News of the Weird

I know that some of ya'll are thinking that I exaggerate about the way things are here, so when I came across this item, I had to share it.

Thu Sep 1,12:00 PM ET

CANBERRA (Reuters) - A Qantas Airways domestic flight was forced to delay its landing in Australia's capital after an air traffic controller overslept and failed to report for duty on time.

The plane from the western city of Perth circled over Canberra for 20 minutes until the senior controller who was due to start work on the day's first shift at 5.30 a.m. Wednesday arrived.
His co-worker, a middle-ranking controller, arrived on time but was unable to open the control tower without his senior colleague, a spokesman for Airservices Australia said on Thursday.
He said the rosters had now been changed.

So, to recap: one person hit the snooze one too many times, and air traffic in the capital is on hold.

Katrina

I know that everyone and their cousin has linked to this on their blog, but it bears repeating.
Boing Boing

Hurricane Katrina will likely be one of, if not the largest natural disaster in American history. I'm watching the news reports, and I can't believe that this is the U.S. I'm seeing. Is this the best we can do? I don't know enough about what sort of preparations the city of New Orleans made before the storm hit, but I do know that blaming the victims is exactly what I'd expect from this admininstration. It's so easy to say they should have evacuated when ordered to. I say that the government could have taken one more step and made sure that the very poorest had some way to actually get out town. You know, due to the fact that one quarter of the population there is below the poverty level.

Is this the best we can do? I watch the coverage, and it's heart-wrenching. This will infuriate you.