I work frequently with four different machines. Two desktops, a laptop, and a tablet PC.

I want to be able to use programs in the same way across multiple machines and have state be preserved across them. For some things, I use unison. It works reasonably well for the KDE PIM apps and my Firefox bookmarks.

It doesn’t work well for things like NNTP readers (where article numbers vary from location to location) and aren’t easily fixed.

But then there are things like ipodder. It’s an otherwise nice program, but there is no good way to sync its ~/.ipodder between machines (especially if the download area is not to be synced.) Urgh. It gets all confused and messed up.

Sigh.

I wish more programs would think about this.

Take a look at this excellent post from Rhodent, full of first-hand hurricane experience. Lots of good points there.

But I’m going to disagree with two ;-)

First, I think that we’ve seen colossal failures at all levels of government. Congress should have appropriated the money to strengthen the levees years ago, when New Orleans officials first asked for it. The local authorities should have provided transportation out for people. The federal authorities should have been better positioned to help, and should have had more people on the ground (or at least dropping food from the air) sooner. There’s no excuse for the feds saying they can’t get food in when private groups could, or for saying they didn’t know anybody was in the convention center when it had been on the news for days. There’s also no excuse for the Louisiana emergency management services relying on cellphones for communication in a disaster.

Second, I think she’s right to say that the “blame game” (fingerpointing) is terrible. But I think that accountability is vital. The disaster is still in progress and lives are still at stake. If relief efforts are being so poorly managed that they are endangering people or prolonging suffering, then we need to remove these poor managers and replace them with good ones immediately. This *is* the time to see if the government is responding well and to do something about it if not. Not 6 months later when it won’t make as much difference to victims of the current disaster. When you see a problem, you should respond to it.

The Big Disconnect in New Orleans, in which CNN compares what federal officals say to the reality on the ground. Absolutely shocking.

One example:

# [FEMA Director] Brown: I’ve just learned today that we … are in the process of completing the evacuations of the hospitals, that those are going very well.

# CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta: It’s gruesome. I guess that is the best word for it. If you think about a hospital, for example, the morgue is in the basement, and the basement is completely flooded. So you can just imagine the scene down there. But when patients die in the hospital, there is no place to put them, so they’re in the stairwells. It is one of the most unbelievable situations I’ve seen as a doctor, certainly as a journalist as well. There is no electricity. There is no water. There’s over 200 patients still here remaining. …We found our way in through a chopper and had to land at a landing strip and then take a boat. And it is exactly … where the boat was traveling where the snipers opened fire yesterday, halting all the evacuations.

Harry Connick Jr. on how easy it is to get into New Orleans. (Thanks, Marty, for mentioning that one).

Mayor to Feds: Get Off Your Asses (CNN)

A Can’t-Do Government (New York Times). Including this memorable quote:

“On Wednesday,” said an editorial in The Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss., “reporters listening to horrific stories of death and survival at the Biloxi Junior High School shelter looked north across Irish Hill Road and saw Air Force personnel playing basketball and performing calisthenics. Playing basketball and performing calisthenics!”

Harry Connick Jr. Voiced some of my suspicions (blog post).

The FEMA chief blaming the victims (this is a story I wrote about earlier)

From Margins of Society to Center of Tragedy (New York Times)

Critics Say Bush Undercut Flood Prevention Funding (Washington Post)

There are a few things that make me mad.

Watching people die for no good reason is one of them.

And that’s exactly what we’ve been seeing the last few days from the New Orleans area. There are heroic efforts on the ground. This post is not about those true public servants, giving everything against impossible odds.

This post is about the federal and state governments.

Today — four full days after the hurricane hit — federal groups are finally arriving in meaningful numbers, though still obviously not enough. People were hungry in the streets; why did we not drop MREs (Meals ready-to-eat) from airplanes sooner?

The staggering lack of foresight in the state and federal governments in this country is maddening. It has come to light that, in years past, despite the efforts of the mayor of New Orleans, both the (democratic) Louisiana state government and (republican) federal administration did very little to help them improve the levees. Bush even refused multiple direct requests from the mayor to tour the area (well prior to the hurricane).

Louisiana emergency management officials went on TV earlier this week claiming that they couldn’t do much because their cellphones and blackberries were out. Think a little bit, folks — did you really expect cellphone towers to be a reliable emergency communication network after a hurricane? Ever heard of good ole’ 2-way radios? Shortwave anyone?

What about the gas prices? Perhaps if we had been investing more money into conservation and alternative fuel technology all these years, we wouldn’t be in such a mess.

And then there’s the staggering lack of a sense of urgency. After 9/11, federal and state governments countrywide sprang into action. After this hurricane, FEMA…. manages to have no idea where the victims are. Bush goes out playing a guitar. Other top officials seem to have a “life as usual” attitude. People are dying out there, and these officials see no need to try to make the bureacratic wheels turn faster to help them out?

