- We may need eight hours of sleep, but maybe not in the way we’ve been told.
- Two related from NPR: The “right to be forgotten” threatens free speech and how much does the cloud know? (Tip o’ hat to PT.)
- An open letter to the MPAA’s Chris Dodd from Eric S. Raymond.
- You might save this one for when you’ve got plenty of time, but here’s a special report from ShadowStats on our prospects for hyperinflation.
- Yoga. And sex.
- About those FEMA camps … (Can anybody tell me why we’re going to need camps for “displaced citizens” now when we’ve never actually needed them in the entire history of the country?)
- Oh, maybe this helps explain the need: “The House of Representatives approved a bill on Monday that outlaws protests in instances where some government officials are nearby, whether or not you even know it.”
- Interpol arrests 25 supposed members of Anonymous. I expect (and hope) that’s about as effective as cutting 25 heads off a Hydra.
- And even when life goes completely to heck, our dogs still love us.
Love the dog photos! Makes up for all the bad news I’ve been reading since I woke up today. 🙂
I’m getting a puppy next month, yay!
If you feel rested and energized when you wake up, no matter what time it is or how long you’ve slept, then it’s all good. If you wake tired, depressed or in pain… something is wrong, and the number of minutes or hours you spent sleeping is not really important.
Most people who wake tired or depressed, etc. are suffering from unrelieved stress, physical ailments and nutritional imbalances. Sleep deficit is often the symptom – the result of the real problems, not the cause.
Reduce stress and pain, eat well and give yourself a chance to rest and play as well as work hard. The sleep will pretty much take care of itself.
(From one who couldn’t sleep much at all for more than 10 years! Here is how I changed that. http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/mystory.htm )
Not to be too Pollyanna-ish, and I’m among the last to give our government the benefit of the doubt, but it could have been useful to have something like the FEMA camps around during Hurricane Katrina. Still, I fear the the risk of their being put to evil use outweighs the possible good they might do.
That was a jam packed informative bunch of links, thanks for posting them.
@Laird, I doubt that FEMA camps will ever be “useful” in the sense you mean. If they weren’t as bad or worse than the conditions in the SuperDome, they would still not be good, imho.
Here is an account from someone who went through Katrina which contains some descriptions of living in “camps”.
LISTENING TO KATRINA
http://www.theplacewithnoname.com/blogs/klessons/index.html
I see you covered the EPJ article on HR 347. I’m not sure people have realized yet just how critical stopping the President’s signature on this bill is.
We need a protest on the order of the one that stopped SOPA/PIPA, or protests at G20, G8, NATO meetings, Rep and Dem National Conventions, and the like are going away. I did a little looking into the “special events of national significance” bit in the bill, and ouch!
I blogged it, and I hope you will too.
First Amendment (1791-2012) R.I.P. – H.R. 347 criminalizes protest
http://tirelessagorist.blogspot.com/2012/02/first-amendment-1791-2012-rip.html
Hi Claire … love the dog pictures, will add to my ‘collection’ … I have lost your current email addy, I have a wonderful dog I’m trying to place, a blue heeler, needs to be an ‘only dog’, a lifetime companion … this is not a prevalent breed here in the SE … she is 1 1/2, spayed, blue eyes and probably deaf, needs to get OUT of the ‘rescue’ she is in. I can (somehow) transport her. She bonds very quickly to a human but then is VERY jealous of other dogs around ‘her human’. The rescue is about to ‘dump her’. I’m usually pretty good at finding homes for the strays and others that are sent across my path, but Sweetie is a very difficult one to place …
Mary Lou, I’ll email you. I have experience with deaf heelers, though it’s been a few years and I’m not sure how current my resources are. The fact that she has to be an only dog is the hard part! Thanks for helping her (I hate to think what it means that a rescue is considering “dumping” her.)
The “FEMA Camp” contract is the effort by FEMA to fix some of those problems they ran into with Katrina. That response had a very large number of responders with no place to stay. Hotels were full, no tents on hand, shelters were full also. Responders were sleeping in cars, in personal tents and even shipping containers a month after the event.
With Katrina we did have a need to house displaced citizens, over 10,000 were housed for several months in the Baton-Rouge Convention Center, thousands of others were placed in over 200 shelters of various sizes for over a month. The goal behind setting up temp shelter “camps” is to prevent the mass exodus seen after Katrina.
