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AmericaBlog has two gems this morning: HED: Bush says today he will investigate himself That’s nice. Bush is going to investigate his OWN bungling of Hurricane Katrina. That’s nice. Will he be investigating why he remained on vacation until the 3d day AFTER the hurricane destroyed New Orleans? Will he be investigating why Condi Rice went on vacation to NYC for most of the week? Why Dick Cheney and Andy Card STAYED on vacation even after the hurricane struck? Why…

LA Times So many refugees now live in the Astrodome that the U.S. Postal Service has issued the 77320 ZIP Code to the former professional stadium. The move makes it easier for refugees to receive letters and care packages.

Dave Winer points to four times in the last four years that major media outlets have predicted a major disaster if a major hurricane hit New Orleans. Time Magazine, July 10, 2000: If a flood of Biblical proportions were to lay waste to New Orleans, Joe Suhayda has a good idea how it would happen. A Category 5 hurricane would come barreling out of the Gulf of Mexico. It would cause Lake Pontchartrain, north of New Orleans, to overflow, pouring…

The more I read about the fallout from Hurricane Katrina, the more riled up I get. I want to help, but there’s not much that I can do from the other side of the country. I’m sending $140 to relief efforts (the money that I will be paid from the piece that I filed yesterday to Wired News). Half of it is going to my journalistic bretheren down at The Sun Herald, where my Columbia classmates Michael Keller and Josh…

Josh Norman on “Eye of the Storm” : I have now been told several times that this must have been “cool” or “fun.” It is not. The anticipation was fun. The reality was terrifying. The aftermath is nothing short of a nightmare. Let’s start with my personal problems, which are nothing relative to the greater problem. 1) There is nowhere to poop. I went in a plastic bag the other day and haven’t gone since. 2) My apartment stinks because…

Wired News: By Cyrus Farivar 12:58 PM Sep. 01, 2005 PT With most of New Orleans underwater, certain online resources have emerged as crucial access points for news, housing information and live community updates. Wired News has compiled a list of some of the best. Sites of note: Michael Barnett’s LiveJournal: Barnett, (previously covered on Wired News), the de facto crisis manager of DirectNIC, a New Orleans-based hosting company, is blogging from inside the city. Updated very frequently. Lousiana State…

NYT: Several residents said they had heard of children being raped [in the Superdome], though it was not clear whether anyone reported such incidents to the authorities, and no officials could be found who could confirm the accounts. Darcel Monroe, 21, a bakery cashier, stammered hysterically as she recounted seeing two young girls being raped in one of the women’s bathrooms. “A lot of people saw it but they were afraid to do anything,” she said. “He ran out past…

Seeing this NY Post article on the Chinatown buses linked on Wonkette recently made me remember that I should put back up my Master’s thesis. Here it is, now licensed under Creative Commons. A few times every weekend, a large dark blue airport shuttle-sized van pulls up in front of the Charter Oak Supermarket in Hartford, Conn. This “station” is situated a few minutes from the main station in downtown Hartford that houses both Amtrak trains and Greyhound bus lines.…

At the request of Adam Kuban over at Slice, I just donated $25 to the Katrina relief fund at Second Harvest. If you can spare some cash, now’s the time.

Macworld Publisher Rick LePage gave me his Treo 650 for free yesterday. Today, thanks to tips from Macworld Editorial Director Jason Snell, I can play any video on my Treo. That means The Daily Show. Also, when I finally install my new radio in my car, that means I can have The Daily Show audio playing through the car stereo. Holy crap.