newsflash

Katrina: Devastating Damage Expected in New Orleans

The Balko formerly known as Gort — Sun, 28 Aug 2005 20:52:00 GMT

Holy shit. From the weather site of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:

BULLETIN...IMMEDIATE BROADCAST REQUESTED FLOOD WATCH NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA 410 AM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005

A FLOOD WATCH IS IN EFFECT TONIGHT AND MONDAY ACROSS MOST OF EAST CENTRAL AND SOUTHEAST LOUISIANA AND EXTREME SOUTH MISSISSIPPI

THE FLOOD WATCH INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING LOCATIONS... IN SOUTHEAST LOUISIANA... ASCENSION...ASSUMPTION...EAST BATON ROUGE...IBERVILLE...JEFFERSON... LAFOURCHE...LIVINGSTON...ORLEANS...PLAQUEMINES...ST. BERNARD...ST. CHARLES...ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST...ST. HELENA...ST. JAMES...ST. TAMMANY...TANGIPAHOA...TERREBONNE...WASHINGTON...WEST BATON ROUGE IN SOUTH MISSISSIPPI... HANCOCK...HARRISON...JACKSON...PEARL RIVER...PIKE AND WALTHALL. HURRICANE KATRINA...A LARGE AND MAJOR HURRICANE...IS EXPECTED TO MOVE ACROSS SOUTHEAST LOUISIANA AND SOUTH MISSISSIPPI TONIGHT AND MONDAY. IN ADDITION TO EXTREMELY DAMAGING WINDS AND STORM SURGE FLOODING... BANDS OF VERY HEAVY RAIN WILL MOVE ONSHORE THIS EVENING AND SPREAD NORTH ACROSS MOST OF THE AREA LATE TONIGHT AND MONDAY. RAINFALL TOTALS OF 5 TO 10 INCHES...WITH ISOLATED MAXIMUM AMOUNTS OF 15 INCHES...ARE POSSIBLE ALONG THE PATH OF KATRINA...MAINLY SOUTHEAST OF A LINE FROM MCCOMB TO THE BATON ROUGE METROPOLITAN AREA. INTENSE RAINFALL WILL LIKELY CAUSE FLOODING OF LOW LYING AREAS. FLOODING WILL BE AGGREGATED IN AREAS OF HIGH TIDES...STORM SURGE... AND EVENTUALLY RIVERS NEAR BANK-FULL. A FLASH FLOOD WATCH MEANS RAPIDLY RISING WATER OR FLOODING IS POSSIBLE WITHIN THE WATCH AREA. IF YOU ARE IN THE WATCH AREA... CHECK PREPAREDNESS REQUIREMENTS...KEEP INFORMED...AND BE READY FOR QUICK ACTION IF FLASH FLOODING IS OBSERVED OR IF A WARNING IS ISSUED.

Urgent Weather Message for Orleans, LA
Top of page Table of contents for Orleans, LA

WWUS74 KLIX 281550
NPWLIX

URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA
1011 AM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005


DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED

HURRICANE KATRINA
A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED
STRENGTH...RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969. 

MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. AT
LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL
FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY
DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.

THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL.
PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD
FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE
BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME
WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.

HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY...A
FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.

AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH
AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY
VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE
ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE
WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN
AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING
INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY
THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW
CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE
KILLED.

AN INLAND HURRICANE WIND WARNING IS ISSUED WHEN SUSTAINED WINDS NEAR
HURRICANE FORCE...OR FREQUENT GUSTS AT OR ABOVE HURRICANE FORCE...ARE
CERTAIN WITHIN THE NEXT 12 TO 24 HOURS.

ONCE TROPICAL STORM AND HURRICANE FORCE WINDS ONSET...DO NOT VENTURE
OUTSIDE!

LAZ038-040-050-056>070-282100-
ASSUMPTION-LIVINGSTON-LOWER JEFFERSON-LOWER LAFOURCHE-
LOWER PLAQUEMINES-LOWER ST. BERNARD-LOWER TERREBONNE-ORLEANS-
ST. CHARLES-ST. JAMES-ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST-ST. TAMMANY-TANGIPAHOA-
UPPER JEFFERSON-UPPER LAFOURCHE-UPPER PLAQUEMINES-UPPER ST. BERNARD-
UPPER TERREBONNE-
1011 AM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005


INLAND HURRICANE WIND WARNING IN EFFECT

HURRICANE KATRINA
A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED
STRENGTH...RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969.

