Making Light :: Imagine that :: comments

Imagine that

China Miéville on the Gulf disaster, here, here, and here. Amazingly, it turns out that Baton Rouge-based Innovative Emergency Management,...

Imagine that -- comment #1 from aphrael

Fri, 02 Sep 2005 12:21:12 -0500

The first two links appear to be broken ATM (they seem to be of the form [nielsenhayden-url]"[destination URL].
Here's the first, unmangled. And the second.

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Posted September 2, 2005 12:21 PM by aphrael

Imagine that -- comment #2 from aphrael

Fri, 02 Sep 2005 12:21:35 -0500

Never mind; it was fixed by the time I finished posting. :)

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Posted September 2, 2005 12:21 PM by aphrael

Imagine that -- comment #3 from Keith Kisser

Fri, 02 Sep 2005 13:02:23 -0500

Efing hell, Katrina's turned me into a freeking Socialist. Not that I wasn't leaning that way to begin with but... ugh. This is what happens when Grover Norguist gets his way. The government, drowned in a bathtub the size of the Gulf of Mexico, takes New Orleans and environs with it. The shrub smirks and sends Condi out for shoes and I jst don't know anymore. If this could have come out worse, I'd rather not know how.

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Posted September 2, 2005 1:02 PM by Keith Kisser

Imagine that -- comment #4 from PiscusFiche

Fri, 02 Sep 2005 13:03:49 -0500

Weird. I just saw my old employers linked in China Mieville's blog. That's surreal. (The Insurance Journal, not IEM, thank you.)

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Posted September 2, 2005 1:03 PM by PiscusFiche

Imagine that -- comment #5 from PiscusFiche

Fri, 02 Sep 2005 13:06:35 -0500

Kieth Kisser: If it's any comfort to you, I was nominally Republican before 9-11. (A fact I blame on Utah, where politics is like having two rugby teams, and you are born into a family that cheers for one team, and only one team, even if they are the worst rugby team ever.) The first half of the Bush2 administration turned me completely off of the Republican party. (I do try to be non-partisan and vote issues and not parties, but the Republicans have made it really easy for me to vote for other people.)

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Posted September 2, 2005 1:06 PM by PiscusFiche

Imagine that -- comment #6 from Clark E Myers

Fri, 02 Sep 2005 13:16:48 -0500

Easy to believe. Humanity includes a social class of people who don't care if we live or die see e.g. Odysseus on the use of a rope in terminating servants, the Church on "kill them all, God will know his own", aristocracy during the potato famine and Milovan Djilas on The New Class: An Analysis of the Communist System.

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Posted September 2, 2005 1:16 PM by Clark E Myers

Imagine that -- comment #7 from Vicki

Fri, 02 Sep 2005 13:22:32 -0500

I said something similar on my LJ, and I know this won't happen, but: Bush has admitted that the response was unacceptable. He needs to admit that his response was unacceptable. And then he needs to find Rice, which shouldn't be difficult, and hand her a short letter, resigning the presidency. I'm no fan of Cheney or Hastert, but the only vaguely honorable thing Dubya can do at this point is resign, to save the country an impeachment trial, sell his ranch, and donate the proceeds to the Red Cross.

He won't, of course, because he's part of that class that doesn't care whether most of us live or die.

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Posted September 2, 2005 1:22 PM by Vicki

Imagine that -- comment #8 from Dave Weingart

Fri, 02 Sep 2005 13:36:37 -0500

Vicki, I'm actually hard-pressed to think of ANY time that Bush did the honorable thing.

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Posted September 2, 2005 1:36 PM by Dave Weingart

Imagine that -- comment #9 from Mark D.

Fri, 02 Sep 2005 14:53:35 -0500

IEM took down the wrong stuff. Their site includes a section on "Working Conditions" that includes this link to Careers/Testimonials. Here's a sample:

IEM has a curious atmosphere of highly intense laid-backness (or laid-back high intensity). It's kind of an extension of graduate school: smart and fun people; intellectually stimulating work; challenging deadlines; flexible hours; T-shirts and Birkenstocks; swell parties. Oh yeah, and they pay you for it.
�Chris, Business Development Manager

There are seven (7) multi-screen pages of this bizarre self-congratulatory crap. Look quick - I bet it'll be gone soon.

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Posted September 2, 2005 2:53 PM by Mark D.

Imagine that -- comment #10 from Steve Glover

Fri, 02 Sep 2005 15:09:45 -0500

Never mind - Google's cache is your friend....

[interesting - you don't display email addresses, and yet I'm getting spam at my "steve-ml" address: some other comment system picking up the cookie on my machine, perhaps?]

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Posted September 2, 2005 3:09 PM by Steve Glover

Imagine that -- comment #11 from Christopher Davis

Fri, 02 Sep 2005 16:32:17 -0500

Steve: the "view all by" links leak the address, alas.

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Posted September 2, 2005 4:32 PM by Christopher Davis

Imagine that -- comment #12 from Tom

Fri, 02 Sep 2005 20:32:47 -0500

Here's the address to IEM's press release about the contract: http://www.ieminc.com/Whats_New/Press_Releases/pressrelease052604_Manscen.htm

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Posted September 2, 2005 8:32 PM by Tom

Imagine that -- comment #13 from Avery

Thu, 08 Sep 2005 13:29:50 -0500

On this very topic, everyone ought to read Greg Peters's account of the planning sessions. Greg writes (or wrote, not so much demand anymore from his now underwater publisher) Suspect Devices, a Louisana political comic and was recently an employee of Innovative Emergency Management.

Guess what, "Authority can be delegated. Responsibility can not." (I've been using that phrase so often I feel like I ought to be paying Jim royalties or something.)

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Posted September 8, 2005 1:29 PM by Avery