Year: 2005

In place of the daily news about refugees, Katrina victims, body bags, and deadly water, Gateway Pundit has a roundup on the positive side of things.

Just now from CNN: Ophelia regains hurricane strength and could make landfall in South Carolina on Monday or Tuesday, says National Hurricane Center.

“Typically, those with talent, charisma, and luck work behind the scenes to bring a man’s vision to light.”

Trauma over CEO Barbie.
(Relax, it’s the Onion – ed.)

I like Tom, but he shouldn’t have said this.

This morning, U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s visit to Reliant Park offered him a glimpse of what it’s like to be living in a shelter.

While on the tour with top administration officials from Washington, including U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao and U.S. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, DeLay stopped to chat with three young boys resting on cots.

The congressman likened their stay to being at camp and asked, “Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?”

They nodded yes, but looked perplexed.

It’s comments like these that really highlight the differences between those who live within the Beltway and those who do not. Let’s face it, DeLay is out of touch on this. It’s fine that he showed up for the tour, but he should have kept his mouth shut. Now, the story is about him and not about the relief effort, or the condition of the evacuees.

Pity.

FEMA director Michael Brown is being sent back to Washington; Homeland Security Director Chertoff will announce a new leader for on-the-ground Katrina relief efforts, senior administration official tells CNN.

MORE: Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen will replace Brown as the on-site head of hurricane relief operations in the Gulf Coast.

STILL MORE: Asked if he was being made a scapegoat for a federal relief effort that has drawn widespread and sharp criticism, Brown told The Associated Press after a long pause: “By the press, yes. By the president, No.”

“Michael Brown has done everything he possibly could to coordinate the federal response to this unprecedented challenge,” Chertoff told reporters in Baton Rouge, La. Chertoff sidestepped a question on whether the move was the first step toward Brown’s leaving FEMA.

But a source close to Brown, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the FEMA director had been considering leaving after the hurricane season ended in November and that Friday’s action virtually assures his departure.

EVEN MORE: Brown doesn’t know why he was pulled. ABCNews says he’ll be out as FEMA head, very soon

Others: Malkin | Brown Replacement Familiar With Challenges |

Yep, I experienced many a sleepless night playing this game way back when it first came out. Talk about cool…but, that was then and this is now.

The Spokane company that made the bestselling computer games “Myst” and “Riven” has laid off about two dozen workers because of declining sales of the puzzle-solving games. Cyan Worlds founder Rand Miller told workers of that decision during a staff meeting Friday. As of Tuesday, the only three workers left were Miller, his brother, Ryan, and Cyan Worlds President Tony Fryman.

They tried to bring all of this over to web in 2003 when they released a game called “Uru”, but it was subscription based and its publisher, Ubisoft Entertainment, shut her down because there wasn’t enough people bucking up.

So, that’s it then.

09/12/05 – UPDATE: Michael Brown Resigns

FEMA head Michael Brown has had a tough couple of weeks. Politicians are in front of cameras calling for his resignation, petitions are being signed for his removal, bloggers want him to assume room temperature, and the talking heads on cable repeat his name no less than 30 times in an hour.

And if you think things can’t simply get any worse for this man, think again.

A TIME investigation reveals discrepancies in the FEMA chief’s official biographies

TIME has found discrepancies in his online legal profile and official bio, including a description of Brown released by the White House at the time of his nomination in 2001 to the job as deputy chief of FEMA.

And just what are those discrepancies?

The White House press release from 2001 stated that Brown worked for the city of Edmond, Okla., from 1975 to 1978 “overseeing the emergency services division.” In fact, according to Claudia Deakins, head of public relations for the city of Edmond, Brown was an “assistant to the city manager” from 1977 to 1980, not a manager himself, and had no authority over other employees. “The assistant is more like an intern,” she told TIME. “Department heads did not report to him.”

Under the “honors and awards” section of his profile at FindLaw.com — which is information on the legal website provided by lawyers or their offices—he lists “Outstanding Political Science Professor, Central State University”. However, Brown “wasn’t a professor here, he was only a student here,” says Charles Johnson, News Bureau Director in the University Relations office at the University of Central Oklahoma (formerly named Central State University). “He may have been an adjunct instructor,” says Johnson, but that title is very different from that of “professor.”

Under the heading of “Professional Associations and Memberships” on FindLaw, Brown states that from 1983 to the present he has been director of the Oklahoma Christian Home, a nursing home in Edmond. But an administrator with the Home, told TIME that Brown is “not a person that anyone here is familiar with.” (Brown said “he’s never claimed to be the director of the home. He was on the board of directors, or governors of the nursing home.” However, a veteran employee at the center since 1981 says Brown “was never director here, was never on the board of directors, was never executive director. He was never here in any capacity. I never heard his name mentioned here.”)

Brown’s FindLaw profile lists a wide range of areas of legal practice, from estate planning to family law to sports. However, one former colleague does not remember Brown’s work as sterling. Stephen Jones, a prominent Oklahoma lawyer who was lead defense attorney on the Timothy McVeigh case, was Brown’s boss for two-and-a-half years in the early ’80s. “He did mainly transactional work, not litigation,” says Jones. “There was a feeling that he was not serious and somewhat shallow.” Jones says when his law firm split, Brown was one of two staffers who was let go.

Michael Brown has been officially ‘thrown under the bus’.

But even if he did ‘fudge’ a little on his credentials, he’s not the only one who has made themselves out to be something they’re not. (And no, that doesn’t make what Brown did right.)

