First off, biggest news is that the All Blacks beat England overnight, 23-18 in a tough, scrappy game - New Zealand had three sinbinnings in the second half. So yeah, no doubt we will hear about how dirty the ABs play is, and, not having seen the game and what the sinbinnings were for, I can't really comment, apart from one little question. Would we be worried if it were a World Cup final, and we won? I think not.
By the way, we got hosting rights to the 2011 Rugby World Cup, and Japan is kicking up saying that it's not what you can offer but who you know in the voting. A lot of the Australian columnists I have read as well are saying that Japan could have offered more to rugby, and the ARU supported the Japanese bid rather than the Kiwi, but what can you expect after the 2003 co-hosting debacle?
And here's a good piece about how good this current crop of All Blacks could be. Yeah, well we will see what happens in the crunch time come World Cup 2007, the jibes of playing our best rugby between tournaments, and what do you call fifteen guys watching the World Cup final still smart. And that's smart as in hurt, not smart as in funny...
And some people have too much time on their hands - really, who cares about scoring averages, it is all about wins and losses. I kind of have to admit it was interesting reading though - in a kinda sorta, I'm not trying to be sad, lame and pathetic way.
Oh, and the Wallabies snapped their seven game losing streak, pretty unconvincingly against Ireland. Yeah, yeah, rugby as top story, hey, what can I say, I'm a Kiwi LOL.
We are up to a Tropical Storm Gamma in the Atlantic season now, which is hitting Belize and Mexico at the moment with 45mph winds, and may head into the Straits of Florida sometime in the next four or five days. Twenty four named storms this season, a record - no sign of further storm activity in the Atlantic at the moment though.
And in case anyone is wondering, New Orleans is still very much a disaster zone. With eighty percent of the pre-Katrina population still out of town, power to forty percent of the city still not up and running, natural gas and connection to the plumbing mains is out for fifty percent of residents, it's going to be a long haul still.
This article is saying how the power company is coping - after the storm itself they reconnected a lot of the city, but no one was living there or paying the bills, and the company had to go into bankruptcy, and then had to lay off all the contract workers who were doing the overtime to put the network back together.
'"To be without 70 percent of your electricity and gas customers more than 80 days after a storm is an unprecedented occurrence in the utility industry," said Curt Hébert, an executive vice president with Entergy New Orleans's parent, the Entergy Corporation, the country's fifth-largest power company.'
Here is a first person account of a family in Saint Bernard parish, who had fled Vietnam after the Northern takeover, rebuilt a new life in Louisiana, and have now got to start all over again. A half million other stories like it on the Gulf Coast, I am sure. The guy who wrote it has a future in journalism methinks, is well written. Just thinking, some of my best writing is on the disappointments and bad things in my past, you write best on what you know I guess.
And you can just imagine the frustration of people actually on the Gulf Coast when stories like this break. About how $62 million of aid was distributed in Jackson, Mississippi, 160 miles from the coast, with at most fifty destroyed houses and four thousand damaged ones. With seven thousand cheques from the Red Cross or FEMA cashed. Hmm, something doesn't add up. And it wouldn't be the New York Times if it didn't say that the disaster area was much wider in a Republican state than a complaining, Democrat one, such as Louisiana LOL.
Or, even worse than the $62 million story alluded to in the above paragraph, is the Navy seeking $2 billion from FEMA to cover delays at the Northrop Grumman shipyards in Pasagoula, also in Mississippi. About as much as FEMA is going to pay out for rebuilding of housing throughout the Gulf Coast apparently. Not to mention the $1 billion that Northrop is going for in insurance coverage for the damaged buildings anyways.
'"The hurricane comes and it has significant impacts, outside of our control, in terms of our ability to complete contracts and our ability to earn a modicum of profit," he [Northrop President Philip Teel] said. "Our belief is that the cost of Katrina on the ships should be a cost the Navy pays for."
'Under "fixed price incentive" contracts between the Navy and Northrop, cost overruns on many of the 11 destroyers and amphibious ships under construction in Northrop yards would normally be split 50-50. Under the Navy proposal, FEMA would pick up Northrop's half...
'...The Northrop portion is part of a $6.6 billion request for the Pentagon; the rest will pay for National Guard reservists pressed into duty after Katrina and for repairs to military bases in the area. By comparison, the president asked for $2.2 billion for housing recovery and $2.4 billion for rebuilding roads and repairing airport damage.'
