This can’t be good

Brendan Loy has a disturbing post up-

In a bizarrely low-key press conference that seemed more focused on calming residents’ “anxiety” and vaguely telling them to “be prepared” (and then making of a series of mundane announcements about municipal matters like trash collection and parking restrictions) than on advising them to take specific, concrete steps commensurate to the risk of a possibly major hurricane potentially making a direct hit on America’s most hurricane-vulnerable city starting in about 48 hours, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu did his best Ray Nagin impression Sunday, announcing a no-evacuation, “shelter in place” plan that suggests a stunning level of confidence that a worst-case scenario won’t happen, at a time when it remains, meteorologically speaking, very much in play.

The possibility that residents would be “sheltering in place” in a “place” the could, in the worst-case scenario, be swallowed up by the Gulf of Mexico, was not mentioned.

Maybe it would be better if the dang thing did hit Mississippi- at least poor Nawlins wouldn’t drown so much. So Much being the operative phrase- being to the left of a blow is much worse than on the right.

July 20, 1969 20:18 UTC

I was 16, fully a child of the America of the Sixties and all that entailed, but, as a lifelong fan of science-fiction, I was completely transfixed by this.

[jwplayer mediaid=”246″]

At the time, I thought that within my lifetime I’d see colonies on the moon and Mars, and an ever-more-ambitious space program taking us further and further towards the stars. In some ways, that came to be, and I live daily with wonders both near and far that I could not have imagined in that long-ago place and time. I don’t think that we have somehow “failed” as a nation for not fulfilling all those dreams, but I do regret that it turned out to be so much further from our reach than it seemed then. Dammit, where’s my flying car?

Then I look around me at the technology and ease we take so much for granted, and think back to Isaac Newton:

If I have seen further it is by standing on ye sholders of Giants.

Those men- those three men- Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins- were giants standing on the shoulders of giants. Because of them,we see further even today.

Oddly enough, I look at this… video (it’s still a ‘film’ in my 20th-century molded mind)- and I still hope for the future. What wonders will my children see, and their children beyond them? The journey’s just begun!

We’re All Gonna Die!

…not really. But it should get a little exciting around here for a while.

I’m going to blog it as much as I can- I’m sure at one point I’ll find out how well I can blog from my phone. Woohoo!

Actually a Cat 2 is not that big a deal, a messy PITA but not much more than that- and from my experience during Katrina the folks in Alabama and Mississippi are remarkably able to jump in and clean up afterwards quite quickly. So no worries here.

Sorry for the lax posting the last couple of days- my PC decided to make my life more interesting and had a hard-drive take a dump. Fixed now, so back in business.

So bring yo’ bad self on Izzy!