Driving back from Blackburn last night there was a very intresting programme on 5 live convering the fact that often people won't donate to relief efforts becuse they feel no association with a bloke in a hut in Niger, however now, many are refusing to donate to NOLA appeals because "America has the cash to sort it's own problems out". Whilst I understand that feeling (because, quite simply it does), how much of that is going to filter down to the refugees ? Personally, I'll be sending a sizable chunk to the Red Cross, at least that way I can pretty much gaurentee it's going to somewhere it's needed.

Aid from Cuba has certainly been rejected (despite Cuba algready having coped with several Cat 5 hurricanes before). The "big" domestic aid agencies (Red Cross etc) were allowed unrestricted access at the same time as the news crews ! (Note for two days, the only aid group inside the city was the Sally Army !!!) However, non-ratified organisations and individual are still denied access (apart from a few outlying and dry parishes). There are hundreds of people with cell phone access to stranded folks who the NG won't allow them to go to. Currently if you leave it's on a sanctioned bus or hellicopter and have in many cases have little or no choice where you are flown-on to. An aside. As so many (pre-hurricane-probably-mentally-ill) homeless refused to leave without their possesions, Chinooks now allow them to take shopping trollies on them An Aside 2. There is a huge oil slick off NOLA now and a 1000ft x 1000 ft x 1000 ft toxic (reported as Sulphuric Acid) cloud surrounding a chemicals factory. An Aside 3. A combination of buidling materials and flood water contents means almost all flooded residentail housing will have to demolished (thats what happens when you build with wood not bricks).

I don't think anyone is blaming bush for the storm. People are blaming nagin for being vastly underprepared for something that has been predicted for decades and blaming Bush/FEMA/FedGov/NG/USArmyCommand for not taking control of the situation much faster. The funds allocated to maintain the levees had been cut over recent years, but it would be unfair to say these funds had been sent directly to Iraq. However there is no denying 30% of the NO National Guard and it's equipment is currently in Iraq. The NO NG were the only group with ANY kind of functioning command structure in the city by day 5. Rotterdam, like Florida has also spent HUGE amounts of money and planning for such an enventuality. I have no doubts whatsoever that both cities would have coped with a Cat 5 Hurricane far far better than NOLA. NOLA seemed to be burying it's head in the sand over this for the last decade. For those that form opinions based on skim reading, please NOTE. I AM NOT ANTI-AMERICAN, sure I am anti-Bush, but believe his government was only one of many agenceies that dropped the ball. I also am not putting the hurricane down to global warming. I believe it's simply chaos theory in action.

Governer Nagin DID decide to delay the evacuation order by 24 hours for no seemingly good reason. They DID order an evacuation with the full knowledge that those without cars had insufficient time to make it. (Much respect to Nagin for holding his hands up afterwards and admitting he screwed up and for shamming the government into actually doing something).

I think the political implications of this need to be discussed. The pre-warning was botched, the pre-hurricane evactuation was botced and then the post-hurricane evactuaion and rescue who horrendously botched. The big question is were the delays (at ever stage) deliberate or just buerocratic bumbling. How come a city built in such a vulnerable position had such an inadequate evacuation plan. How come DoHS and FEMA seemed to be completely unprepared for this kind of incident when managing such incidents is one of their main purposes. How did both the command and communications infrastructure fail in such a catostrophic way, when both are easly prevntable. I don't but Kanye West's "George Bush doesn't care about black people" rant, but I do buy "Amercia was grossely underprepared for an entirely predictable situation".

Mike (Interdictor) is ex-special forces and took his job as DirectNics disaster management manager to the extreme. Donny and Sig (who are in there with him) are just a techie and a suit and from their chat sessions don't seem to share Mike's love of the military stuff, although they do admit Mike and his methods are the reason they are still alive and still transmitting. Until recently the main thing they were doing was getting real info on the real situation out to the world. At the time the news was concentrating on Biloxi as thats where they could get news crews too, NO was being classed as "under control" becuase thats what they were being told, when under control was (and still is) far from the truth. Since yesterday NOPD has allowed news crews into the city (and the Sally Army ... but not the Red Cross FFS !) into the city, so more info is coming out, so the guys at outpost crytsal are now less essential. It does now smack of "were staying until told because we can" a little, but they are also helping repair the citys comms infrastructure. Right or Wrong ... following their plight has been compelling viewing/reading.