ONSET OF TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS WILL BE AROUND 3 PM THIS
AFTERNOON AND PERSIST FOR ABOUT 26 HOURS. HURRICANE FORCE WINDS WILL
ONSET AROUND SUNSET TONIGHT IN LOWER PLAQUEMINES PARISH AND SPREAD
NORTHWARD BY 3 AM MONDAY MORNING...PERSISTING FOR ABOUT 12 TO 17
HOURS. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS IN EXCESS OF 140 MPH CAN LAST FOR 2
TO 3 HOURS.

ONCE TROPICAL STORM AND HURRICANE FORCE WINDS ONSET...DO NOT VENTURE
OUTSIDE!

Link

Discussion thread on FARK

Earlier discussion thread on FARK

not again...

The Balko formerly known as Gort — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 15:15:00 GMT

Shit. Reports of incidents on London tube and busses. Smoke is seen, a nail-bomb is mentioned. Code "Amber", so the underground has come to a halt.

Developing story on CNN
Rolling blog on Europhobia
BBC: Tube cleared after minor blasts. Apparently it were only detonators going off. A show of strenght of the terrorists, maybe? Or just bad bombmaking?

Thom de Graaf exit

The Balko formerly known as Gort — Thu, 24 Mar 2005 02:07:00 GMT

Thom de Graaf, Dutch minister for 'Bestuurlijke Vernieuwing' (Administrative Reform) stepped down yesterday, not only because the Dutch Senate had voted against his plans for an elected mayor, but also because he felt that there was insufficient support in the coalition for a new electoral system. Good riddance.

Let's hope that his party-members in the Dutch cabinet will follow suit today, although I very much doubt that this will happen, given D66's inclination to stick to their plush seat.

Volkskrant: Minister De Graaf treedt af (registration required, bugmenot is your friend)

WTF??? LJ Temporarily Unavailable.

The Balko formerly known as Gort — Sat, 15 Jan 2005 15:54:00 GMT

Following some link I just arrived at LiveJournal and all I got was the message: LiveJournal is currently down due to a massive power failure at our data center. We'll provide updates at /powerloss/ as they're available.

Sometimes life sucks bigtime for a Netadmin, I symphatize with these LJ guys who are now working their asses of to get LJ back on line. Here's their progress report:

Our data center (Internap, the same one we've been at for many years) lost all its power, including redundant backup power, for some unknown reason. (unknown to us, at least) We're currently dealing with verifying the correct operation of our 100+ servers. Not fun. We're not happy about this. Sorry... :-/ More details later.

Update #1, 7:35 pm PST: we have power again, and we're working to assess the state of the databases. The worst thing we could do right now is rush the site up in an unreliable state. We're checking all the hardware and data, making sure everything's consistent. Where it's not, we'll be restoring from recent backups and replaying all the changes since that time, to get to the current point in time, but in good shape. We'll be providing more technical details later, for those curious, on the power failure (when we learn more), the database details, and the recovery process. For now, please be patient. We'll be working all weekend on this if we have to.

Update #2, 10:11 pm: So far so good. Things are checking out, but we're being paranoid. A few annoying issues, but nothing that's not fixable. We're going to be buying a bunch of rack-mount UPS units on Monday so this doesn't happen again. In the past we've always trusted Internap's insanely redundant power and UPS systems, but now that this has happened to us twice, we realize the first time wasn't a total freak coincidence. C'est la vie.

Update #3: 2:42 am: We're starting to get tired, but all the hard stuff is done at least. Unfortunately a couple machines had lying hardware that didn't commit to disk when asked, so InnoDB's durability wasn't so durable (though no fault of InnoDB). We restored those machines from a recent backup and are replaying the binlogs (database changes) from the point of backup to present. That will take a couple hours to run. We'll also be replacing that hardware very shortly, or at least seeing if we can find/fix the reason it misbehaved. The four of us have been at this almost 12 hours, so we're going to take a bit of a break while the binlogs replay... Again, our apologies for the downtime. This has definitely been an experience.

Upper-Class Twit of the Month: Prince Harry

The Balko formerly known as Gort — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 18:18:00 GMT

Ah, the monarchy. On a fancy dress party in honour of one of his mates' birthday, young prince Harry appeared in a Nazi uniform, complete with swastika armband. Unfortunately for him, The Sun was there, and he found himself splashed all over the frontpage of this newspaper. Indignation ensued.

Credit where credit is due

The Balko formerly known as Gort — Mon, 03 Jan 2005 04:14:00 GMT

Crew members from a U.S. Navy helicopter assisting refugees at the airport in Banda Aceh, Indonesia.

