Hugh Nicoll's Blog

I’ve been waiting to read what Ron Silliman would have to say about Katrina for a week. And, sure enough, sharp as usual, and calling on the citizenry as a whole to look at the long-term consequences of an underfunded government, and of our shared responsibility for it — the consequence of the erosion over […]

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Alwin’s latest post is a call to work and a source of hope. He’s relaying field reports and reflections from Dr. Ken Maddox. Dr. Maddox’s closing paragraph includes this beautiful blast: Please join me and others throughout this country in providing leadership in your community to now rebuild America. Reading that I was wishing I […]

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Paul Krugman on September 2 At a fundamental level, I’d argue, our current leaders just aren’t serious about some of the essential functions of government. They like waging war, but they don’t like providing security, rescuing those in need or spending on preventive measures. And they never, ever ask for shared sacrifice. Yesterday Mr. Bush […]

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Steve Ersinghaus has posted a link to a 2001 Scientific American on what was known.

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Frank Rich turns up the heat in Fallujah Floods the Superdome.

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Here in Kyushu we’ll have an exciting couple of days with the arrival of Typhoon Nabi. The bigger picture is available from the Japan Meteorlogical Agency site. The satellite image of the northwest quadrant of the Pacific is pretty scary, too. Fortunately, Miyazaki is in no real danger of flooding, though the rains are likely […]

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Mark Bernstein’s “What Ended” is one of the best responses to the horrors of Katrina’s aftermath I’ve read so far, and a great example of writing with power. What ended this week is the illusion that words can substitute for real work and real knowledge. This was the last, spectacular failure of the internet bubble, […]

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