But of course that would be what would happen. What was that about the brunt of the hurricane being on big defence contractors, rather than poor black people? Where is Kanye West with the soundbite when you need him LOL.
Oh, now it all makes sense, Trent Lott's waterfront house, which the President wanted to rebuild to be able to sit on the balcony - the soundbite that doesn't get played as much as Brownie doing a heck of a job - Lott's house is just down the coast a bit from one of Northrop's shipyards. That's why it is such a priority, hmmph.
But seriously, I am just blown away by the scope of that particular money grab. You have got your insurance money to cover the unexpectedness of Katrina, surely that is what you were getting the insurance for, why put the hand out to the Navy now? Not that I am supporting the Navy doing the dodgy with FEMA either, although they wouldn't be the first...
[insert appropriate four letter word of choice here]
Next topic, please. Iraq I guess, both in country and in Washington DC, is very interesting, in a tragic and bloody kind of way. About a hundred Iraqis have been killed in car bombings the last two days, and the month is already looking bloody from an American perspective as well - 57 soldiers killed so far, and the month is only two thirds over.
And the political temperature was raised in Washington this week, what with Cheney saying that accusations of tampering with pre-war intelligence were some of the worst things ever to be said in Washington, and the President, even while touring Asia as part of the APEC go around, defending the war from across the Pacific, saying to a military crowd in South Korea that it would be stupid to pull out of Iraq now.
From the Democratic side, a pro military congressman, John P Murtha, Vietnam veteran, generally supports the Republicans on matters military for the past 31 years he has been in the House, came out on Thursday and said it was time to start planning to bring the troops home. Basically saying that keeping American troops in Iraq was making the insurgency worse, that the troops had done all they could do.
As one of the op-ed pieces said, I think it was in the Washington Post, this was like Bush saying he would increase taxes, or Schwarzenegger dumping on body building - it was a Big Deal. The White House countered, calling Murtha part of the 'Michael Moore wing of the Democratic Party', to which the congressman came back with basically the soundbite of the week -
'"I like guys who've never been there that criticize us who've been there. I like that. I like guys who got five deferments and never been there and send people to war, and then don't like to hear suggestions about what needs to be done."'
Of course, Cheney was deferred five times to, I dunno, raise a family in Wyoming or something. Because, as we all know, kids are five times worse than any year in Vietnam LOL.
And then to top it all off, in the last hours of this session Congress, before they go on their two week Thanksgiving break - hmm, and here I was thinking Thanksgiving was only a day - the Republicans try and ambush the Dems by passing their own resolution to pull the troops out of Iraq today. All the emotions of the Iraq debate spilled out in the House in one three hour session it seems.
The Republicans were obviously trying to split the Dems between the Michael Moore anti-all war wing, the John Murtha our troops are hindering more than helping now wing and the Democratic Leadership with an eye on how voting against the troops as it were wing. And the Republicans trying to make it sound like they were supporting Murtha, the Democrats rightfully pointing out it wasn't their side of the House that put the issue of troop withdrawal to a vote, at least last night.
And then it got really heated - the most junior Republican representative, who only came to Washington as part of a byelection in August, said that she had received a phone call from 'one of the troops' who said that he wanted to stay the course, and anyone that doubted that was a coward. Or the exact wording -
'She [Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio] told colleagues that "a few minutes ago I received a call from Colonel Danny Bubp," an Ohio legislator and Marine Corps Reserve officer. "He asked me to send Congress a message: Stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message: that cowards cut and run, Marines never do."'
Not the best thing to say about a decorated Vietnam veteran. Pandemonium in the House for about eleven minutes at least, one of the Dems walking across to the other side of the aisles with a heated expression, finger wagging, before being led back to his side of the room before he went all 'South Korean parliament style' on the Republicans LOL. I am sure most of you have seen those near riots or all in brawls they seem to have in Asian parliaments :)
The bill to withdraw troops now was defeated 403 to 3, with six abstentions. The Dems avoided a nasty little trap that could have caught them out, at least for the next two weeks. We will see how the December 15 elections go in Iraq now I guess, before the next acrimonious debate.
Oh, and Patrick Fitzgerald of Plamegate fame, has asked to put a new grand jury together.
