Raf

I will say this: I hope you're right about the number of dead. I think you're wrong, but I hope you're right.

Do you know what the word "media" means? It's the plural of medium. It's what passes information from the source to the public. You act as if the media got together and decided to push a 20' story on the public, all by themselves. The media told that story because the officials responsible for monitoring the city and giving the worst-case scenario told that story, and wanted the public to know it. Getting angry at the media in the situation you describe is like getting angry at the postman for putting a bill in your mailbox. "It seemed to me they were saying there was a sea of bodies they had to push through..." No one said that. They said people when rescuers encountered bodies, they had to push them out of the way in an effort to get to the living. Ratings... as if people aren't going to watch... oh never mind. Go ahead. This is the perfect opportunity to get angry at the media. Yup. We LOVE this story in the media. BIG BIG business for us. Woohoo! If only the storm had moved west instead of east! Why, our bottom lines would skyrocket! Yippeee!

You do know the difference between speculation before the fact and reporting after the fact, don't you? I'm grateful that the 10'-20' didn't happen. But it could have, and everyone there knows it. That wasn't hype, my friend, that was a responsible way of telling people to get the bejeezus out of the city. I wish more people had listened to that media hype: we wouldn't see the kind of devastation we're seeing now.

The one verbal account...? Sorry, you saw one of many accounts of people pushing bodies out of the way to get to others to be rescued. The pictures they've shown have not shown that. You don't want to see the ones they're not showing. And this is NOT rumor. This is all-too real. The rumors would scare 10 pounds off of you in a half hour. But don't doubt the MSNBC stuff. Hoping for the best and ignoring the reality of what has already happened are very different things.

Bill, it is like they have to push bodies out of the way. That's precisely what they're doing. On top of that, people are continuing to literally die waiting to get out of the city. An MSNBC photographer was taking video footage, and was so sickened by what he saw that he didn't even film it. He only filmed what he could stomach. He sent those images back, and the footage he sent back was so sickening that MSNBC refused to air it. Hoping it's less than 1,000 is, I hate to say it, wishful thinking. When this number is finally estimated, I'm going to be hugging my toilet.

Science teaches me that when you have a great big hunk of metal, it will be more dense than air and therefore will stay on the ground. MORE SCIENCE teaches me that when you shape that hunk of metal a certain way and fuel it the right way, you can turn it into an airplane and it will lift off the ground. Listen to more science, Roy, and you will see the relationship of global warming to hurricanes.

You can't be arbitrary about this. If "science" teaches you that things happen when waters warm up, then you should learn something from the scientists who study hurricanes when they say no, this storm was not caused or intensified by global warming. We've had Cat 5's before, and we'll have them again, global warming or no.

Brother Speed, welcome to THE. Now brace yourself, because this is really going to hurt...

That's a great way to dismiss every scrap of knowledge that comes your way.

I deeply apologize: I have been so busy. Marvin is packing tonight and will head to Mr. Hammeroni's place in the morning. Scout's honor.

Roy, The guy's life is studying how hurricanes work, why they're as intense as they are, etc. Maybe he doesn't know enough about the subject? Yeah. The alarmists are coming out of the woodwork, blaming this on global warming. The people who study hurricanes told us a year ago that this was part of a regular cycle and we should be ready for it. Instead, we listen to the alarmists who suddenly find hurricanes an interesting topic because it fits their pet theories on how we're destroying ourselves. I'm not denying global warming, but to think that it's responsible for a Category 5 hurricane ignores the fact that we've had Cat 5's before, and we'll have them again even if we stop spraying our underarms, running our air conditioners and filling up our gas tanks for the rest of our lives.

Both have easy links. After all, Body Heat had Kathleen Turner. But the Big Chill it is...

Dude, no one else was in Altered States. I checked, and anyone who could have guessed the two real celebs who were in it would have been cheating too. Which movie did you want to link from, The Big Chill or Body Heat?

Psalmie, I have an idea. Why don't you call some government agencies to find your friend?

This one is just kind of sneaking up on us: who knew that the L storm is already out there?

They're talking about a death toll in the thousands. The only reason we're not seeing a toll as high as south Asia is that the tsunami victims did not see it coming. Tsunami is entirely appropriate. And I suspect this event is going to make Sept. 11 look like a shootout at a local slum.

Not for several days.

Oh Tommy Boy, the pics, the pics are callin...

Let's hear it for sycophantic idolatry!

Every time they ask Max Mayfield at the National Hurricane Center whether global warming contributed to this, he gets a really annoyed look on his face. It's probably because he really wants to say, No already. Get a science textbook and stop asking me!

Yup, I'm wrong. And I don't recognize the right answer. There's a similar "Discovery Channel" line in The Real Slim Shady, though.

Ooh, methinks I'm wrong.

Well, it's definitely Eminem. I'm thinking it's "The Real Slim Shady."

Hey, thanks to the person who posted the Actual Errors stuff. Just a reminder that the list is in no way intended to be an exhaustive list of areas where I feel TWI was wrong: rather, that is a list of things that are indisputably wrong. The key word is indisputably. There's plenty of stuff I disagree with, but did not include on the list (Goey mentioned several).

ding ding ding!!!