Holy cow.

The latest news reports I've read on Drudge say that they're expecting New Orleans won't be inhabitable for months. Stennis Space Center apparently got hit by the hurricane, their website says they've got a thousand people taking shelter there, and Michoud Assembly Facility is reachable only by helicopter since the roads to it are all flooded. There's nothing about it on the Marshall site so maybe it didn't hit them. Or maybe their webmaster just hasn't gotten the time to put something on their NASA site. Surely it hit there too, since they're somewhat further south and we got it here.

On the news reports they're saying people are maxing out their credit cards and emptying their bank accounts as they try to find places to be. People wandering around, staying in hotels, then going to shelters when they run out of money. An oil rig broke free and ended up more than 60 miles from where it was supposed to be. People looting. One Wal-Mart in Louisiana got looted and people made off with all the guns in the sports department. So there's groups of armed people wandering around New Orleans, looting. What a charming image. Here, in America, gangs of armed thugs looting. Just seems to me we oughtn't to be preaching to the rest of the world when our own people turn into thieves and thugs the moment they're given the chance. The government has given the go-ahead to draw from the strategic oil reserves so that gas production isn't disrupted, and yet one report says the White House doesn't expect all of this will significantly effect the economy. 25 Billion in damages, oil at over $70/barrel already, a major portion of the country's own oil production won't be online for weeks if not months, reports that the oil companies will be rationing oil to the refineries, and our economy won't be effected? Whatever they're putting in the White House air freshener must be some damned good stuff 'cause reality is no longer a problem for them.

(Y'know, if I was a Biblical, Signs-from-God kinda person, I'd be getting very suspicious of these last few years. First September 11th, the Columbia, a pointless war and now this. A neon sign couldn't be this obvious. In Star Wars it was all so clear and direct, you did something stupid and the Force made you get a hand cut off. Regular like clockwork, be an idiot, get a hand cut off. No ambiguity, and it sure as hell made you pay attention. Call me crazy but all of this that's happened makes me begin to suspect maybe collectively as a nation we're doing something wrong. Like, oh, I dunno, handing the presidency to a hyperconservative fundametalist psychotic megalomaniac who didn't actually win the election to begin with? I dunno, I could be wrong, but geez all of this is getting hard to ignore. )

Well. It's a bad scene. And it's not going to go away tomorrow.



In other, perhaps happier news, I've now got a CafePress store of my own. Not only that, but I have a book for sale. A real live book. I put together "PA", "Khamaira's Journey" and "Sheperds" into a book, made front and back covers with MS Publisher, and after a bit of fiddling with the PDF files of same uploaded everything. If it all worked the way it's supposed too, I will have an honest to god printed book of my own stuff in my hot and sweaty hands in a few days. If it turned out well, I'll start telling everybody I know. Until I have one of these in my hands as proof it works properly I'm not going to advertise. So be patient, grasshoppers. All shall be revealed to thee anon. I guess I'm just stubborn that way. I want to make sure it works before I go telling everybody. It's a bit more expensive than I'd like at $12 each, but hey, it's real.


Otherwise I'm doing homework. 'Nuff Said.