Am all worn out with this rugby, Katrina, Iraq post... will relax with a movie this afternoon I think. And windowshopping, Christmas only a few weeks away now.
Pauly
By the way, we got hosting rights to the 2011 Rugby World Cup, and Japan is kicking up saying that it's not what you can offer but who you know in the voting. A lot of the Australian columnists I have read as well are saying that Japan could have offered more to rugby, and the ARU supported the Japanese bid rather than the Kiwi, but what can you expect after the 2003 co-hosting debacle?
And here's a good piece about how good this current crop of All Blacks could be. Yeah, well we will see what happens in the crunch time come World Cup 2007, the jibes of playing our best rugby between tournaments, and what do you call fifteen guys watching the World Cup final still smart. And that's smart as in hurt, not smart as in funny...
And some people have too much time on their hands - really, who cares about scoring averages, it is all about wins and losses. I kind of have to admit it was interesting reading though - in a kinda sorta, I'm not trying to be sad, lame and pathetic way.
Oh, and the Wallabies snapped their seven game losing streak, pretty unconvincingly against Ireland. Yeah, yeah, rugby as top story, hey, what can I say, I'm a Kiwi LOL.
We are up to a Tropical Storm Gamma in the Atlantic season now, which is hitting Belize and Mexico at the moment with 45mph winds, and may head into the Straits of Florida sometime in the next four or five days. Twenty four named storms this season, a record - no sign of further storm activity in the Atlantic at the moment though.
And in case anyone is wondering, New Orleans is still very much a disaster zone. With eighty percent of the pre-Katrina population still out of town, power to forty percent of the city still not up and running, natural gas and connection to the plumbing mains is out for fifty percent of residents, it's going to be a long haul still.
This article is saying how the power company is coping - after the storm itself they reconnected a lot of the city, but no one was living there or paying the bills, and the company had to go into bankruptcy, and then had to lay off all the contract workers who were doing the overtime to put the network back together.
'"To be without 70 percent of your electricity and gas customers more than 80 days after a storm is an unprecedented occurrence in the utility industry," said Curt Hébert, an executive vice president with Entergy New Orleans's parent, the Entergy Corporation, the country's fifth-largest power company.'
Here is a first person account of a family in Saint Bernard parish, who had fled Vietnam after the Northern takeover, rebuilt a new life in Louisiana, and have now got to start all over again. A half million other stories like it on the Gulf Coast, I am sure. The guy who wrote it has a future in journalism methinks, is well written. Just thinking, some of my best writing is on the disappointments and bad things in my past, you write best on what you know I guess.
And you can just imagine the frustration of people actually on the Gulf Coast when stories like this break. About how $62 million of aid was distributed in Jackson, Mississippi, 160 miles from the coast, with at most fifty destroyed houses and four thousand damaged ones. With seven thousand cheques from the Red Cross or FEMA cashed. Hmm, something doesn't add up. And it wouldn't be the New York Times if it didn't say that the disaster area was much wider in a Republican state than a complaining, Democrat one, such as Louisiana LOL.
Or, even worse than the $62 million story alluded to in the above paragraph, is the Navy seeking $2 billion from FEMA to cover delays at the Northrop Grumman shipyards in Pasagoula, also in Mississippi. About as much as FEMA is going to pay out for rebuilding of housing throughout the Gulf Coast apparently. Not to mention the $1 billion that Northrop is going for in insurance coverage for the damaged buildings anyways.
'"The hurricane comes and it has significant impacts, outside of our control, in terms of our ability to complete contracts and our ability to earn a modicum of profit," he [Northrop President Philip Teel] said. "Our belief is that the cost of Katrina on the ships should be a cost the Navy pays for."
'Under "fixed price incentive" contracts between the Navy and Northrop, cost overruns on many of the 11 destroyers and amphibious ships under construction in Northrop yards would normally be split 50-50. Under the Navy proposal, FEMA would pick up Northrop's half...
'...The Northrop portion is part of a $6.6 billion request for the Pentagon; the rest will pay for National Guard reservists pressed into duty after Katrina and for repairs to military bases in the area. By comparison, the president asked for $2.2 billion for housing recovery and $2.4 billion for rebuilding roads and repairing airport damage.'
