: "Hey, Juicy," he says "Did you hear that one of the World Trade Center towers is on fire?" "Nah", said I, more interested in making sure to swirl the Condensed Milk just right around the cone of crushed ice to the top, without breaking it down, which would not do at all, mashing up all the color layers I had painstakingly laid in the snowball already. While the kid watched, Val, stepped across Royal to get a paper and comes back in looking a little scared...looking me right in the eye he said, "You may want to get over to Big Daddy's and check the TV." "What?", I said, stepping around a few more of the children waiting for their snowballs. Then da'Angel storms into the cafe, "HEY EVERYBODY! SOMEONE HAS JUST FLOWN A GODDAMN AIRLINER INTO THE WORLD TRADE CENTER IN NEW YORK!"

The place emptied like fire in a theater, as everyone ran to the bars across the street to see it on the Tube. Suddenly Schiro's was packed too. Suddenly there was not a car on the street outside, as I suspect anywhere else in America either. Me, I turned around and looked at the children waiting on their snowballs and asked, Who's next?

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Corps of Engineers ordered to stop Industrial Lock Expansion ~Levees.org

Corps of Engineers whips out their Pimp Boat to show off their Pimp Levees!
~The Army Corps of Engineers marked the near-completion of improvements to the New Orleans-area hurricane levee system on Friday with a boat tour of key segments of the system. Guests on board the M/V Mississippi included Lt. Gen. Robert Van Antwerp Jr., chief of the corps, and Jo-Ellen Darcy, assistant secretary of the Army for civil works.

Offsetting disaster allotments is a disastrous idea, former Homeland Security sec says

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

1 Mo Day! WHODAT SAY...
DEY GONNA BEAT DEM SAINTS?



~Hat Tweet~~Boz Again! H.J. Bosworth Jr is the featured speaker in this Fox 8 TV news story about Corps' new flood protection.

Media ethics are not negotiable
~James Gill
~Garland Robinette did not fall from grace just because he has achieved geezer status, however. After using his radio show to advance the interests of Fred Heebe, Robinette relieved him of $250,000. That would have been just as disgusting when he was young.

A Matter of Tru$t~American Zombie

Yet another anniversary — and still no substitute for Charity Hospital
~Sandra Stokes, The Lens


Tropical Storm Nate

HARVEST: A Grand Opening Celebration
at the New Orleans Food Coop!

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Levee Safety Data and methods used to calculate Corps of Engineers’ LSAC ratings should be released ~Levees.org
~Surely the nation will fare much better if objective prioritization replaces the current practice of funding pet projects based on political issues. When the corps releases this data, we may find that exorbitant amounts of funding is being spent on levees that actually protect few resources. The data may even reveal instances where, for just incrementally more funding, the flood protection for heavily populated areas with large amounts of infrastructure and value can be raised from 100-year to 500-year or even 1,000-year protection.

Tropical Storm Lee stirs frustration with Corps levee plans in Plaquemines and Jean Lafitte~Mark Schleifstein
~"When it was authorized by Congress to be taken into the federal system (of levees), it was supposed to protect us from a 50-year storm," Nungesser said, which would have been higher than needed to fight Lee's surge. "It was slated to be raised to a height of eight to 10 feet, but the corps upped the standard for levees and (Brig. Gen. Michael) Walsh is now saying there's not enough money to finish it. "He wants to build what he's got money for, then turn the levee and connect it to the Mississippi River levee," Nungesser said. "That's absurd. Congress authorized this levee to protect our evacuation route out of the parish and for Gen. Walsh to unilaterally make that decision is un-American."

Nungesser talks about hole to be cut in levee

West Bank communities clean up after Tropical Storm Lee

Water drains from bayou communities; schools open as normal~Nikki Buskey

The Two Things Obama Got Wrong ~Harry Shearer

Today on the Stinktank~10 PM TODAY: the Payola Pundit plans to use his radio show "Garland Robinette's Stinktank" to mouth you long day about that $250,000 "loan" from River Birch owners (to keep him bent over with a ball gag in his " public opinion?" Hmmm?) Also, rumor has it, he will trot out all the hungry orphans he's been able to sponsor with what Fred Hebbe "loaned" him.

~UPDATE~ Robinette says he did "nothing wrong" amid questions raised about $250K no-interest "loan" from landfill company owner

Garland went all Rudy on us this morning ~Library Chronicles

The Fox in the Henhouse: Garland Robinette~He Said/She Said NOLA

Riki Ott or Feinberg? I’m thinking Riki knows the health better ~Disenfranchised Citizen

Divorce rate in La. above nation’s

Tuesday Reads ~Sky Dancing

Satsuma Cafe hosts benefit dinner for Vermont flood victims

Wardell Quezergue, the Creole Beethoven, Passes ~NOLA DEFENDER

The Breton Sound: "Eudaemonia" available for download 9/13 --BUT YOU CAN GET IT THE DAY BEFORE!!

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Friday, September 2, 2011

New Orleans Levees Won’t Be Tested by Gulf Storm, Officials Say ~Bloomberg
~Sandy Rosenthal, president and founder of Levees.org, a group set up after Katrina to monitor the status of the improvements, said she is satisfied with the work. Even so, she is taking items from the first floor of her New Orleans home to the second level and moving cars to higher ground. “If the rain falls too fast, the pumps may not keep up,” she said in a telephone interview. “We would expect floods. But I wouldn’t expect the levees to break.”

Saturday, August 27, 2011

*