FEMA was a particularly interesting case. On an interview with NPR yesterday, NPR reporters asked the director about all the suffering at the New Orleans convention center. The director flat-out asserted there was nobody at the convention center, accusing NPR’s reporters of being mistaken or lying. A staff member called NPR back half an hour later to say that they had now learned that there were people at the convention center.

But here’s what really takes the cake: FEMA officials saying that they shouldn’t do much because people chose to stay and their predicament is their own fault.

I think they need to get out a little more. They need to realize that many people have no means to evacuate, and no means to pay for a hotel once they’re gone. Some are too sick to move, or are caring for loved ones that are too sick to move. Some are too young or old. Many Americans don’t own a car, because they can’t afford it. Think about it: if you had no money, no car, and nowhere to go anywhere else, what would you do?

So yes, I am ticked at my government and extremely annoyed that my tax dollars are paying for a federal “response” that takes days to even meaningfully begin.

ABC will have a 1-hour special tonight at 10PM Eastern covering the hurricane and its effects. It seems to be shaping up to be one of, if not the, worst natural disasters in this country’s history.

Thanks to a new spam module for Drupal, you no longer need to log in to post comments here.

The new spam module looks much nicer than the old one. I think it will do very well here.

Ever gone to a ticket counter at an airport, given your name, and an airport employee not only recites your hometown, but also which restaurant you like to dine at?

Well, that happened to us on Friday.

Seems that the former owner of The Breadbasket sold the restaurant, then decided to go to work at the airport.

Journalists have been a vital part of American society for quite some time. They have outed government corruption and exposed Americans to stories that would have otherwise gone unknown. Some of the journalists I admire most include Daniel Schorr, Edward R. Murrow, Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, and Walter Cronkite.

There are some interesting patterns in this list. Most of these people challenged prevailing “common knowledge” about the way things were in the world. Murrow, for instance, helped defeat McCarthyism. They all took risks, often risking their own lives to get vital, real stories out. Also, not one of them is under 60 years old, and in fact, most are either dead or in the 80+ range. They all had their moments of widest fame before I was born.

Today I am reflecting on the American media after watching the special on Peter Jennings last night. I am not usually very positive about the American media. I don’t think (in general) that the mainstream media is biased, but rather that it is stupid and useless. Seeing headlines about rescued cats, celebrity trials, and which celebrity is hawking which religion tends to make a person dismiss the media outlets that run these headlines.

Where do I get most of my news? NPR, Google, and BBC. Occasionally from the New York Times, Washington Post, Deutsche Welle, CSPAN, and various British newspapers. I find these sources actually provide, well, news. Sometimes even a useful investigation, and I don’t mean the “on your side” investigations about the mechanic that ripped someone off for $20.

Seeing clips of Peter Jennings’ reports showed me something. This was a person, working for a mainstream news organization (owned by Disney, no less) that actually did get real, relevant news out there. He covered the genocide in Bosnia to an impressive degree.

I guess sometimes I forget that the mainstream media occasionally does get it right. I must remember that there are good people out there, even working for TV news organizations, that are dedicated in the same way that Daniel Schorr was.

Though it will be really hard to keep this in mind when watching Fox News.

I’m a little confused.

I watched the first half of ABC’s 2-hour special about Peter Jennings tonight. It was an incredible program. Among other things, I saw how Jennings exposed the US State Department ordering its employees to lie by claiming there were not concentration camps in Bosnia, helped expose how the United States government was illegally arming the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and how he made sure to show the Arab/Palestinian viewpoint (contrary to US wishes) in his reporting from the middle east. He had other run-ins with official corruption or, at the very least, misleading actions.

Jennings lived and worked in the United States for years — decades, even — as a Canadian citizen. Just a few years ago (2003, I think), he became an American citizen.

What was it that he saw in the United States and its government that made him change his mind? And why did it take him so long?

I’m often cynical about our government. Just this week we learn how the federal government is squandering our tax money with pork-barrel spending in the highway bill. The number of times that government officials have lied and misled the American people and the world, and even violated American law, is staggering. And it has happened with people from both parties.

I believe that this country has never really lived up to the great dream embodied in the Declaration of Independence. We have, over the course of our history, systematically and intentionally deprived entire groups of the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: Native Americans, blacks, poor people, Japanese, women, conscientious objectors to war, Germans, and the list goes on. When I hear our presidents talking about how the United States has always been a land of freedom, I cringe.

What is it that made Peter Jennings want to be a part of it? What is it that I’m missing? And why did it take him so long to arrive at the conclusion he eventually did?

We can, of course, look to a great many people across the globe that have less freedom than we do, and be grateful for the rights and privileges we enjoy. But Canadians don’t likely rank among those that are stifled by authoritarian regimes.