From the NYT:

Substantial aid finally began reaching desperate refugees in devastated areas of northern Sumatra yesterday as American warships, led by the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, arrived offshore and a fleet of helicopters airlifted critical supplies to stricken towns in Aceh Province.

Flying through pounding rains, a dozen Sea Hawk helicopters from the Lincoln ferried food, water, medicines, tents and other supplies from warehouses at Banda Aceh airport to refugees in decimated Indonesian coastal towns and inland villages that had been virtually cut off when the tsunami destroyed roads, bridges and communications a week ago.

Disaster

The Balko formerly known as Gort — Mon, 27 Dec 2004 15:55:00 GMT

Life sucks. While I was having such a terrific time during Festivus (still celebrating, Festivus is not over until the head of the household is pinned), disaster struck on the other side of the planet, killing thousands, and the numbers are still spiralling upwards.

The cooperating Dutch relief agencies have opened their crisis account number, giro 555.

Executive Order

The Balko formerly known as Gort — Wed, 22 Dec 2004 06:52:00 GMT

An FBI email refers to a presidential order authorizing inhumane interrogation techniques, says the American Civil Liberties Union in a press release. The ACLU is urging the White House to confirm or deny the existence of such an order and immediately to release the order if it exists.

Say what you will about America, some institutions are still functioning. The ACLU and other organisations are obtaining loads of government documents through the courts, including the above mentioned email.

You can read the email and other FBI emails about torture in Abu Ghraib and Camp X-Ray on the ACLU site. All documents are heavily redacted, but lead to carefully worded observations like

The legible portions of the document appear to describe an account given to the FBI’s Sacramento Field Office by an FBI agent who had "observed numerous physical abuse incidents of Iraqi civilian detainees," including "strangulation, beatings, [and] placement of lit cigarettes into the detainees ear openings." The document states that "[redacted] was providing this account to the FBI based on his knowledge that [redacted] were engaged in a cover-up of these abuses."

Do I hear the sound of excrements hitting rotary blades?

He’s fucking faking he’s dead — he’s faking he’s fucking dead

The Balko formerly known as Gort — Tue, 16 Nov 2004 17:28:00 GMT

A wounded and apparently unarmed Iraqi prisoner was shot and killed by a Marine who appeared to be unaware that the Iraqi was a wounded prisoner and did not pose a threat.

According to combat correpondent and blogger Kevin Sites, the incident unfolded this way:

The Marine battalion stormed an unidentified mosque Saturday in southern Fallujah after taking casualties from heavy sniper fire and attacks with rocket-propelled grenades. Ten insurgents were killed and five others were wounded in the mosque and an adjacent building.
The Marines displayed a cache of rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 assault rifles that they said the men were holding. They said the arms were conclusive evidence that insurgents had been using mosques as fighting positions in Fallujah, which they said made the use of force appropriate.
When the Marines left to advance farther south, the five wounded Iraqis, none of whose injuries appeared to be life-threatening, were left behind in the mosque for other Marines to evacuate for treatment.
Saturday, however, reports surfaced that mosques in the region had been reoccupied, including the mosque the Marine battalion had stormed the day before.

Two units that were not involved in Friday’s fighting advanced on the mosque, one moving around the back and the second, accompanied by Sites, from the front. Sites said he could hear gunfire from inside.
Sites was present when a lieutenant from one of the units asked a Marine what had happened inside the mosque. The Marine replied that there were people inside.
“Did you shoot them?” the lieutenant asked.

“Roger that, sir,” the second Marine replied.

“Were they armed?” the lieutenant asked.

The second Marine shrugged in reply.

Sites saw the five wounded men left behind on Friday still in the mosque. Four of them had been shot again, apparently by members of the squad that entered the mosque moments earlier. One appeared to be dead, and the three others were severely wounded. The fifth man was lying under a blanket, apparently not having been shot a second time.

One of the Marines noticed that one of the severely wounded men was still breathing. He did not appear to be armed, Sites said.
The Marine could be heard insisting: “He’s fucking faking he’s dead — he’s faking he’s fucking dead.” Sites then watched as the Marine raised his rifle and fired into the man’s head from point-blank range.
“Well, he’s dead now,” another Marine said.

When told that the man he shot was a wounded prisoner, the Marine, who himself had been shot in the face the day before but had already returned to duty, told Sites: “I didn’t know, sir. I didn’t know.”

Link to archived video and transcript of Kevin's report for NBC News, link to previous Reuter's report, link to boingboing post.

Secretary Of State Colin Powell Stepping Down

The Balko formerly known as Gort — Mon, 15 Nov 2004 16:47:00 GMT

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has handed in his resignation.