From the scanners, it seems the Red Cross are STILL being denied access ! However, the NOPD and NOFD are struggling to contain a burning mall in the CBD because they are STILL coming under sniper fire.

Police Looters News footage - http://www.zippyvideos.com/891102377101346...ing-in-walmart/ Not somebody I want to meet in my local ASDA - http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/0...c.184.1.650.jpg

From following NOPD/FEMA/NationalGuard scanners it's obvious that until this morning (US time) there has been little or no communication between any of the rescue groups at all. In certain areas both the NOPD and NG have pulled out whilst delivering aid and/or attempting evactuation after being shot at repeatedly (this includes attempts by coastguards). The NG seem to preventing anyone crossing (in either direction) the only exit over the river. There have been reports of a vigilante in an ice cream truck sniping looters ! Things do seem to be a little more organised today but the rescue services are still woefully under manned and the security services woefully outgunned. My main concern is that the folks at the evacuation points (Convention Centre and Superbowl) still see nnot to be receiving aid. It looks like these folks would have had a better chance of survival if they'd have stayed in thier own neighbourhoods. BTW The explosions have been reported by the NG as "Non-Hazmat" and probably just used-oil.

Listening to the National Guard is trully shocking, in the last ten minutes we've had live reports of a swat team going into hospital that a group of armed civilians had taken under seige and the captain of the ferryboat (shuttling evacuees) has been shot. It sounds like absolute anarchy .... just as cnn reports "no riots, just minor scuffles"

Live audio feed of a scanner set to the national guard frequency in NO - http://216.22.26.45:8002/listen.pls --I'll add the NOPD feed next (although it sounds as is the police have all but given up). (Who needs "embedded reporters" when you have techies ). Scanners, web cams, TV feeds and lots of other info at http://wiki.nola-intel.org/

A bunch of tech's are holed up in a datacenter (super-resiliant building designed to ensure the computer infrastucture they support keeps running whatever happens) in NO are give live updates (and webcam) in their part of the city (and have no intention of leaving just yet). From reading the reports it sounds like all law and order has broken down and the area now resembles a scene from Escape From New York, they also report that the police themselves are responsible for looting and the arrival of the army has done little to help matters. Compelling reading at http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/

Wikipedia does a pretty good job of sorting the fact from the fiction. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davinci_code#...behind_the_book Bloody good read though, be it fact or fiction. ... National Geographic TV also did a great documentary on it (again, investigating which bits are histroically accurate).

Sadly the blue and whites have all gone. Had to settle for green and blue. As for a pringle, no longer, but I did have one of the most horrendous ones ever, pink, yelow and black ! That's me and my Pringle circa 1985. Now if Farrahs come back in I'll be well sorted

less of the old

Naming beer, clothing, standing and singing as a way of identifying these little scrotes is way off. I like to drink at games, some will even point out that on occasion I drink more than is socially acceptable in public. I like to wear a lot of clothes that some would call "chavy", "terrace wear" or even "hoolie" (OK, I'm not a fan of Burbury, AquaScrotom or Clone Island, but I do tend to wear Henri Lloyd (not sad stripey jumpers), LaCoste and lots of retro stuff (I even managed to get me some Trimm Trabs ). I do however tend to wear colours to games so I don't get mistaken for a scrote. Yes, I too like to wear what these guys class as "good clothes" (plus I've got through too many pies to wear what they so eloquently describe as "faggot clothes"). I do like to sing, especially whilst standing (however I'm socialy responsible enough to only stand when it if doesn't effect others). Quite often on the back row near these little arses. ..... however, as far as I know I never been mistaken for one of the little social maladjusts that have been attending away games in growing numbers over the last few years. Why ? Becuase it's not about beer, clothing or how you watch the game, it's simply about how they want to be percieved by their peers and their complete lack of respect to those that aren't. They wan't to be the man, they wan't to be the one that one monday their mates text each other about. But none of the are, they are just a little bunch of kiddie wannabes. What's more it'll all end in serious tears, today it was a few kids with cones and stones, one of these days you #### off some serious boys and they coach won't be there for you to run onto. They don't realise how close you came to getting a kicking from the locals in the Bluebird in Cardiff (assuming they are who I think they are) when they turned some good natured banter into something much more agresive by starting singing No Surrender. (Apologies if this wasn't you guys). Finally, Invisible Man (and remember, nobody is THAT invisible to us ) As for name, how about "Blackburn Youth" because after all, that what you want people to think you are don't you.

