"bitch" is racist????

from Bayou Buzz dot com, all of a sudden the word "bitch" is racist

here's a summary.
Yup. Jesse Jackson's even sticking his "is there enough air play?" nose into this one.

All this over trashcans.

And one wonders why New Orleans is so fucked up.

Google Maps

Google's maps under fire
Cain Burdeau in New Orleans
2-Apr-07

GOOGLE'S replacement of post-Hurricane Katrina satellite imagery on its Google Maps portal with images of the region before the storm does a "great injustice" to the storm's victims, a US congressional subcommittee said.

The House Committee on Science and Technology's subcommittee on investigations and oversight on Friday asked Google chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt to explain why his company is using the outdated imagery.

The subcommittee cited an Associated Press report on the images.

"Google's use of old imagery appears to be doing the victims of Hurricane Katrina a great injustice by airbrushing history," subcommittee chairman Brad Miller, wrote in a letter to Mr Schmidt.

Swapping the post-Katrina images and the ruin they revealed for others showing an idyllic city dumbfounded many locals and even sparked suspicions that the company and civic leaders were conspiring to portray the area's recovery progressing better than it was.

Andrew Kovacs, a Google spokesman, said the company had received the letter but Mr Schmidt had no immediate response.

After Katrina, Google's satellite images were in high demand among exiles and hurricane victims anxious to see whether their homes were damaged.

Now, though, a virtual trip through New Orleans is a surreal experience of scrolling across a landscape of packed parking lots and marinas full of boats.

Reality is very different. Entire neighbourhoods are now slab mosaics where houses once stood and shopping malls, churches and marinas are empty of life, many gone altogether.

John Hanke, Google's director for maps and satellite imagery, said "a combination of factors including imagery date, resolution, and clarity" go into deciding what imagery to provide.

"The latest update from one of our information providers substantially improved the imagery detail of the New Orleans area," Mr Hanke said in a news release about the switch.

Mr Kovacs said efforts were under way to use more current imagery.

It was not clear when the current images replaced views of the city taken after Katrina struck August 29, 2005, flooding an estimated 80 per cent of New Orleans.

Mr Miller asked Google to brief his staff by April 6 on who made the decision to replace the imagery with pre-Katrina images, and to disclose if Google was contacted by the city, the US Federal Emergency Management Agency, the US Geological Survey or any other government entity about changing the imagery.

"To use older, pre-Katrina imagery when more recent images are available without some explanation as to why appears to be fundamentally dishonest," Mr Miller said.

Mark over at Wetbankguide has more

from wired dot com, "Google denies conspiracy" (they didn't think anyone was looking)

Festival Time

This weekend marked the kickoff of festivals in this area.

Here's a complete listing of Louisiana Festivals scheduled from now through December Thanks to the TP for this listing.

On Saturday, hubby and I decided to do the Picayune Street Festival.

A quaint little happening, the Street Fest offered us three hours of people watching, good food and great bargains. Picayune is 15 minutes from Slidell and has become a new home people who lost everything to Katrina. Lacking the "la-dee-dah" factor of some New Orleans festivals, the Picayune Street Festival is worth while. Here are some pictures.
Click on pictures for full-sized versions

The weather was overcast and it DID sprinkle some, but all of the Antique and Gift shops where open (some very nice ones) which allowed us time to browse


This was the largest car show I'd seen. This green beauty was by far my favorite.


Did you know that there is a Biker Church? Cool!
These furniture makers from Lucedale, Mississippi created some huge bedroom suites for your "weekend getaway"

The helicopter rides took place all day

I found this beautiful suncatcher for only $35
I would like to talk to the person who approved the wording of this billboard. It makes no sense.

We spent the afternoon doing chores at home and about 5 pm it started raining. Very little thunder and lightning, but around 5:30 we heard a crash and discovered the baskteball goal had been pushed over by winds

A little later the electricity went out......till 10:30 PM. We thought entergy had taken over our electric company over here, but seems like there were a lot of power outages in this area last night and we were low on the totem pole. Come to find out, a tree that had been killed during Katrina succumbed to the winds and fell. As it did, a piece of it tangled in the electrical wires and took out our power.


Thanks to Cleco for the great work.

New Beer

Strawberry Harvest Lager Hits Shelves SOON

You’ve waited all year and now it’s almost here! Abita Strawberry Harvest Lager is back. Last year when we introduced the new limited edition brew, made with plump, sweet Louisiana strawberries it caused quite a sensation. 6,400 cases of the beer sold out in only six weeks.

Abita Strawberry Harvest Lager is made with ripe, red Louisiana strawberries, harvested at the peak of the season. Strawberry Harvest has the aroma and taste of the berries, with a refreshing and satisfying beer flavor. In response to the incredible demand, a greater quantity of Abita Strawberry Harvest Lager was brewed. However, President of Abita Brewing Company, David Blossman, reminds everyone, “Supplies are still limited and once they are gone…they are gone. We won’t make any more til 2008.”

Don’t miss out, get to the store and grab a six pack to take home. Abita Strawberry Harvest is ripe for the picking.

Watchdog Blogger

Matt McBride from "Fix the pumps blogis featured in the latest issue of Gambit. From Matt's blog, his goal: After Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers agreed to assume full responsibility for repair of New Orleans' drainage pumps. Over a year later, much work remains undone. I am here to push them to do that work.

For all of you people out there who don't understand why 80% of New Orleans flooded post Katrina - read his blog. Read the Gambit article.

Thanks, Matt!

