Useful Fools

Two friends of my daughter were tourists in New Orleans. They spent several horrifying days in the SuperDome, and this is her report on a phone call from one, now that they are in a Dallas hotel. Earlier she had gotten alarming text messages while they were in the dome - they didn’t expect to survive. I won’t bother to justify their reasons for staying through the storm - they shouldn’t have. We expect more details in the future, after they get some sleep.

Account from the Superdome

Two friends of mine went to New Orleans last weekend, and refused to listen when told to evacuate. They decided to stick it out in their French Quarter hotel. During the actual storm, their window blew out, but the hotel stayed solid. Monday, the two decided to leave and seek shelter. They walked to I-10, where hundreds were already standing and waiting. Between them and the Superdome was rising water, but the situation on the road looked bad, so they trekked out through the water to the Dome.

While walking and swimming through various levels of water, they encountered a dead baby floating away. The water smelled like gasoline and grime. When they made it to the Superdome, armed guards simply asked them to drop any weapons into a box (filled with guns, they noted) and let them pass. At this point the Superdome was still relatively clean, and they changed clothing in the bathroom and tossed out their soiled wet clothes.

Quickly, they realized things were going to get bad. Looters broke into the restaurants and vending outlets, bringing out liquor bottles and cases of beer. They were offered beer at $1 per can. Soon, fighting broke out, and people were left bleeding or dead in the corridors. No one came to help the sick or dead.

Hoping to find safety, they set out to find a place to hide. A trash can held the corpse of a 4 and a half year old girl. The mourners nearby said she had been raped and killed. A storage unit looked promising, and the duo hid out for several hours listening to the chaos beyond. Deciding that they would get mauled if found hiding, they left the unit and went down to the field, where they saw Army and National Guard troops. The Army told them they couldn’t hang around for safety, so they went to where the National Guard was forming a ring. The Guardsmen told them they could hang around the perimeter if they wanted, so they sat about 10 feet away from where two Guards were posting entrance to their circle. At some point after, a man came out of the flooded areas of the Dome with a pipe. He hit one of the Guards, a woman, on the head. He then shot the other guard in the leg (origin of gun unknown). The female Guard ran screaming away. The perpetrator ran back to the water. He was found with just his nose above the surface, and locked up.

While all this was taking place, the Superdome became increasingly dirty and the people panicked.

They watched two women beat a man to death after he tried to grab one of their daughter’s, presumably to rape. Before his cell phone battery died, he text-messaged me how scared he was, and that he didn’t think he would make it out.

As the bathrooms became disgusting and were quite unsafe, my friends stopped eating and only drank the available grape juice, so as to not need to use the restrooms. They urinated in bottles. One friend began vomiting by Wednesday on this diet. When they were finally told to go outside to line up for bus convoys, they thought relief was in sight. Hardly. The masses stampeded, crushing at least three people that they saw. They held back, staying away from the fray. A Guardsman told them that 53 people had died over the previous night (Tues/Weds), and my friends think most were murders. A morgue tent was set up in the middle of the Dome.

By Thursday, they decided to enter the lines leaving the complex. By then it smelled so horrid neither friend could find a word to describe the odor. They were at first glad to be on the bridge outside, but soon found themselves hot, squished, and scared. A woman behind the pair had two German Shepards that were getting violent, and had nipped at my friends. One friend finally turned around and asked her to keep her dogs away from them. She screamed, “It’s just because you hate black people!” “Uh-oh”, they thought, “we’re dead now!” Luckily, the crowd didn’t turn on them, and they were safe. After 14 hours they made it to the front of the line. The pair got separated, and one got on a bus 4 hours before the other. The last one to get a bus told me of how the bus driver gave every seat a trash bag, asking the people to use them. After arriving in Dallas Saturday morning, however, the bus was strewn with litter.

He told me of how wonderful the people of Texas were. Every time the bus stopped, volunteers gave them food and water, and a soldier even hugged him. The volunteers at the convention center were very welcoming, and my friend has now vowed that Texas is the greatest state in the nation. He was very angry at the mayor and governor of Louisiana, for their lack of preparedness for a storm that they knew was coming. Neither friend ever wants to step foot in New Orleans again.

Every 12 hours, I get an email generated by my office server. It reads:

SUBJECT: Spam Report: Mon, Mar 14 2005 - Zero Spam!

Congratulations… Our server did not detect any spam in your account today!

It seems to me that I get two spam messages on that account every day. There is no way to opt out of them, either.

This software must have been written by the sort of person for whom the metal ladders need to carry warnings like “Don’t put against high voltage killer zapper electrical wires.”

My daughter works as a genetic engineer. Now sometimes things come out okay, and other times, well,

You know, sometimes the craziest ideas come up:

Israeli-made bullets bought by the U.S. Army to plug a shortfall should be used for training only, not to fight Muslim guerrillas in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. lawmakers told Army generals on Thursday.

