“Things that make you want to scream” for $500, Alex…

Okay, first this article:

A specialized urban search and rescue team from Vancouver will be joining the rescue efforts in Louisiana in the wake of hurricane Katrina.
B.C. Solicitor General John Les said the province decided to send Vancouver Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) after officials in Louisiana asked for help.
“We’re the first non-U.S.-based team to be requested,” said Les. “They’re going to be helping as many people as they can.”
CTV Vancouver has learned that the team will board a plane Wednesday night heading to Lafayette, Louisiana, where local authorities will direct them to devastated areas.

Sounds great! Except for one problem — this team wasn’t allowed to fly into the US, blocked by Homeland Security from entering. A Canadian reader sends this report:

On tonight’s news, CTV (Canadian TV) said that support was offered from Canada. Planes are ready to load with food and medical supplies and a system called “DART” which can provide fresh water and medical supplies is standing by. Department of Homeland Security as well as other U.S. agencies were contacted by the Canadian government requesting permission to provide help. Despite this contact, Canada has not been allowed to fly supplies and personnel to the areas hit by Katrina. So, everything here is grounded. Prime Minister Paul Martin is reportedly trying to speak to President Bush tonight or tomorrow to ask him why the U.S. federal government will not allow aid from Canada into Louisiana and Mississippi. That said, the Canadian Red Cross is reportedly allowed into the area.
Canadian agencies are saying that foreign aid is probably not being permitted into Louisiana and Mississippi because of “mass confusion” at the U.S. federal level in the wake of the storm.

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I’m guessing that Monday, Aug. 29, 2005, will not be remembered as the day President George W. Bush stopped by a retirement community in El Mirage to discuss prescription drug benefits for seniors.

As nice as it was to have the president visit the state we live in, I believe it would have been OK with us if Mr. Bush had canceled or at least postponed his plans in order to monitor the progress of Hurricane Katrina and to review federal relief plans.

As it is, however, the president decided to visit El Mirage. Life goes on. He spoke briefly about the hurricane, promising disaster relief. Then, after urging Americans to pray for those most affected by the storm, Bush said, “I also want to talk about immigration.” I’ve got a feeling that historians looking back on this day will not describe that transition as a particularly shining presidential moment.

As important as the topic of immigration is to people living in Arizona, and as self-centered as we all can be, I figure that most of us would not have minded if the president hadn’t discussed our troublesome border at the same time that huge storm was pounding cities on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi.

It may have been nice for us to hear the president tell Arizona residents, “It’s important for the people of this state to understand that your voices are being heard in Washington, D.C.” But I think that it would have been acceptable if, just for a day, the president focused all of his domestic attention on the meteorological event affecting Greater New Orleans.

We all have jobs to do, often at the same time that we are dealing with personal disasters, both natural and otherwise.

But on a day when the devastation of the hurricane was far from known, even those most concerned with, for instance, the war in Iraq, probably didn’t need the president to reassuringly tell the El Mirage audience, “I’m very optimistic about Iraq.”

And if Aug. 29, 2005, is remembered at all, I have a sneaking suspicion that it won’t have anything to do with the president having told a friendly audience in Arizona how happy he is that “we finally got ourselves an energy bill.”

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De Vlaamse piloot Peter Thys (46) is door zijn werkgever, de Turkse chartermaatschappij Fly Air, ontslagen omdat hij de veiligheidsvoorschriften in acht nam. Vorige woensdag, kort na het opstijgen in Parijs-Orly, merkte Thys een technisch defect aan zijn Airbus 300-B4 op: een van de drie generatoren van zijn vliegtuig was uitgevallen. Met 235 passagiers aan boord keerde hij terug naar Parijs voor een dringende herstelling. Die beslissing kostte de piloot uit Bocholt zijn job.

NOAA posts more than 350 aerial images of areas decimated by Katrina.
You can download zip files or use a clickable interface. The 2MB-3MB images are not rotated, so if you’re comparing the eastern mouth of Bay St. Louis (3MB) to a Google Map image, for instance, you might have to tilt your head and zoom before the damage really hits you.

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Apple is poised to unveil a mobile phone that plays music just like its best-selling iPod.

Made by Motorola the handset will have Apple iTunes onboard and will be available via the US Cingular phone service.

The news was broken by analyst Roger Entner who said he had been briefed about the device and the partners producing it.

None of the companies involved were prepared to comment on the revelations.

The press conference is scheduled for September 7, so we’ll see how much of all this is true..

# 2002: It’s not about oil; we need to go to war to keep WMDs out of the Terrorists’ hands.
# 2003: It’s not about oil; we need to go to war because Saddam Hussein is a bad guy.
# 2004: It’s not about oil; we need to go to war to promote democracy in the MidEast.
# 2005: Okay, it’s about oil.

Poverty Rate Increases in 2004.
The US Census Bureau announced yesterday that the number of Americans living in poverty increased in 2004 by 1.1 million, an increase from 12.5 to 12.7 percent of the population. 2004 also marked the second consecutive year in which real median household income showed no change. Full report here (85 page pdf). Census bureau links page here. President Bush’s agenda for tax relief promised “an economics of inclusion. It is the agenda of a government that knows its limits and shows its heart.” In the richest country in the world 13 million children under the age of 18 live in poverty.

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A young girl has been saved from drowning in a swimming pool by new high-tech underwater safety cameras and dramatic footage of the rescue was released today.

The 10-year-old girl lost consciousness in the deep end of the Bangor Swimming Pool, North Wales, last Wednesday and dropped quickly to the floor of the pool, 12ft 6ins under the surface.

Within 10 seconds, one of four underwater safety cameras spotted the girl and alerted lifeguards via a pager message. A lifeguard dived into the water and pulled the girl to safety. She was given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and made a full recovery in hospital.

It is the first time that that a UK swimmer has been saved by the Poseidon safety system, made by a French company, Vision IQ. The system was fitted to the Bangor pool in March 2003 at a cost of £65,000 and involves eight overhead and four underwater cameras.

And the BBC has the actual video from the system.

Oh, I do enjoy a good, full-on rant.. and this one wins my prize for “Rant Of The Week”

Could I suggest an alternative idea? Would you simply let the rest of us be? Would it be possible for you to keep your life-defying delusions to yourself — keep them within the airless confines of your bigotry-riddled churches and the cramped quarters of your own minds?

If that’s the way you choose to spend the passing hours of this finite life, it’s fine by me. But when you start your habitual proselytizing, then you should be prepared to be told that a great many of us think your cosmological conceptions are a steaming pile of behemoth dung.

And, while we’re on the subject, for the longest time, I’ve been wanting to tell you this: If Jesus died for my pathetic sins — then he flat-out overreacted.

Read On….