US university helped save lives in Cyclone Sidr

Even with this help...

A university in the US provided such detailed information on Cyclone Sidr that Bangladeshi officials were able to move people away and probably saved countless lives.

Almost 24 hours before the storm hit Bangaldesh's coast, emergency officials received detailed storm surge maps from the Louisiana State University (LSU) that showed the areas that would bear the maximum impact of Sidr.

The maps were sent by Bangladesh origin Hassan Mashriqui, an assistant professor at LSU, and helped officials move people out of harm's way ahead of the storm that has left several thousand dead and displaced millions.

I really do like to post positive information from time to time. I admit its rarely available.

How many would have died without this LSU information?



I'll have to admit something. I went to this story because I thought the university might have been mine. It turned out to not be, but that doesn't really matter. At least someone helped.

And, my high school mascot was a tiger. YEAH!

Via Japan Herald.

'Forgotten Coast': A drought, a bay and a way of life threatened

Jesus H Christ in Doc Martens, but I'm getting so tired of posting shit like this.

People are suffering and no one seems to care.

It's called the "Forgotten Coast," a sleepy stretch of Florida's Panhandle that is the heart of the state's oyster industry.

A decrease in freshwater in Florida's Apalachicola River has made work difficult for people in the oyster industry.

But residents fear their industry and their way of life may soon be a memory.

"Sad to say I'll probably be the last generation in my family who will do this," said Eugene King, who hails from a family who has harvested oysters here for four generations.

The problem is water and the lack of it.

Apalachicola is located at the meeting of freshwater rivers and the Gulf of Mexico. The combination of freshwater and saltwater creates a unique environment, an estuary where species as diverse as oysters and Tupelo honeybees flourish.

Did you catch that? Four fucking generations, but no more.

Do I have a solution? Yeah. And I can bring about world peace next Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest, not sure about this.

Via CNN.

Israel: Bedouin widow and 5 children remain homeless after bulldozers demolish illegally constructed home

Sometimes its necessary to say right is right and wrong is wrong. This is not right and is wrong.

Where's the empathy and compassion?

The Negev's Local Council of Unrecognized Bedouin Villages is planning to rebuild the home of a widow, mother of five children, which was destroyed on Wednesday by the Israel Lands Authority. Three illegally constructed homes were destroyed yesterday in the unrecognized Bedouin village of Bir al-Hamam, near Tel Sheva and Nebatim. Demolition crews were accompanied by large police forces, and destroyed, among others, the home of a widow, a mother of five children aged 8 - 14. During the destruction of the house the mother fainted a number of times, and her eight-year daughter lay on the ground crying, and asked: "Mom, why are they destroying the house?"

Via The Signs.

'The Kite Runner' is delayed to protect child stars

OK, this is the lede on the internet.

'The Kite Runner' is delayed to protect child stars Paramount Vantage is delaying the movie's release to get its three schoolboy stars out of Kabul, Afghanistan.

Obviously laudatory. Ah, but there's more.

The studio distributing "The Kite Runner," a tale of childhood betrayal, sexual predation and ethnic tension in Afghanistan, is delaying the film's release to get its three schoolboy stars out of Kabul — perhaps permanently — in response to fears that they could be attacked for their enactment of a culturally inflammatory rape scene.

Executives at the distributor, Paramount Vantage, are contending with issues stemming from the rising lawlessness in Kabul in the year since the boys were cast.

The boys and their relatives are now accusing the filmmakers of mistreatment, and warnings have been relayed to the studio from Afghan and American officials and aid workers that the movie could aggravate simmering enmities between the politically dominant Pashtun and the long-oppressed Hazara.

In an effort to prevent not only a public-relations disaster but also possible violence, studio lawyers and marketing bosses have employed a stranger-than-fiction team of consultants. In August they sent a retired Central Intelligence Agency counterterrorism operative in the region to Kabul to assess the dangers facing the child actors. And on Sunday a Washington-based political adviser flew to the United Arab Emirates to arrange a safe haven for the boys and their relatives.

"If we're being overly cautious, that's O.K.," Karen Magid, a lawyer for Paramount, said. "We're in uncharted territory."

In interviews, more than a dozen people involved in the studio's response described grappling with vexing questions: testing the limits of corporate responsibility, wondering who was exploiting whom and pondering the price of on-screen authenticity.

Why can't the fucking world be black and white? I'm tired of these shades of gray. Who did what to whom? Is the government pressuring the boys and their families? Were the filmmakers baddies? Was I involved? Scratch that last question. I wasn't even there.

Via IHT.

Coporate greed in a nutshell

Found at Left I on the News. This is the headline of a story at www.mercurynews.com.

Revenue, profit up; HP eyes more cuts

Obviously management has it right, but it doesn't make them right. Try a little compassion now, guys.