Since the Army has other stockpiled ammunition, “by no means, under any circumstances should a round (from Israel) be utilized,” said Rep. Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii, the top Democrat on a House of Representatives Armed Services subcommittee with jurisdiction over land forces.

[ … ]

Although the Army should not have to worry about “political correctness,” Abercrombie was making a valid point about the propaganda pitfalls of using Israeli rounds in the U.S.-declared war on terror, said Rep. Curt Weldon, the Pennsylvania Republican who chairs the subcommittee on tactical air and land forces.

“There’s a sensitivity that I think all of us recognize,” Weldon told the Army witnesses, including Maj. Gen. Buford Blount, who led the U.S. Third Infantry Division that captured Baghdad in April 2003.

I once had lunch with a mercenary who had found Muslims in Africa. His group always greased their bullets with pigfat. Sounds fine to me. If they’re worth killing, they’re worth offending.

Hat Tip to Silent Running. and Mike H.

Robert at El Gringo points out that a local union is outsourcing it’s picketing:

Sure, it’s hot, there are no breaks and no opportunity to get lunch. But as immigrant workers, they’re used to toiling long hours for low pay.

“We’ve had much harder jobs,” Hernandez, 38, said while leaning on a tall chair along East Van Buren Street.

The two are among dozens of women hired by the Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters to carry out the union’s demonstrations. It’s sort of an “outsourcing” of the protest.

…

The old-fashioned method, where workers would protest their own conditions, is apparently passe. The construction workers who were supposedly being treated unfairly were still on the job during the demonstration, receiving their supposedly substandard wage and measly benefits.

Chavez and Hernandez, both of whom came from Chihuahua, Mexico, six years ago, say most of the construction workers are immigrants as well. So, they feel like they are trying to stop people in the same situation from being taken advantage of.

Unfortunately, the permalink doesn’t work for this article. It is the May 31, 2004 top entry in the El Gringo blog, and the original source is The Arizona Repulsive

From New York Arts Magazine:

From the pages of the Spanish newspaper El Pais erupted a disturbing anecdote. Jose Milicua, a noted art-historian, uncovered evidence that “anarchist” forces used modern art to torture prisoners during the Spanish Civil War. Oh, the Horror! Art was misused in the Spanish Civil War! Sane people are more concerned with the real tragedies and atrocities, While it is true many metaphorically consider modern art to be torture, the idea that being forced to view modern art could be a signicant instrument of torture is laughably over-serious.

Read the rest of this entry »

From the Arizona Republic:

The ear-blasting takeoffs of military fighter jets at suburban Scottsdale Airport have residents buzzing and city officials flying off.
That’s the sound of people who fight and die for their benefit!
Nearby airport neighbor Nick Luongo said his wife was taking a shower when some of the fighter jets passed overhead.
“They scared the living daylights out of her,” Luongo said.
Maybe he shouldn’t have bought a house in the flight path! Scottsdale airport was originally a military training field far out in the desert. It is now surrounded by homes, bought by fools now whining about the noise made by the defenders of our nation!John Little, Scottsdale’s director of transportation, said the military jets, which are “very noisy” when they take off, are infrequent visitors.
I love that sound. It is the sound of America in action.
Scottsdale Councilman Wayne Ecton said they are not infrequent enough. Last week at a City Council subcommittee meeting on aviation he suggested Scottsdale let military pilots know they are not welcome.
Wayne, you idiot, those people are risking their lives to protect your freedom. Why don’t you take off, quietly, and not come back?
Scottsdale air traffic controller Mary Anne Addis reminded the subcommittee that military jets have the right to land at Scottsdale Airport. She turned to Ecton and asked him if he was bothered to see U.S. military jets in the sky after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Give that lady a raise! That was exactly the right response!

We all knew that the California Governor recall race would provide some comedy, but who expected it to come from Lt. Gov. Gray Cruz Bustamonte? We thought that his primary claim to fame is his membership in the Mexican KKK.

But no… he’s deeper than we thought! Apparently wanting to out-do Gray Davis’ electrical blackouts, Bustamante is calling for gas shortages in California. Something in the water in Sacramento seems to lead to meddling with energy.
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What IDIOT called in the morticians for Uday and Qusay?

He or she has all the brains of a fireplug, and deserves the appropriate treatment from every passing dog!

It was going so well. They were following my advice, albeit taking too long.

First they provided pictures.

Then they showed the bodies.

But I guess I wasn’t precise enough in my instructions. I forgot to tell them not to alter the bodies. Sometimes, you’d think common sense would be enough.

But no… somebody thought they should pretty up the bodies. Why? Well, maybe because that’s what they always do before a showing? Because they wanted to repair the damage to the faces to make them more recognizable? Because they didn’t want to offend the Arabs by showing more of the mutilation that war brings?

Whatever, it was stupid! STUPID! This is just the sort of thing the Arabs are used to: altered “evidence!” So much for convincing them that the Pig Latin twins are ed-day!

It’s hard to get good help these days - people who can follow instructions and apply common sense!