Thousands of people left “temporally” to Houston, Atlanta, etc. who have never returned. They got apartments, jobs, and generally settled down. If they had temporary housing near their homes then they would have been less likely to have left forever.
This contract is the FEMA attempt to fix that problem. (gosh, learning from mistakes? can’t be allowed, must be some evil plot to lock up everyone in the US.)
(Of course I got a big laugh at the article just below this one, about the “Internment” camp at Ft Leonard Wood. It is a training sight for the MP School to run what use to be called a POW camp.)
it is too easy to fall into the “they are out to get you” trap. No they are not doing these things as part of an evil plot. They are trying to do what they see is fixing problems they have run into in the past. Now can they abuse these fixes? Yes, it is possible that these “camps” could be used the way theses article writers say, but very unlikely and not the goal either.
DrillSgtK — I know you’re a level-headed guy who’s also involved in emergency services. I know that “avoiding another Katrina” is part of the presumed goal for the new camps. And I’m not in the “they are out to get you” trap — or at least not to the extent that the InfoWars crowd is. I’ve also scorned rumors about internment camps. (http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/NWO/Heart_Mountain_FEMA.htm)
That said, however, I am in the camp that says that virtually any effort FEMA ever makes will be effed up badly. And the camp that knows that federal emergency management is more about preserving government than helping people. And the camp that knows that every time the fedgov screws up, people become more restive — and the government responds by becoming more oppressive.
I will bet you virtually anything that, despite stated good intentions, any FEMA camps ever built will be misused. Even if they’re set up and used only in actual emergencies, they’ll be misused — e.g. people will be forced into them against their will; they’ll be mismanaged to the point of making conditions miserable, even dangerous; citizens in them will be disarmed and forced into Draconian ID regimes; etc.
“Better” federal emergency planning may be “better” for bureaucrats. I don’t believe it’s ever going to be “better” for citizens.
BTW, I have no idea how my article (linked in the last comment) ended up on that site. My old stuff turns up everywhere. Sometimes I may have given permission, sometimes not.
While I’m mini-ranting, I might as well address this point:
“Thousands of people left “temporally” to Houston, Atlanta, etc. who have never returned. They got apartments, jobs, and generally settled down. If they had temporary housing near their homes then they would have been less likely to have left forever.”
Living below sea level in a hurricane zone — especially after human activity has severely reduced the extent of the natural barriers that once helped protect New Orleans — is dangerous. Have you considered that perhaps it’s a good thing that many people moved away from those inherently hazardous conditions? Although I understand that every place — including some of the nicest — has inherent dangers, I don’t see any reason why federal taxes should go to subsidize people’s hazardous choices. Federal money helped create New Orleans hazards in the first place (e.g. Army Corps of Engineers). Federal money went into botched emergency plans. Federal money is going toward setting up the next New Orleans disaster. And now all that is being used as an excuse to build (with taxpayers’ money, of course) camps.
Sorry, DrillSgtK. Despite all the best stated intentions, this isn’t going to go well.
“The camps will be secured with fencing and barricades that will also serve to create areas that are “off limits” to certain occupants. Entry to the camp will be controlled through a photo ID system for all occupants and visitors.”
Tells me everything I want to know about these “camps.” Sounds like a prison to me.
On the dog pictures….the last one was Korean….That dog may have been the meat (Kae Goki) item on the pantry shelf. 🙂
Patrick — Eeeeeeeeeeew!!!
As I’ve said, they could be miss used. That is where the need to speak out is. FEMA has the directive to respond to a disaster and restore the place back to the way it was before the disaster. That is not their goal, it is the goal they were given by Congress.
Having thousands of people leave an area forever is not restoring a place back the way it was. Is living under sea level a good idea? I say no, but the voice of Mr. Burns can’t see any other place he would rather live. Me, I’ve lived there, great people, but it is not for me.
These “FEMA Camps” have not been built. They are only plans, and not even plans for the evil things places are saying they are for. They can be, IF WE LET THEM. That is where good people have to stand up, build a camp to house responders. What? you want to lock up people because you don’t like their skin tone? No camp for you!