The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Jamie Hall:

It's quite a useful exercise to decide on a small number of easily-carried items that are the most important, and have a good idea of where they are, so they can be snatched up in less than a minute.

I grabbed my pre-selected items and took shelter this summer when a tornado was coming. It passed about 300 yards to the east. If it had been a direct hit, those things I carried may have been the only things I'd have left.

I'm glad this ended up as a real post and not buried in the comments. Often I don't have the time to read through all the comments here.

Debra Doyle @39

Honestly, you've never met the rural elite? In my hometown there were plenty. Guys with houses twice as big as average, who had pastimes like golf, who were spoken of in tones of deep respect, and who could get all sorts of serious criminal charges dropped just by having a "friendly chat" with the police.

Yes, the media blackout is indeed on. It seems to be getting blamed on Mayor Thomas but I'm wondering if she was ordered to do so by people farther up the chain of command, especially since the earlier "no fly zone" order came from Washington, D.C.

The same FEMA awfulness that happened with Katrina is starting again.

Constance @ 203:

Yesterday (Sunday) there were news reports on more than one of the 24/7 news channels that media helicopters weren't allowed to fly over the west end of Galveston Island. I since haven't heard anything about it one way or another. The supposed reason was to avoid interference with rescue helicopters, but the video being released (of other areas) showed that the media helicopter was flying far, far above all the other helicopters in the area - I can't imagine how such "interference" could happen, when one helicopter is high up and using a zoom lens, and the other helicopter is near rooftop level.

To me, it smells like an attempt to make it look like the government is doing a better job than it actually is. But it is difficult to tell because the information is so slow in coming. For example, on Friday the estimate was that 37,000 people would need to be rescued. Judging from various reports it looks like they are only rescuing people at a rate of a thousand per day, and I have yet to see a new estimate of how many remain to be rescued. If the actual number needing rescue is anywhere near 37,000, then they are doing it far too slow. And, before the hurricane struck, there were plenty of reports claiming that FEMA supplies were prepositioned. Then on Saturday and Sunday, there kept being reports about FEMA supplies being on the way. If the supplies had been prepositioned in the first place, wouldn't they have to move backwards in order to be "on the way" two days later? I'm not the only one to notice this.

Only now am I starting to hear a few reports of FEMA handing out food and water. That's a long time. Furthermore, there are already complaints about FEMA not doing enough, along with a bizarre call by Texas Governor Rick Perry to treat Ike victims in Texas "as fairly as they treated Louisiana back during Katrina" WTF!!?!?! Plus, I haven't heard anything about specific plans to help people who were only impacted by losing their power, and might be without electricity for a month. How do officials expect a huge number of people inside a major city to be without electricity for that long without really bad things happening?

There is an information vacuum here, along with some signs of serious future problems, and I don't like it. Hopefully, the next few days will bring more reassuring information.

On top of everything else, it looks like the McCain team violated copyright for Sarah Palin. Really, how can the Republicans keep presenting themselves as the party aligned with good moral values?

In answer to albatross at #122

I think that factual arguments and moral arguments are inherently inseparable. If you think they are completely separate, then you're basically saying that the morality of an act has no relationship to the effects of an act.

For example, suppose that death wasn't permanent. Everyone resurrects a day later with no physical or emotional damage. Would murder still be just as wrong?

Or suppose a hypothetical society with technology so high that any object could be replicated and replaced perfectly at no cost. In such a society, would stealing still be as wrong as it is now?

Or take it in the opposite direction, and suppose that every time someone in our universe chews gum, millions of sentient innocents in some other universe are tortured to death. Would the act of chewing gum then be immoral? Of course it would.

Moral arguments can never be completely untangled from factual arguments, and the effects of an act always have something to do with whether it is wrong or right.

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