Monthly Archives: December 2005

Gilmore v. Gonzales Tomorrow

Tomorrow John Gilmore gets a hearing on Gilmore v. Gonzales. On the fourth of July 2002 John attempted to board an airplane, was told he must show identification, refused to do so, and was denied entry to the aircraft. He has not flown since. Instead, he sued.

The hearing will be

December 8th 2005 at 9am
9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals
Third Floor, Courtroom 3
95 Seventh Street
San Francisco, CA 94103

If you are familiar with the case and will be in San Francisco, it would be worth attending, especially if you’re interested in helping elminate what Cory Doctorow calls "a back-door to mandating Soviet-style internal passports for travel."

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Wireless Nation

Thomas Crampton points out on Joi Ito’s blog that Macedonia has selected Strix Systems to implement a nationwide wireless network as part of the Internet. This may be the first entire country completely wireless. Crampton suggests artistic uses of the network, which will be very interesting to see. Emergency services, personal uses, and plain old business uses also seem likely. One wonders what new will come out of Macedonia. The most networked country in the world back in the early 1990s was Finland, and from there Linux appeared.

-jsq

Flood Control Act of 1928

The levees and other flood control measures along the lower Mississippi valley are the responsibility of the federal government because of a disaster long before Katrina:

If it keeps on rainin’, levee’s goin’ to break, (X2)
When The Levee Breaks I’ll have no place to stay.

Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan, (X2)
Got what it takes to make a mountain man leave his home,
Oh, well, oh, well, oh, well.

When the Levee Breaks, Bonham, Jones, Page, Plant, Memphis Minnie

Many of us have heard this Led Zeppelin song a thousand times without knowing what it’s about. Memphis Minnie is listed as one of the songwriters because she originally wrote the song, back in 1927, after the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, which displaced 700,000 people permanently and probably got Herbert Hoover elected president.

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NOLA Levees Not Deep Enough

It turns out the situation with the levees in New Orleans was even worse than previously reported:
The documents indicated that the steel reinforcements in the levee, known as sheet piling, went to a depth of 17.5 feet below sea level. Sonar tests indicated the pilings went only to 10 feet below sea level, meaning the flood wall would have been much weaker than intended.
The LSU team is working on a report for the state that will say there were serious, fundamental design and construction flaws at both the 17th Street and London Avenue canals. Both broke during Hurricane Katrina, flooding much of the city.
Engineers confirm LSU levee study CNN.com Thursday, December 1, 2005; Posted: 11:23 a.m. EST (16:23 GMT)
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