Obscanity: You'll know it when you see it

This great “Commander In Chief Test” video is definitely worth watching. I particularly like the bit about getting Bush re-elected. I think that little clip should be played on every network television station across America. Multiple times.

The quake’s intensity was downgraded from 5.8 to 5.4 by The Powers That Be over at Caltech. Still no major damage or injuries, although people are being asked to cut down on their telephone use because the phone system is maxed out. I assume the same goes for cell phones.

[Edit: Some reports of power outages from Southern California Edison, around Diamond Bar, Chino, Chino Hills, etc. SCE says the outages could be prolonged.]

NPR just reported that other people are having problems with their cell phones as well. No reports of cell towers down – the speaker made the same guess that I did, which is that this is a capacity issue and not a matter of damaged towers.

We’re still having cell phone difficulties out here – anybody else experiencing this? News is reporting no disruptions in utilities, but this still makes me nervous – what good will our cell phones do in a major emergency if a little earthquake slows them all down? My guess is that cell phone use is so elevated right now that everything is slowing down – that’s what happens at major events like West Hollywood Halloween, where there are thousands of people all trying to find each other. Probably the same right now with everybody trying to confirm that everybody is okay.

Look how many aftershocks! It was a long quake too – went on for quite a bit, although those may have been immediate aftershocks we were feeling. So far there have been no reports of injuries or structural damage, and power in Los Angeles has not been interrupted. Not sure if it was cut off in Chino. Will update later!

Did you feel it?

[Edit: The one thing people seem to be having trouble with is cell phone use – but that is probably because eeeeeverybody is trying to use their cell phones. Text messages are taking a little longer than usual to go through, and a few calls haven’t gone through either. Are you having the same problem?]

There are a few entertaining bits in this Daily Show clip – but the most entertaining for me is that FAUX News has resorted to showing 8-year old clips of McCain’s Election 2000 press conferences so they can get a shot of him looking younger.

From the NY Times:

SAN FRANCISCO — To the ever-expanding résumé of Gavin Newsom — San Francisco mayor, California hopeful for governor, Montana-bound groom — one may now add this: code-breaker.

In a story that seems equal parts spy novel and potential municipal fiasco, Mr. Newsom was enlisted on Monday to coax a secret code out of a city engineer who prosecutors say had effectively hijacked a large part of the city’s computer systems. [Read more.]

Next stop, starring in the next Mission: Impossible sequel? *g* Could just picture it.

If the ban on offshore oil drilling is lifted, you can expect to see more oil spills like this one in Louisiana. Ironically, rumor has it McCain was scheduled to visit an oil rig the same day but cancelled his trip after the spill. Guess it wouldn’t have gone well with his “oil drilling is good” rhetoric.

Last month, CNN revealed that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had stored $85 million worth of household items in warehouses for two years. Instead of giving the supplies to victims of the 2005 hurricane, FEMA declared them surplus and gave them all away to federal agencies and 16 states in February.

FEMA fucks it up again: A recent CNN investigation revealed that for two years FEMA was paying $1 million to store millions of dollars’ worth of supplies that were intended to go to Louisiana and Missouri residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Eventually it declared the items “surplus” and gave away the supplies to prisons, colleges, fire departments, and even government agencies – everybody but the intended Katrina victims.

Nobody can really say why this happened, except that everybody (except those actually on the ground) claims that there wasn’t a “need” for the supplies. The folks living in tents in New Orleans more than two years post-hurricane are saying otherwise.

Now FEMA is downplaying the error, claiming that it made a HUGE accounting error and it was only $18.5 million worth of supplies “given away” to non-Katrina victims, not the originally-estimated $85 million. (So let’s get this straight – when they were bragging about how much they were planning to Katrina victims, it was $85 million, but now that they’re caught with their pants down, it’s suddenly “only” $18.5 million? Either way, there are thousands of people who could still use these supplies and aren’t getting them.)

They’re also blaming Louisiana for not taking all of the items in the first place (no clear explanation on exactly why or how that happened), and even claiming that the items weren’t really JUST meant for SPECIFICALLY Katrina victims, PER SE.

Louisiana is demanding answers from FEMA, but I’d certainly like to know why Louisiana turned down the items in the first place. That said, how utterly out of touch does an agency have to be to not know that there is still a need for disaster relief over there?

From The New York Times:

With millions of new voters heading to the polls this November and many states introducing new voting technologies, election officials and voting monitors say they fear the combination is likely to create long lines, stressed-out poll workers and late tallies on Election Day. [Read more]

With Obama expecting the votes of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of new voters, you can expect that he’ll take the brunt of the difficulties, especially since the longest lines tend to be in the swing states and in economically troubled areas.

McCain must be celebrating and clinking glasses with the Diebold ops right about now… Have they promised to “deliver” the election to him yet? Here’s hoping for victory on the side of American democracy – or what’s left of it, anyway.