I watched a lot of video of this and these cops are out of control.
These are journalists. Real ones. With a Capital ‘J’. Like Amy Goodman. These are not folks that “incite” and bait cops.
This is sickening. Here’s Amy Goodman’s producer Nicole Salazar. Hear the screams and the crunch as she is slammed to the ground.
All three were violently manhandled by law enforcement officers. Abdel Kouddous was slammed against a wall and the ground, leaving his arms scraped and bloodied. He sustained other injuries to his chest and back. Salazar’s violent arrest by baton-wielding officers, during which she was slammed to the ground while yelling, “I’m Press! Press!,” resulted in her nose bleeding, as well as causing facial pain. Goodman’s arm was violently yanked by police as she was arrested.
Yesterday, it was feared that Gustav could develop into a Cat 5 hurricane but this looks like it won’t be the case. Nevertheless, Gustav is forecast to be at least be a strong Cat 3 at landfall, possibly Cat 4. It is headed just west of New Orleans. If Gustav does strike land here that will result in the largest storm surges hitting New Orleans.
simulated storm surge levels for Gustav
The latest computer generated storm surge map shows that highest surge will be along the levee system along the east side of New Orleans. … The levee system of New Orleans is designed to withstand a storm surge characteristic of a Category 3 storm. If the NHC storm surge forecast verifies, there is a significant threat of multiple levee failures in the New Orleans levee system resulting in flooding of portions of the city. Source.
More storm tracking information and radar/satellite images here. Google Maps/Storm Track here.
Meanwhile, New Orleans has ordered mandatory evacuations, but many questions of the levee system there remain. As recently as April of this year charges and investigations of poor construction abound. Like this one: 4 Investigates: Floodwalls Stuffed with Newspaper?
“The whole length of the wall was stuffed with newspaper.”
[The Army Corps of Engineers] installed defective flood-control pumps last year despite warnings from its own expert that the equipment would fail during a storm, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Now, all of us know what happened with Katrina but memories tend to fade. Watching this short Fox News clip nearly brought me to tears.
Let’s hope the best for New Orleans and hope this administration has managed to do something right since Katrina. And we should not forget what our President and McCain were doing the day New Orleans drowned: eating cake (McCain’s birthday).
Some scientists fear the ice cap will disappear completely in summer within five years as global warming continues to take its toll.
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Gathered by Nasa using microwave sensors that penetrate clouds, they show that the North-west passage around Canada opened last weekend, and the North-east passage around Russia was free from ice a few days later.
Meanwhile Governor Palin, McCain’s vice-presidential pick, has been pushing the US government to rescind its decision to classify the Polar Bear as an endangered species. This picture was snapped by some oil survey scientists just a few days ago. Link here.
It is one of a group of nine to have plunged into the ocean after the ice float they lived on melted.
However, because of global warming, the ice cap has melted so much that it is around 400 miles away – too far for the bears to reach.
Although one group of polar bears is known to have swum 100 miles, they arrived at their destination exhausted, with several drowning along the way.
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Senior scientist Dr Mark Serreze said: ‘The summer melting used to slow down by the beginning of September.
‘We thought it was slowing this year, but it’s suddenly sped up instead.
Andrew Sullivan, a prominent conservative author and political commentator, writes on Obama’s speech
It was a deeply substantive speech, full of policy detail, full of people other than the candidate, centered overwhelmingly on domestic economic anxiety. It was a liberal speech, more unabashedly, unashamedly liberal than any Democratic acceptance speech since the great era of American liberalism. But it made the case for that liberalism – in the context of the decline of the American dream, and the rise of cynicism and the collapse of cultural unity. His ability to portray that liberalism as a patriotic, unifying, ennobling tradition makes him the most lethal and remarkable Democratic figure since John F Kennedy.
Andrew continues…
What he didn’t do was give an airy, abstract, dreamy confection of rhetoric. The McCain campaign set Obama up as a celebrity airhead, a Paris Hilton of wealth and elitism. And he let them portray him that way, and let them over-reach, and let them punch him again and again … and then he turned around and destroyed them. If the Rove Republicans thought they were playing with a patsy, they just got a reality check.
Pat Buchanon gushes over Obama’s speech on MSNBC
This is the greatest convention speech… This came out of the heart of America and it went right at the heart of America. ….
Tonight, Barack Obama electrified a nation. Bar none, this is the best speech I’ve ever watched. He hit every note, passed every test, and somehow spoke to the soul of each and every American all at once.
If you have not seen it, you owe it to yourself to set aside 30 minutes. Consider it chicken soup for your soul.
University of Alberta has quietly progressing AI research for years. Unlike chess or checkers or other games of complete information, Poker is a game of incomplete information and it is much more difficult to compete with humans. It is this type of problem that will truly make AI’s effective in augmenting human intelligence.
One algorithm, called counter-factual regret, monitored the outcome of hands lost by Polaris and what could have been done to change the outcome. Polaris could then watch for similar circumstances and adjust more effectively.
I don’t know exactly what “counter-factual regret” is, but it certainly sounds cool!