Roller coaster emotions.

A Mississippi blogger comments about the on-again-off-again depression that affects the denizens of the Gulf Coast


I’ve been trying for 19 months and I don’t think I’ve really have been able to get across the chaos, the fears, the hope, and the shock of seeing a world that you’ve looked upon for over 40 years wiped away in an 8 hour period.

But I believe that the citizens along the Mississippi Gulf Coast well meet this new sense of despondency with the same resiliency that they have shown these past 19 months. It is already starting. Yesterday, Smokin the Sound, after a year’s absence, came back. There were thousands watching the magnificent boats race. But even as I drove away after watching for a couple of hours, I noticed the hundreds more that were playing at the beach and in our parks.

It might seem strange to welcome heavy traffic once again. But I welcome it along Highway 90. For it means that people are coming back to the Mississippi Gulf Coast and are coming back to the beaches..... ..... The Mississippi Gulf Coast is still tattered but little by little those ragged edges are being replaced.

There are so many things that can bring on that sense of depression. I got it as I read comments to a post about New Orleans in Harry Shearer's blog ..... many of us regard N.O. more as a tourist attraction and novelty site than an actual functioning city. That and the fact that Louisiana is a southern state, a red state, a poor, uneducated state, a state with a history of unsophisticated political corruption, yet a state too stupid to vote Democrat even after a Republican administration subjected it to criminal negligence and public humiliation.

Do I know what I'm talking about? Absolutely not. I've never been to Utah, but I regard it as a [messed] up theocracy; and I've never visited Florida, but I have a low opinion of it because of the disproportionate influence its population of anti-Fidelistas has on the rest of the country, its number of executions, and because of Jeb Bush.

Dumb reasons, right? Well, in truth, my reasons for "hostility" toward N.O. are no less reasonable than people's reasons for not liking France (which I've visited) or Mexico (where I once lived), or not liking modern art (which I own).

EJ has found similar feelings here where he links to a blog that thinks like this:

While I can't imagine the personal devastation caused by Katrina, I wonder why other great cities have risen to the challenge of past natural disasters and New Orleans is still paralyzed?

What a fucktard.....not EJ, but this moron who calls itself Machiavelli (it wishes).





Just seeing Ray Nagin in the news brings me down.

Driving home from work brings me down some days.


But this little guy seems happy...even though he has to eat out of this nasty ditch every day on Hwy 90.

But spring is here, life is renewed and we forge forward. Looking forward but not ever forgetting what's behind us. What has happened has made us wiser, stronger, sometimes sadder, sometimes angry. But we survived.

small victories

Katrina devastated soo much. But Mother Nature prevails. Take that, biatch Katrina!

Talking to C Ray

Once again, Mark over at the Wetbankguide Blogspot nails it in his post to/about C Ray Nagin:
What's happening here is not happening to you in particular, or to the people you believe you represent. Listen, man: you're not Moses, the annointed leader of the Children of Isreal. The entire aftermath of the Federal Flood was not Pharoah out to get you and your people, and acting like that's the story line isn't going to bring about biblical miracles to restore the city to what it was. That's the PTSD and whatever else you have going on talking. Somebody who cares about you needs to take you aside and talk to you 'cause your messed up, and every time you open your mouth you mess us all up.....It's not about you. It's about all of us, the 200,000. Its about everyone who's picked themselves up by their bootstraps and made their way home, all or at least mostly at their own expense because they love this city. I don't have a demographer on retainer so I can't tell you what the current population is. I can only tell you what it looks like, and with every passing day I travel the streets it looks more like New Orleans, the New Orleans you and I both remember. The vast conspiracy hasn't blocked the people I see.


Thanks, Mark

Sleezy Scuzzbuckets

From Saturday's TP
In a macabre identity theft scam, a Slidell hospital employee sent her son cell-phone text messages with the personal information of dying patients so he could submit fraudulent credit card applications in their names as soon as they died, authorities said.


The mother-son team is accused of stealing the identities of more than 100 dead people and obtaining at least 17 fraudulent credit cards, which they used to buy thousands of dollars worth of merchandise, sheriff's deputies said.

He said Ezell used the information to submit credit card applications in the names of the deceased, using addresses of unoccupied homes that had been damaged by Hurricane Katrina near his house at 2218 Bluebird St. in the Ozone Woods subdivision, authorities said.

"He would check the mailboxes regularly to see if any credit cards had arrived," Strain said.



These people are lower than low. Hope they throw away the keys on these bastards.

New Blogger

Here's a blog about New Orleans penned by a writer for the New Yorker.


Dan Baum arrived in New Orleans two days after Hurricane Katrina and has reported on the disaster and its aftermath ever since. He is back in New Orleans until June, working on a book to be published in 2009.

Status of Wetlands Projects

Click here to view the
Louisiana Department of Natural Resources' list of wetland enhancement projects.
The Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act (CWPPRA) was
passed by congress in 1990. It funds wetland enhancement projects nationwide, designating approximately $60 million annually for work in Louisiana.

This report gives an overview and status of coastal efforts to protect, conserve, restore, and improve the state's coastal wetlands. The Barrier Island Status Report is included in the report as mandated by the
2006 Regular Legislative Session. The report is subdivided into four primary sections by region and also includes information on project location, features, acreage, costs, and funding sources.

Project List
The CWPPRA Task Force annually develops a list of high-priority projects to be constructed. To date, sixteen such priority lists have been formulated. The projects funded by CWPPRA all focus on marsh creation, restoration, protection or enhancement