bloody hell

This is incredible footage - about 45m of flyover of New Orleans yesterday (about a 31M download). Jesus. The damage and flooding is stunningly bad.

http://nebe-b.org/wgno26flyover.wmv

(via Patrick at Making Light)

And the latest is that there's breaches in the levees protecting the city, including one 200' long breach. And the power is out to the pumping stations. Crap, crap, crap!

on a lighter note

Kev Littlejohn forwarded me this interview from Wired with Jon Stewart and Ben Karlin of the Daily Show, talking about media, television, Crossfire, and the internet. Funny,

a snip from it:

Let me ask you about the Crossfire thing - not about your critique of that show, but about the reaction to it.

Stewart: Ben was there, by the way. I remember looking out into the audience and seeing his face and realizing, "I guess this isn't going well."

Karlin: Well, we had hand signals, and before the show I made the mistake of saying that this [drawing his finger across his throat] meant "Keep on going, great, do the exact same thing." So I was frantically doing this [draws finger across throat fast].

What was the symbol for stop supposed to be?

Karlin: [Gives thumbs-up.]

Stewart: It was a stupid way to do it.

But the show was a total sensation: Something like 3 million people saw that - but mostly online. Less than a quarter of them saw it on CNN proper. It was huge, phenomenal viral video.

Stewart: It was definitely viral. I felt nauseous afterward.

eeesh

Scientific Savvy? In U.S., Not Much (NYT, free rego required, or use bugmenot)

American adults in general do not understand what molecules are (other than that they are really small). Fewer than a third can identify DNA as a key to heredity. Only about 10 percent know what radiation is. One adult American in five thinks the Sun revolves around the Earth, an idea science had abandoned by the 17th century.