In many ways ..... Yes

Hi and welcome to the board. You're obviously an MS fan-boy (and I'm unashamed I'm a Sony fan-boy), so I thought I'd point out a few inaccuracies in your posts. Quoting that gamespot article was good becuase you actually do what the article claims and lift uncomparable statistics and quote them whilst seeming not to have a full grasp of what they mean. They haven't put a hard drive in it ! The initial CORE model that gets released will not come with a HD but it can be bought as a peripheral, the premium package comes with an EXTERNAL HD included. It therefore ISN'T backwardsly compatable unless you purchase a HD. Yes, but each PS3 core consists of 8 cells, the XB360 only 3. To quote the articles sumization of CPU cores. "You might be able to call the Cell's SPEs overgrown math units, but we think Sony's Cell processor wins from a brute power perspective." Since when has memory bandwidth been a major factor (especially in a console) and once more you're comparing apples and oranges. The main memory bandwith is marginally better on the PS3, the bandwith speed you quote is the eDRAM, the memory internal to the video hardward, which the PS3 doesn't even have ! So what you are saying is the xbox360 isn't a bunch of top end PC parts in a console box. True, especially compare to the original XBox, but this is no different to the PS3. Us PS2 users have never had to pay Sony to play games on line and my understanding is it's only demos and patches that MS will give free access to. Besides, IT'S A FRICKIN CONSOLE, with such a a limited hardware base software should be release bug free, not released half finished just to hit deadlines because they can always patch it later. I think making patches easyly and freely available will just cause quality control to go through the floor (as it has done in the PC world). My PS2 already acts as a media centre (DivxX/AVI/MP3 player with all the media mounted on a server accessed over a wireless connection). I'm sure as hell my PS3 will to. I will conceed the PS2reality is no where near as good as the Xbox media centre software. I didn't know MS had made any commitment to supporting HDTV, but as the plan to launch the Xbox in 5 different varieties on 3 years, I'm guessing one varient will have HDTV support. You'll notice the PS3 comes with two HDTV outputs. ..... time for work.

More the point that Rovers don't own the rights to distribute the highlights over the internet, other people have paid for the rights to do that and Rovers will have benefitted from the cash they recieved. Sounds fair enough to me. I doubt Rovers had a gun to their heads when they sold the distribution rights. Lee tried to negotiate limited rights back from them but an agreement couldn't be reached. Nice try from Lee, but not the end of the world. Sounds like common business practice to me. As a business, what would Rovers benefit from giving free highlights to ST holders anyway (or than some minor added value to the ST package ?). Seems like yet another "I want" from the fans who don't realise everything has a price and ultimately they are the ones who end up paying for it.

I have to admit, at work (and possible the IT industry as a whole) "monkey" is used in a very light-hearted fashion. The phones are answered by phone moneys who fix the software written by code moneys advestised on websites written by the web monkey. It's probably analageous (sp?) to "cow" or "tart", in the right context, to the right person it's almost a term of endearment, at the wrong time to the wrong person it's a downright insult. ... anyway .... highlights .....

Aye, but the smurf is second.

Early Xbox360s will have std DVDs, later ones will have HD-DVD, seem silly doesn't it !

..... but still not sold out I believe.

Seems Apple aren't too happy with people running OS X on x86 hardware clikey

Virtual Boys were going for a bomb on ebay back in the days I was selling lots of retro computing stuff. I'd have quite like a Neo Geo Pocket, pretty much a full Neo-Geo cabinet in a handheld console. Thankfull Mame does Neo Geo very well (and Neo Drift Out still rocks ).