Lying about military records have been a favorite among cheaters, particularly because no one wants to challenge the honor of someone who fought to defend our country.

At Fox News, the colonel who wasn’t

L.A. judge charged with lying about his past

Executives at major corporations have been embroiled in scandals by misstating earnings, taking kickbacks, and…lying on their resumes.

Why do so many executives lie about their educations?

The costs of resume falsification

False credentials, real problems

Know someone with a degree from Columbia State University? It’s probably a fake, federal authorities say.

Falsifying Degrees Is Becoming a Rampant Problem

An advertisement for fake college diplomas

And it doesn’t end there. A review of 2.6 million job applications in 2002 revealed that 44% contained a lie or two.

Wondering what the most common resume lie is? Compensation, job tenure, and reasons for leaving your last job.

What does your resume look like?

UPDATE: Recalled

MORE: Brown doesn’t know why he was pulled. ABCNews says he’ll be out as FEMA head, very soon

STILL MORE: Reader ‘Biker Dan’, who believes the TIME magazine story contains inaccuracies (and kindly tells me that I’ve jumped on the MSM bandwagon too soon), emails to say that an Associated Press version of the Brown story has suddenly changed throughout the day. Dan thinks there’s a little after-the-fact clean up going on at the AP:

My wife and I left the house for a time, and when I returned a few minutes ago I noticed several lines were missing from the AP article.  The AP Article now reads:

A longtime acquaintance, Carl Reherman, said Brown was very involved in helping set up Edmond’s emergency operations center and assisting in the creation of an emergency contingency plan in the 1970s. At the time, Reherman was a city councilman, and he later became mayor.

FEMA deputy strategic director Nicol Andrews said a report in Time magazine, which first detailed the discrepancies, was “very inaccurate.

Earlier it read:

A longtime acquaintance, Carl Reherman, said Brown was very involved in helping set up an emergency operations center in Edmond.

“From my experience with Mike, he not only worked very hard on everything he did, he had very high standards,” said Reherman, who was a city councilman and also knew Brown when he was a student taking classes from Reherman, a professor of political science at Central State University.

Nicol Andrews, deputy strategic director in FEMA’s office of public affairs, told Time that while Brown began as an intern, he became an “assistant city manager” with a distinguished record of service.

“According to Mike Brown,” Andrews told Time, a large portion of points raised by the magazine are “very inaccurate.”

Strange, huh?  Well, I checked the AP head line list at the bottom of the link I provided earlier, and there are two entries for the headline, “Embattled Brown Taken Off Katrina Duty”, one for Sep 09 3:39 PM, and another for Sep 09 5:19 PM.  However, both read exactly the same, now.  I sense a little “tydying up” by the AP.
 
LOL.  Now the 3:39 PM entry is gone.  Wow, they do get rid of the evidence fast!

Related: Delusional, Dysfunctional, Divisive, and Defiant

Others: Brown Promoted to ‘Assistant President’ |

Iowahawk.

In a tear-streamed press conference Tuesday, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco reassured state citizens that “It took a lot of time curled up on the couch with Lifetime TV and Hagen-Daaz, but I am going to get through this.”

“I’ve heard all the petty, nasty comments,” said Blanco, wiping a tear on the lapel of her robe. “Why don’t you do something? Make a decision, people are dying. Put on a little makeup, you could be almost as pretty as Mary Landrieu.”

“Well, let me tell you something, Kathleen Blanco is a survivor,” she said. “And I promise the people of Louisiana that I will refuse to beat myself up over this.”

Blanco Spokesman Jodie Edwards said the governor would return to the statehouse in Baton Rouge today to lobby the legislature to change the official state song to “I Will Survive,” the 1979 Gloria Gaynor disco classic.

One of twelve ‘Nawlins News Niblets‘ from Dave.

According to Matt Drudge, CBS News will launch a new blog called “Public Eye” on Monday, September 12. 

“Public Eye” will be edited by veteran reporter and media writer Vaughn Ververs, most recently editor of The Hotline, a daily Web briefing on politics published by the National Journal.

Ververs will serve as the conduit between the public and CBS News to take viewers and users inside the news gathering, production and decision-making process via the use of original video and outtakes, interviews with correspondents and producers, and input from independent experts, among other methods.

“Public Eye” gives CBS News the opportunity to be more open and accessible about why and how it makes the decisions that affect what millions of people are able to see, hear and read each day.

Dear Mr. CBS News (whomever and wherever you are);

If this is done correctly, a CBS News blog could benefit from citizen journalists throughout the world, and completely set itself apart from standard news websites offered by other network television news divisions. The blog could usher in a new breed of news gathering talent, and dramatically change the way news is reported.

Done incorrectly, the CBS News blog will be ridiculed by “A” list bloggers, tormented by pajamahedeen called legion who will tirelessly investigate, uncover, and expose future ‘Rathergate’ scandals…and ignored by the rest of the world.

I think you know which is better.

This is your moment. Carpe Diem.

UPDATE: Here’s a preview.

Found at The Corner:

Check this out. It’s a pdf file of Blanco’s executive order telling schools to get their buses into New Orleans to get people out of the city. It was issued on Aug. 31, at best (if she signed it at midnight) hours after the city flooded and that famous photo of the submerged buses started going around the web.

And the kicker, and you can find this on the Louisiana government website rather quickly, she amended the order on Sept. 2 to make sure that everyone driving the buses has a drivers’ license. That’s very important, I guess.

Unbelievable.

Related: Delusional, Dysfunctional, Divisive, and Defiant