But of course that would be what would happen. What was that about the brunt of the hurricane being on big defence contractors, rather than poor black people? Where is Kanye West with the soundbite when you need him LOL.
Oh, now it all makes sense, Trent Lott's waterfront house, which the President wanted to rebuild to be able to sit on the balcony - the soundbite that doesn't get played as much as Brownie doing a heck of a job - Lott's house is just down the coast a bit from one of Northrop's shipyards. That's why it is such a priority, hmmph.
But seriously, I am just blown away by the scope of that particular money grab. You have got your insurance money to cover the unexpectedness of Katrina, surely that is what you were getting the insurance for, why put the hand out to the Navy now? Not that I am supporting the Navy doing the dodgy with FEMA either, although they wouldn't be the first...
[insert appropriate four letter word of choice here]
Next topic, please. Iraq I guess, both in country and in Washington DC, is very interesting, in a tragic and bloody kind of way. About a hundred Iraqis have been killed in car bombings the last two days, and the month is already looking bloody from an American perspective as well - 57 soldiers killed so far, and the month is only two thirds over.
And the political temperature was raised in Washington this week, what with Cheney saying that accusations of tampering with pre-war intelligence were some of the worst things ever to be said in Washington, and the President, even while touring Asia as part of the APEC go around, defending the war from across the Pacific, saying to a military crowd in South Korea that it would be stupid to pull out of Iraq now.
From the Democratic side, a pro military congressman, John P Murtha, Vietnam veteran, generally supports the Republicans on matters military for the past 31 years he has been in the House, came out on Thursday and said it was time to start planning to bring the troops home. Basically saying that keeping American troops in Iraq was making the insurgency worse, that the troops had done all they could do.
As one of the op-ed pieces said, I think it was in the Washington Post, this was like Bush saying he would increase taxes, or Schwarzenegger dumping on body building - it was a Big Deal. The White House countered, calling Murtha part of the 'Michael Moore wing of the Democratic Party', to which the congressman came back with basically the soundbite of the week -
'"I like guys who've never been there that criticize us who've been there. I like that. I like guys who got five deferments and never been there and send people to war, and then don't like to hear suggestions about what needs to be done."'
Of course, Cheney was deferred five times to, I dunno, raise a family in Wyoming or something. Because, as we all know, kids are five times worse than any year in Vietnam LOL.
And then to top it all off, in the last hours of this session Congress, before they go on their two week Thanksgiving break - hmm, and here I was thinking Thanksgiving was only a day - the Republicans try and ambush the Dems by passing their own resolution to pull the troops out of Iraq today. All the emotions of the Iraq debate spilled out in the House in one three hour session it seems.
The Republicans were obviously trying to split the Dems between the Michael Moore anti-all war wing, the John Murtha our troops are hindering more than helping now wing and the Democratic Leadership with an eye on how voting against the troops as it were wing. And the Republicans trying to make it sound like they were supporting Murtha, the Democrats rightfully pointing out it wasn't their side of the House that put the issue of troop withdrawal to a vote, at least last night.
And then it got really heated - the most junior Republican representative, who only came to Washington as part of a byelection in August, said that she had received a phone call from 'one of the troops' who said that he wanted to stay the course, and anyone that doubted that was a coward. Or the exact wording -
'She [Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio] told colleagues that "a few minutes ago I received a call from Colonel Danny Bubp," an Ohio legislator and Marine Corps Reserve officer. "He asked me to send Congress a message: Stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message: that cowards cut and run, Marines never do."'
Not the best thing to say about a decorated Vietnam veteran. Pandemonium in the House for about eleven minutes at least, one of the Dems walking across to the other side of the aisles with a heated expression, finger wagging, before being led back to his side of the room before he went all 'South Korean parliament style' on the Republicans LOL. I am sure most of you have seen those near riots or all in brawls they seem to have in Asian parliaments :)
The bill to withdraw troops now was defeated 403 to 3, with six abstentions. The Dems avoided a nasty little trap that could have caught them out, at least for the next two weeks. We will see how the December 15 elections go in Iraq now I guess, before the next acrimonious debate.
Oh, and Patrick Fitzgerald of Plamegate fame, has asked to put a new grand jury together.
Am all worn out with this rugby, Katrina, Iraq post... will relax with a movie this afternoon I think. And windowshopping, Christmas only a few weeks away now.
Pauly
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